It is often the case with charismatic rebels with a just cause that, when they pass on, the world tends to assume one of two things: either that all problems will be solved now, or none will be solved. | |
| Something like this is happening in the case of Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader who died last week. The balance is heavily tilted in favour of the optimists, not least because for the last four years the US had refused to talk to Mr Arafat, although he was as much an elected leader as George W Bush was during his first term. |
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| Mr Bush and Mr Aaron said Mr Arafat was a terrorist but, thanks to Iraq and Israel's policy of settling its citizens on Palestinian land, that is exactly what much of the world says about them as well. When a new leader is elected, it looks certain that both the US and Israel will talk to him. |
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| The question is: will the problem get resolved? The chances are that it will not because the problem was not Mr Arafat, who spent his life fighting for a viable Palestinian homeland; it was Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands. It is futile to tell the Palestinians that had they accepted the division of 1948, instead of rejecting it completely, they would have had 50 per cent of the old Palestine. |
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| But they refused, as did the Arab states in the region. The result has been that after the 1967 war Israel took 25 per cent more land and after the 1973 war, it took another 15. Since then it has nearly 90 per cent of the original Palestine and Palestine has 10 per cent. |
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| Most of this remaining 10 per cent was offered to Arafat in 2000, but he let the opportunity slip""and many see this as his last big mistake. The question now is how much Israel will give back. |
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| Where Palestinians are concerned, sooner or later any elected leader will have to take a decision on the form and size of the new country being promised to him. |
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| If he gives up too much, the deal will fail. If he asks for too much, Israel will not agree. Painting Mr Arafat as the villain was simply the American way of postponing dealing with the problem so that Israel could prepare domestic public opinion for withdrawing from Gaza. |
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| With Mr Arafat gone and with the withdrawal in motion, the focus will shift to the rest of the land that Israel has won in battle and through progressive occupation. There is far too much crow waiting to be eaten and it will not be easy to allocate it equitably between the two sides. |
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| How will history judge Mr Arafat? No differently, probably, than it judges all such leaders. The first half of their career is spent being difficult and the second half being reasonable. |
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| Until 1988, Mr Arafat thought he could get by with terrorism; but when he formally renounced it, he turned the tables on Israel which, in five years, went from being 'good' to 'bad'. |
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| It is now Israel's turn to repay the compliment, especially since the Iran-backed Hamas will not agree to anything that looks like a Palestinian sell-out on the central question of territory. |
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