Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October/November 1997, Page 10

Speaking Out

Guns Galore Trained on Palestinian President Yasser Arafat

By Paul Findley

Yasser Arafat has been under fire, literally and figuratively, many times over the years. He has more lives than the proverbial cat. But now he is being pressed as never before by traditional supporters as well as traditional critics.

He has literally been in the cross-hairs of enemy forces on several occasions and the target of assassination attempts by Israeli intelligence. For years, he made a practice of sleeping in a different bed each night, figuring that a moving target is hard to hit.

He even survived an air crash several years ago in North Africa when the aircraft in which he was flying literally broke into two during a crash landing. Since the Oslo accords, under which Arafat now exercises limited control over part of the occupied territories, Arafat continues to be a target, and not only from the usual critics. His traditional enemies include disenchanted Hamas groups within the occupied territories, Jewish settlers who want Palestine rid of all Palestinians, Israel's organized supporters in the United States who are sometimes more passionate about dispossessing Palestinians than even the Israeli government itself, and Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister.

Palestine has few friends on Capitol Hill and even the few speak rarely and in muted tones.

Rep. Ben Gilman, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, regularly denounces the Palestinian National Authority and calls for suspension of aid. His committee is dominated by pro-lsrael zealots from both parties. In an unusual speech from the well of the House of Representatives, Speaker Newt Gingrich blamed Arafat for the recent killing of three Arabs who sold land to Israel and warned it could lead to a halt in U.S. aid to Palestinians. Contrasted with the $4.7 billion annual U.S. aid to Israel, the $75 million in U.S. aid to the Palestine National Authority is a pittance. To the beleaguered Palestinians, who suffer 50 percent unemployment and a near-total blockage of exports, the sum is crucial.

Gingrich, inspired by charges by Israeli officials that Arafat endorses the execution of Arabs who sell land to Israel, said, "This is the kind of activity we associate with the Nazis." A spokesman denied the charges: "We are against killing people. Arafat has never sentenced anyone to death." Since the state's beginning, the Israeli government has carried out a clever, little-noted scheme that keeps Arabs off Israeli-claimed territory. Ninety-one percent of Israel is considered state land, mostly held by the Jewish National Fund for the use of Jews only. Arabs cannot buy or lease any of this land. This prohibition applies even to the thousands of Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship.

Because of this racist policy, Palestinians, both in and out of government, strongly oppose the sale of Arab land to Jews. Some feel so passionate on the subject that they favor death to Arabs who sell. Three Palestinian deaths in recent weeks are believed to be related to the sale of Arab land to Jews. The director of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group blames Arafat's Authority.

"Palestinians see the land for their homeland disappearing."

Anthony Lewis, a respected syndicated U.S. columnist who often writes articles sympathetic to Palestinians, warns of bad consequences: "All of this—the murderous threats by Palestinian officials—can only harm the chance for peace, and for a Palestinian homeland. Israelis committed to peace will be disgusted. Opponents of the Oslo peace process will find confirmation of their view that Palestinians are not appropriate partners for peace."

Lewis continues: "In recent years, Jews outside Israel have given large amounts of money to buy property from Palestinians, especially in occupied Jerusalem. Offers to buy are tempting for poor [Palestinian] families, and they are sometimes accompanied by pressure. Palestinians see the land for their homeland disappearing. That is why Netanyahu's unilateral decision to build Jewish housing in East Jerusalem so outraged Arafat." Jews have bought from Arabs some of the land for the controversial housing.

In another article, Lewis notes Arafat's repression of news freedom. He criticizes Arafat for holding Daoud Kuttab, a prominent Palestinian journalist, without charge for a week. Last year Kuttab was honored with an international press freedom award issued by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The State Department is under assault for standing by the minuscule aid to Palestine, and Kenneth Levin, head of a pro-Israel think tank in Boston, calls Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's assertion that "Arafat has exerted 100 percent effort in the fight against terrorism...as blatant a lie as has ever been foisted on the public by an American secretary of state."

Clinton Anti-Israel?

Levin scorns the administration of President Bill Clinton for being biased against Israel, despite Clinton's consistent support and defense of the Jewish state. He says Clinton's response to Mideast violence is "to ignore Arab violations of the [Oslo] accords and to join Arafat in calling for more Israeli concessions at a quicker pace."

As if this were not enough, David Hirst, author of The Gun and the Olive Branch, a book considered the best and most balanced biography of Arafat, has written articles for British newspapers that report episodes of abuse and corruption in the Palestinian National Authority.

Similar expos’s by Ronen Bergman and David Ratner were published in April in Ha'aretz, Jerusalem's leading Hebrew daily.

The Washington Post published on May 21 an article by Fawaz Turki, a Palestinian writer living in the United States. Turki's article is packed with fury against Arafat: "Yasser Arafat has unleashed destructive forces, dug up from the depths of the coercive tradition, that seem destined to stifle our dream for living as free men and women. After our costly intifada against those who occupied our homeland, it now appears that we have to wage another intifada against those who occupy our home."

The Ha'aretz and Hirst articles cite the expansion of government bureaucracy, creation of monopolies, and the rising resentment against what are called derisively "the Tunisians," the thousands of Palestinians who came from Tunisia with Arafat when the PLO leader set up headquarters in Gaza and Jericho under the terms of the Oslo accords. All deeply devoted to Arafat, they have become the main element in the police system that functions under the PLO chief's orders throughout the self-rule areas.

New monopolies in petrol, concrete and other services, according to the articles, are government protected throughout the occupied territories. Prices for these services have increased substantially, and some of the profits help finance Arafat's fast-growing bureaucracy. The price inflation aggravates the already stagnated Palestinian economy.

So far, Arafat has largely ignored the barrage from old friends. He does so at peril to his cause.