The PLO leader's return to his homeland marks a turn in a road filled with potholes
by Todd Shields, David Makovsky, Jihan Al-Tahri
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When Yassir Arafat drove into the newly autonomous Gaza Strip in his black, armored limousine last week, his first journey to his homeland in 27 years, many residents said the arrival of the Palestine Liberation Organization chairman was "like a dream." Maj. Awni Nazzar, a potbellied, gray-haired Palestinian policeman, emptied a clip from his Kalashnikov rifle into the air, reloaded before his curious children, repeated the process, then buried his face in his arms and leaned on his car for support until "my blood came back into my veins." Awad Yusuf Abu Taha, 38, a laborer in the border town of Raffah, had a laundry list of problems he hoped Arafat would tackle, from crowded housing and bad hospitals to poorly conditioned soccer fields. "We don't expect him to disappoint us, because he's our symbol and the one we depend on."
Thus did Abu Ammar, the nom de guerre of a man who has long been a mythical figure to many Palestinians, make the symbolic crossing from a revolutionary-in-exile to a governor-in-residence with responsibility for administering the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho, the first of Israel's occupied territories now under the PLO's control. In his first speech, Arafat seemed to recognize that he might have a crisis of expectations on his hands, and he stressed that things would not improve instantly. "I want to remind you that we have a big mission ahead of us," he told tens of thousands of Palestinians who turned out to greet him, "a big mission to build this homeland and build our institutions." Arafat had delayed his return almost two months as he sought immediate funding for self-rule, and many Palestinians were aware of it. "He can come with full pockets or empty pockets," said Rustum Hussein Awaid, 40, the owner of a social hall in Raffah. "If he doesn't have any money, I don't care about him."
The sight of Israeli security men scrambling to protect a man their colleagues once hunted in Beirut and Tunis marks how far Israel and the PLO have come since Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook hands at the White House last September. But it also is a sign of how heavily the process is dependent on Arafat himself. "He is the only man people cannot contest, neither inside nor outside," says Ibrahim Karaen, editor of the Palestinian magazine al-Awda. "Without him, there is no process."
Deep suspicions. Rabin is hoping the PLO leader's visit will bolster Arafat's stature among his own people and weaken the rival Islamic militant group Hamas. But in his first remarks, Arafat took pains to praise Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, still imprisoned by Israel. Some Israelis were pleasantly surprised by Arafat's call to Israelis to preserve the peace process and his acknowledgment of Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem, but many were still suspicious of a man long regarded as a terrorist. A deputy mayor of Jerusalem has put a bounty on Arafat's head, and the Jewish settlers' group Yesha has said it will give $33,000 to anyone who captures him. While Palestinians were busy festooning the bedraggled Gaza Strip with bunting and posters of welcome, a stark message adorned the wall at one of Gaza's isolated Jewish settlements: "Arafat = Hitler."
His visit galvanized Rabin's right-wing critics. Thousands protested Arafat's arrival, and religious Jewish teenagers near Jerusalem's Jaffa Gate shouted "Death to Arafat." A tent city of more than 100 families has been erected outside Rabin's office. "The arrival of Arafat in the land of Israel symbolizes the start of the destruction of Israel and its being turned into a Palestinian state," Rabin's predecessor, Yitzhak Shamir, declared last week.
Arafat has been, at best, a troublesome ally for Rabin and his Labor Party. Turning over the unloved Gaza Strip to the Palestinians in May could have been a public boost for Rabin, but the event was overshadowed when Arafat exhorted a Muslim audience in Johannesburg to wage a jihad, or holy war, to liberate Jerusalem. Arafat subsequently tried to reinterpret the term to mean a peaceful crusade, but the statement reinforced Israelis' worst fears about his real intentions.
Rabin's other main interlocutor, Syrian President Hafez Assad, also has done little to make things easier for the Israeli leader. Assad has failed to state publicly how peace with Israel might work, nor has he privately offered adequate security guarantees in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from the strategic Golan Heights that dominate the northern Galilee.
A national campaign, waged by demonstrations, bumper stickers and placards, has now forced Rabin to declare that he would hold a national referendum before finalizing any deal with Damascus. Secretary of State Warren Christopher is likely to visit the region later this month to revive the moribund Israel-Syria talks, but hopes are not high. The only shining light on the peace horizon is Jordan, which is expected to begin talks on economic cooperation with Israel this month.
The growing doubts about Rabin's peacemaking efforts coincide with the Israeli prime minister's loss of political altitude. Hailed as a peacemaker abroad, Rabin is facing political challenges ranging from public distrust of Arab intentions to the threatened collapse of Israel's national health care system. Only 24.5 percent of the Israeli public supports the Rabin government. The percentage wanting further movement on the peace process is almost as low.
Hearts and minds. The problems so far and the pressures to come have fueled a battle inside Rabin's Labor Party for the prime minister's soul. Labor Party hawks have just established a new organization, called the Third Way, to halt what they call their leader's left-wing drift. Labor doves have started their own group, pledging to press forward on the peace front.
Rabin's more dovish foreign minister, Shimon Peres, says the lack of public support for peace talks will not deter the shaky coalition government from pressing forward. "A politician must have a certain capacity to look ahead," Peres told U.S. News last week. "You don't always need to look backwards, content upon just collecting compliments. I'm not impressed by this. I know people that are so afraid to be unpopular that they are paralyzed. Who needs them? ... I'm convinced there is a stream of history that even the public polls cannot stop."
But the splits in Labor extend beyond how the government should negotiate with its Arab neighbors. The party lost control of its main power base recently when Haim Ramon, a key former Rabin ally, broke away and won the powerful Histadrut trade union election. And although growth is still a healthy 4 percent a year, Israel's health care system is bankrupt, inflation is running at 14 percent, housing prices have skyrocketed and the stock market has taken a nose dive, wiping out two years of steady gains.
Despite all the turbulence, Rabin remains the only person with the military credentials to convince jittery Israelis that a peace agreement may actually lead to peace rather than to the sixth war in the country's 46 years. To pull that off, he needs help from his friends, and also from his old enemies.
