Arafat:
From Defender to Dictator
Revealing biography of
Arafat
By Said K. Aburish
Pub: Bloomsbury Paperbacks,
London, UK, 1999. Pp: 360. Pbk: 7.99
Reviewed by Abd Rahman Koya
Celebrity biographies have become a major part of the western
publishing industry. Many of these biographies are of contemporary
political leaders, whose names are familiar to readers from the news,
and virtually all are written within a political framework that suits
the wests political agenda. Recently, Muslim politicians and leaders
have attracted biographical attention: king Hussain of Jordan, Saddam
Hussein, Imam Khomeini and others, whose profiles in the west (as
hero or villain) have been very different, but all of whom have had a
market. One such man is Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestine
Liberation Organisation (PLO), who has the rare distinction of having
been both villain and hero in turn.
Said Aburishs Arafat: From Defender to Dictator is just one
of a number of books reflecting fresh western interest in the man who
was condemned as a terrorist for years, until being re-discovered as
a man of peace after auctioning off the Palestinian cause at Oslo in
1993. Aburish, a Christian who lives in the west and holds an
American passport, considers himself well-equipped to write about
Arafat. Being an Arab, Aburish hopes to debunk some of the myths
which, he says, invariably rise to the surface whenever an "outsider"
writes about Arabs. In his introduction, Aburish attributes such
myths to a "cultural divide which foreign writers cannot bridge and a
lack of understanding of todays Middle East and its
politics."
Aburish, however, fails dismally to lived up to his promise of
providing a more sympathetic analysis, instead falling into racist
characterisations himself. His use of derogatory expressions normally
found in western works, such as "wily Arab tribal chief," which he
uses to describe Arafats leadership, makes it difficult for readers
to be convinced of his objectivity. Elsewhere, Aburish laments that
the "legendary Arab lack of organisation" was evident among the
Palestinian groups opposing the zionist occupation. Yet the book
itself consistently balances its condemnation of Arafat with
flattering comments, as if to demonstrate the authors non-biased
view.
Aburish, himself from Jerusalem, also carefully casts aside the
Islamic dimension in the Palestinian conflict. His use of jargon such
as "Islamic fundamentalists" only reinforces the readers suspicion
that he had his own agenda when he set out to write about Arafat.
Again, his use of the term "folk mentality" in describing Arab
Islamic leaders reflects a contempt for them that appears to have
clouded his judgement.
The book gives more space than one would expect to Arafats early
life and personality, which, Aburish says, has often been confused by
Arafats own contradictory claims. The book gives readers some
interesting anecdotes from Arafats early life that were previously
unknown. According to Aburish, Arafat comes from an elite Palestinian
background and his family has grown ever richer. He was not
interested in studies, and barely managed to complete a civil
engineering degree; in his youth he ran a gang of "neighbourhood
children" who employed bully tactics; he had a difficult relationship
with his father, whose funeral he did not attend and whose grave he
never visited. Arafat was also close to Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the
revered mufti of Palestine, in the 1940s.
Being a Christian, it is not surprising that Aburish often refers
to Arafats Egyptian origin when he wants to emphasise that Arafat is
ill-qualified to represent the Palestinian cause. The authors failure
is his refusal to recognise that the Palestinian question is not a
purely Palestinian cause, but an Islamic one, because of the special
reverence Muslims have for al-Aqsa mosque. It was for this reason
that the late Imam Khomeini (a non-Arab) laid such great emphasis on
the Palestinian cause that he declared the last Friday of Ramadan to
be Yaum Al-Quds Jerusalem Day.
Many times in the book, Aburish tends to get too personal in his
condemnation of Arafats character. For example, he even asks why the
young Arafat once applied for admission to the University of Texas,
despite his "anti-Americanism". He then takes yet another swipe at
Arabs in general: "It was no different from the anti-Americanism of
most Arabs, which has always fallen short of boycotting the USA or
taking concrete action against it," he writes.
This book, however, has its own achievement: turning the popular
western perception of Yasser Arafat upside-down from a heroic
freedom-fighter who has kept the hopes of millions of displaced
Palestinians alive to a narrow-minded operator, out of touch with
reality, whose personal ambitions have led to a rule based on
cronyism in which the people around him are rewarded with jobs and
money despite their incompetence.
But for Muslims the authors own solution is laughable. Aburish
himself is not a great fan of the Oslo peace accord and has often
spoken out against wasting ones time at the negotiating table. A
contradiction, however, lays bare his own agenda for Palestine. At
one point he berates Israel as bereft of generosity towards the
Palestinians and any attachment to peace, saying that the Oslo
agreements were vehicles for Israel to further its expansionist
policies. Then, almost immediately after that, he offers his own
solution: replace Arafat with a "triumvirate of Heidar Abdel Shafi,
Faisal Husseini and Hanan Ashrawi," a group he believes is capable of
"negotiating a better deal" with Israel.
Aburish also exposes the shaky foundations of Arafats leadership,
and shows that the PLO has never been a revolutionary movement. The
PLO was even reluctant to support the intifada which erupted in 1987,
although it later claimed to have launched and led it. At the time,
Aburish says, "it was Arafat who... manifested the most reluctance to
provide the rebellion with support because he feared the effects of
another failure on his already reduced position."
Aburish reveals that since 1963, when Arafat first established
contact with the CIA in Beirut, the PLO has been involved in secret
talks with the US, effectively a betrayal of its people. Readers,
however, do not need people like Aburish to tell us the obvious fact
that Arafat has created one of the ugliest expressions of absolute
dictatorship even by Middle Eastern standards.
Throughout the book, perhaps unconsciously, Aburish has given so
much attention to explaining Arafats personality that, in the end,
what one gets is not an understanding of how Arafats early life
shaped his future activities, but how the author himself thinks the
Palestinian conflict should be perceived. The readers suspicion about
the authors hidden agenda is confirmed when Aburish heaps praise on
George Habbash, the Palestinian Christian activist, while condemning
Muslim groups as suffering from "folk mentality" (whatever that
means).
Ultimately, this is a book about Aburishs perspective of the
Palestinian conflict more than about Arafat himself. And frankly,
Aburishs perspective is as irrelevant today as Arafat is.
(NOTE: Muslim Media articles may be reprinted/reproduced
without prior permission, but acknowledgement
on reproduction will be appreciated.)
Why
the
Palestinians
are
eliminating their
traitors?
by Israel
Shahak
Sadat's
death
was
greeted with jubilation
