Arafat

[liadnan]

I shook Yasser Arafat's hand once.

He was in Oxford to talk to the Union and Sir Keith had arranged for him to come to a garden party at our college afterwards (it was summer, was supposed to be a strawberries and cream affair). He'd then told the MCR that he Very Much Hoped they would Accept His Invitation to a garden party. There were hints of a special guest but no one told us anything more.

In the event, it pissed with rain and we had to have it in the Rainolds Room. A rather bored MCR stood around, noticed with irritation the lack of drink, and speculated wildly until, suddenly, we saw a bevy of tall men wearing sunglasses and dark suits walking towards us. In the middle, about two foot lower, a red headscarf bobbing along.

He entered the room, shook an awful lot of hands, and left about five minutes later. And that was that.

I think one can say many bad things about Arafat. Fisk, who is hardly anti-Palestinian, is frankly scathing of him in Pity the Nation both on the specific question of the Lebanon and (in the 2001 edition) more generally. But was there anyone else who could have held his people together for so long? Is there anyone else now?

I can't find the specific bit I was thinking of in Pity the Nation right now. I thought it was in the chapter on his departure from Lebanon on 30th August 1982, but that isn't it.

That chapter is entitled "Dawn at Midnight". It isn't a positive title: it refers to the way the chapter ends, with Fisk's return to Beiruit on the night of 17th September 1982, as the Israelis dropped hundreds of flares, for reasons at the time utterly opaque to all, over West Beiruit.

The next chapter "Terrorists", beginning "It was the flies that told us" and recording the eye-witness accounts of what Fisk, Loren Jenkins of the Washington Post, Karsten Tveit of Norwegian radio, and Bill Foley of AP found on the morning of 18th September 1982, a situation Arafat had helped create but had foreseen and done his best to prevent, still makes me feel sick when I read it.

I think this has to be make or break time for Israel and Palestine -Sharon's plan, the removal of Arafat from the picture, etc, leave everything in flux. And I have a bad feeling.

Comments

[frankie-ecap.livejournal.com]

I once sat opposite Norman Tebbit at a Union dinner. Absolute sweetheart, very good listener.

And there was drink.

Absolute sweetheart, very good listener.

[liadnan]

Yes, I've heard he's like this in private. It leads me to conclude that he is either (1) certifiably insane or (2), as Joff once put it, a specious rentaquote.

Re: Absolute sweetheart, very good listener.

[frankie-ecap.livejournal.com]

Or (3) misrepresented by the press because it's more fun that way?

Re: Absolute sweetheart, very good listener.

[liadnan]

No. Remember the "this government doing everything it can to encourage buggery" diatribe on the Today programme?

[daniel-hill.livejournal.com]

I am trying to decide whether i want to write anything in my journal about Arafat as don't want to make anyone's hit list and start arguments that can not be won either way but one thing has been bugging me recently is the size of his fortune. Why the hell sit on so much money when the people that he loved so much live in permanent refugee camps. Just shocked by the sheer size of his accounts.

[brelson.livejournal.com]

There are millions of people in America who live below the poverty line, but no-one would expect George W Bush to go around handing out most of his vast family fortune to ease their suffering.

In addition, it could be said that the problems suffered by the Palestinian people since 1948 aren't trivial enough to be solved through money alone anyway.

[frankie-ecap.livejournal.com]

Nor are the problems of the American people. I'd guess that in general throwing money at a flawed system doesn't help much and might worsen the problem in the longer term. Vide NHS.

[brelson.livejournal.com]

So would it be fair to say that one shouldn't necessarily expect the leader of a nation to spend his or her personal wealth alleviating the poverty of his or her people?

[rparvaaz.livejournal.com]

I would say that it is hardly fair to expect the leader of a nation to spend his/her personal wealth alleviating the poverty of his/her people. If the leader wants to do so, well and good. But if s/he doesn't, then the time, energy, effort, ideas etc ought to be considered enough of an investment.

[daniel-hill.livejournal.com]

you saying it wouldn't have helped at all? And is it his family fortune? the obituary's i have read have said he came from a humble background.

[rparvaaz.livejournal.com]

Of course, it would have helped people, in one way or another. But it wouldn't have solved the biggest problem faced by them.

I can think of very few politicians who stayed poor once they entered politics. And I can think of only one who willed his wealth to libraries and hospitals.

Oh, btw, are family fortunes somehow more sacrosanct than the wealth you accumulate yourself?

[daniel-hill.livejournal.com]

not saying it would have solved any major problems at all, and...no, just gonna stop now.

[red11.livejournal.com]

It's not his personal fortune. It's aid (lots of your taxes via the EU) that he stole.

[liadnan]

I've never seen a reliable source for that allegation. Though I wouldn't be staggered if there were some substance to it: as I said there are a lot of bad things one can say about him.

[red11.livejournal.com]

It's an entirely groundless accusation. I retract it. He entirely legally made a few billion in a few years, probably at bingo. However, I have a suspicion that "financial advisor" Mohammed Rashid won't be seen for dust.

[brelson.livejournal.com]

And are we to presume, to stick with the Bush comparison, that that family's wealth was gathered via entirely ethical means?

Sorry for not just letting this drop, but Arafat's death has prompted a lot of crowing, jeering and celebration from the anti-Arab camp which I find vaguely ghoulish. Suddenly a lot of right-wing people are talking like hardline communists (namely, "Arafat was a nasty man because he didn't distribute his wealth evenly among his people". That's a fair enough criticism... if it's coming from Trotsky!).