PLO: History of a Revolution - Pt 2 (2009)

Speaker 1: Expelled from Jordan and then Lebanon, the PLO seemed to be running out of options. Forced into a corner, its leader, Yasser Arafat, soon found himself engaged in a fratricidal fight for the control of the PLO and for his life. I'm a refugee. With the withdrawal of the bulk of its forces from Beirut, the PLO was in limbo once again. Few Arab countries wanted to welcome thousands of Palestinian fighters. For the first time, the PLO's existence in exile would be without the military force that had characterized its stays in Jordan and Lebanon. The price of defeat in Beirut soon appeared before Arafat. The weakened PLO leader found himself under attack from Palestinian leaders within the PLO, and even from within his own Fatah faction. The critics said Arafat's style of leadership was too autocratic, and they accused him of abandoning the revolution by evacuating Beirut and seeking a negotiated settlement. Yasser Arafat wants to abandon the struggle. We want to continue it. He came to Damascus and attempted a coup in Fatah to kill the revolution, which we want to preserve. Arafat has sold out the cause. He is no longer interested in the revolution. Syria, which had always wished to make the PLO subservient to its will, sought to exploit Arafat's vulnerability. Every defeat has a price, and the part of the price was the split. At the time, Syria tried to settle the score with the PLO leadership. What transpired was a Syrian attempt to dominate Palestinian decision-making through direct Syrian intervention or through serious Palestinian tools. That was met with a resolute defense of independence of Palestinian decision-making. The Syrian intervention found a fertile breeding ground of differences and power struggles within Fatah. أبو عمار يعني يتحمل مسؤولية أساسية في شق نظام التحريف الفلسطيني في حين. عرفات bears a direct responsibility for the split in the PLO. There were two choices then. عرفات made the choice that the resistance was futile. Palestinian opponents to عرفات. Formed breakaway groups, splitting from Arafat's main Fatah faction. One group called itself Fatah Intifada. Syria and Libya were only too willing to support the rebels. The tensions within the PLO were rising. The battle lines of a fratricidal struggle were beginning to appear. للحقيقة أن مجمل المطالب التي تقدمت بها. Objectively speaking, in the beginning, the demands made to Arafat were just demands and possible to realize. I presented them to him. He said he could accept them, but he distrusted the intentions of his opponents. I conveyed his acceptance to Fatah-Intifada. It was very obvious that they had no intention to arrive at an understanding. I was convinced that there was a conspiracy and that the split served the interests of certain Arab countries. It was a joint Syrian-Lebanon decision. I'm sorry, I didn't understand. هنا بدأنا بالدعوة إلى الحوار مع فتح. We called for a dialogue to resolve the differences between both wings of فتح. That was rejected by Arafat's opponents in فتح انتفاضة. They thought they could take complete control of فتح. On the other hand, Arafat's فتح was initially receptive to our proposals. Arafat's archrival, Abu Nadal, quickly allied himself with the anti-Arafat faction. In April of 1983, at a meeting in Portugal, the Abu Nadal Organization assassinated Aissam Sartawi, a leading PLO moderate and Arafat representative who had been negotiating with Israeli doves. Israeli leader Shimon Peres, also in attendance, was left alone. أنا نفسي يوم الأيام أكتب بقال. We caught Sartawi's assassin later on. I saw him in Tunis, and I asked him why he hadn't also shot Perez. He said his orders were to kill Sartawi, only Sartawi. One day I hope to write an article about Abu Nidal and Sartawi. I will call it "Who is the traitor, the murderer or the victim?" The victim was innocent and honorable, a man who knew where his people's interests lay. But the murderer was a tool and a traitor. Abu Nidal discredited the Palestinian cause in the eyes of the world when, in 1985, 2 of his European cells attacked Rome and Vienna airports, killing 18 and wounding 140 people. A CIA document at the time claimed that Abu Nidal had not attacked a single Israeli target that year. In June 1983, Syria declared Arafat persona non grata and expelled him from Damascus. The break was cemented. So, what's going on now? As you see, you have to go there, on the field, and to see by yourself what is going on. What do you mean, exactly? No, no, no, I am leaving. I am leaving after— I have a meeting here. After the meeting, I will leave. You are meeting with whom? With the Palestinian. Palestinian. Yes. You are leaving to where? To Saudi Arabia? It's better for you to wait and see. Anything to comment on what's going on now? Everything is going in an excellent way. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. كان موقف القوات السورية خلالها. في منطقة الاشتباك الفصل بين المتقاتلين وفي اليوم التالي فوجئنا برسائل بعث بها عرفات الى عدد من رؤساء الدول العربية بستها وسائل الالام تضمنت حملة من الافتراءات والاكاذيب والتجني ضد سوريا وضد قواتها المسلحة متهمتن لقوات السورية بضرب مواقع الثورة الفلسطينية. فيش واحد يضر مسفته فتح قوي جدا. No one can harm فتح فتح is very strong and no one can harm its leadership or unity. We cannot be dictated to. It would be very easy to get on a plane and go and surrender to Syrian President Hafez al-Assad. I assure you, if Fatah did that, both the problems and the factions would vanish. But we are against this for the sake of our people and the dignity of this movement and its martyrs. Hafez al-Assad had grand strategic calculations. He viewed the Palestinian issue as his to guard and preserve. There is no such thing as the independence of Palestinian decision-making in the Syrian lexicon. Syria's foreign minister once told me so, and he added, Palestine is southern Syria. In July 1983, fighting broke out in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon between pro- and anti-Arafat forces. Arafat now faced an armed revolt against his authority by pro-Syrian elements within the PLO. Arafat loyalists who had found their way back to Lebanon were besieged by the Syrian army and its Palestinian allies in the city of Tripoli in north Lebanon. In a daring air and sea journey from his new headquarters in Tunisia, Arafat managed to slip into Tripoli in disguise to join his fighters. Pro-Syrian Palestinians responded immediately. وباعتبار ان جيش التحرير الفلسطيني هو جيش منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية وذراعها القوية واداتها الثورية فاننا نعلن اسقاط شرعية ياسر عرفات كرئيس لمنظمة التحرير الفلسطينية وانه لا يمثل في اقواله وافعاله سوى نفسه والشعب الفلسطيني منه براء. The defense of Tripoli was led by Arafat's deputy Khalil al-Wazir, better known as Abu Jihad. It's the matter of the Syrian decision. He rejected the description of the ongoing battle as a purely Palestinian affair. You see those are which tank is it? It's the tank from the Syrian army. You see, you can look, you can follow it. It's the T-54, you see, T-54 coming from the Syrian army, you see, brought to them. And they are led also by Syrian commanders, you see. Arafat's opponents kept up the attacks, claiming they had the support among Palestinians in the occupied territories. We concede that Yasser Arafat used to be a symbol for our people. But the people are beginning to gradually see the truth and realize what is happening. This person, who was entrusted as a fighter for the independence of Palestinian decision-making, is now abusing his position. Such claims were not borne out by facts on the ground. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza rallied around Arafat, who expressed a philosophical view of the ongoing conflict. You have to understand what the meaning of war. War is a loud voice. For policy. The loud voice of politics was taking a heavy toll on the residents of Tripoli. Faced with mounting pressure to end the conflict, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister traveled to Damascus and announced an agreement had been reached to end hostilities and evacuate Arafat's forces from Tripoli. We have, uh, We reached an agreement here based on the 2 principles that all parties have agreed to. These principles were to prevent any destruction of the city of Tripoli and stop the fighting between the factions around Tripoli and call for the withdrawal of armed forces, Palestinian armed forces, out of Tripoli. All these principles have been enunciated in this document. The United Nations made arrangements for Arafat and 4,000 of his fighters to depart the coastal Lebanese city on board 5 Greek ships. Following his second expulsion from Lebanon, Arafat once more defined the enforced exile as another step towards victory. This is a part of this long march to our independent state, to our capital, Palestine. You're a zealot. Beyond the rhetoric, Arafat seemed a spent force. But the elusive Palestinian leader had another card up his sleeve. Short of friends, Arafat traveled to Cairo to meet Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. It was a bold and dramatic act. Arafat became the first Arab leader to meet an Egyptian president since former President Anwar Sadat had signed a peace treaty with Israel The Arab world was thunderstruck. He thought long and hard. Do not imagine that it was an easy decision for him. He knew that he would antagonize the Fatah leadership because he didn't consult them. And he knew that Syria would brand him a traitor. In the end, as he always did, Arafat made the decision because he was convinced that it served the higher interests of the Palestinian people. But he was fully aware of the risks it entailed, and that the people who loved and supported him would find it incomprehensible. Arafat's visit was a diplomatic coup for Mubarak. And in subsequent years, Egypt would increasingly become the PLO's main patron. Arafat's opponents within the PLO accused him of betraying the Palestinian cause. Syria castigated him as a traitor. Under attack, Arafat sought political refuge with his former adversary, King Hussein of Jordan. Since the PLO's expulsion from Jordan, relations between the 2 leaders had always been uneasy. But Arafat and King Hussein now came together in an uneasy alliance. The king allowed the Palestinian Parliament in Exile to convene in the Jordanian capital, Amman, in 1984. This proved a lifeline to Arafat. His ability to convene the Palestine National Council with the required quorum allowed him to maintain the legitimacy of his leadership of the PLO. We looked for locations to hold the PNC meeting. There were suggestions of holding it on board a ship. If that session of the PNC hadn't taken place, the PLO wouldn't have finished, and Palestinian legitimacy lost. So, in spite of our reservations, it was convened in Amman. The Jordanian-PLO rapprochement led to the signing of the Amman Accord in February 1985. According to its terms, the PLO and Jordan would form a joint delegation to future negotiations for resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. Syria opposed the accord and sought to exact retribution for Arafat's move. Once again, Lebanon was the battleground. The Syrian-backed Amal militia and anti-Arafat factions besieged the Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut and southern Lebanon. The camps were subjected to an on-and-off siege and onslaught for the next three years. ما كان ممكن أمال أن تقدم على مثل هذا العمل. Amal could not have become involved had the Syrians not asked them. The request was made to several Lebanese parties that all declined to have the responsibility of shedding Palestinian blood on their hands. Amal accepted the task. The fighting and the harrowing experiences for the refugees would be termed the Camps War. There were war criminals there, too. Palestinian women were being shot in the head as they went for water, deliberately. And those criminals are walking around us, among us today. I can remember the savagery. I can remember one day, with so many ammo, we're firing so many machine guns— I mean, you know, weapons— into the camp that there was a rustling sound. Like, they'd go pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, and then you'd hear— And it took me several minutes to realize what it was. They were firing so many bullets that the bullets were touching each other in the air as they were going into the camp. Walls of steel all touching each other, all the bullets, rustling like silk being torn up, you know? One girl here was shot in the leg as she was trying to bring in food through the entrance that they now call the death passage. And another lady here who has a fractured hip, she was shot in the hip. They're forced to go out still to bring in food, and almost every day women are shot. Comparisons were being drawn between the Sabra and Shatila massacres and the new camps war. الحرب طالت وأخذ الطوابع دموية لن أنساها. That war was very bloody and lasted a long time. The massacres perpetrated against the Palestinian people in that war were worse than Sabra and Shatila massacre. It was a wholesale destruction and indiscriminate killing. The Amal leadership should apologize to the Palestinian people if it genuinely wants closure. We have a record of everything, names and numbers. They managed to crawl in from outside. They brought it from outside, and they crawled in over the sandhills. And this is the second time that these girls have managed to come in in this way. We feel that nobody's. It's just a siege to continue killing the people. I can't see any political future or any victories for those who are sieging the camp. Or even we can say that our people inside the camp is not looking for victories, just looking for peace. I'm a refugee from Syria. And to live in a secure, honorable life only. And I hope that the world around us can hear these words and try his best to help our people to lift this siege. Arafat suffered a further blow when Israeli warplanes raided his PLO headquarters in Tunisia, killing 160 people. Yet again, Arafat survived. The PLO leader continued to be elusive in political matters, as well. Jordan's repeated attempts to induce him to honor the terms of the Amman Accords proved futile. Chairman Arafat was a mercurial personality. He never kept any agreement he made with an Arab country if he found a more lucrative offer elsewhere. With the Amman Accords, he replaced the term confederation with the term twinning, as in twins. But this term has no basis in international law. It was the beginning of the end of the Amman Accords. Arafat had no real intention to commit to the agreement. It was more of a maneuver than a real attempt at finding a solution. I went to him to sign a document pertaining to the Amman Accords. He asked for some time to confer with the PLO leadership, left, and didn't return. So we had a joke about him going missing. Having had enough, Jordan announced the abrogation of the Amman Accords almost 1 year after they had been signed. The Jordanians severely curtailed the activities of the PLO, I was satisfied to hear this evening a statement that was made public by one of the members of the cabinet in Jordan, that they intend to close 25 out of the 32 PLO offices in Jordan, to put more restrictions on the PLO's activities in Jordan. On the activities of the PLO in Jordan. We are not in one cage, as some are thinking. If we are in Lebanon or in Jordan having some problems, or in Syria, that will not put an end for the PLO or for our Palestinian struggle. We are still alive everywhere as Palestinian people. still alive in our occupied territories, facing the Israeli occupation. Despite Jordanian frustration, many Palestinians believed Arafat had accomplished a masterly stroke. The Amman Accords was a brilliant tactical maneuver executed by Yasser Arafat. He used it to gain some breathing space. He established relations with Jordan, signed the agreement, and then abrogated it. I was expecting this escalation from the Jordanian government. As for Arafat himself, he feigned ignorance as to what had gone wrong. But it seems that in spite of all our efforts to cool down, they are insisting to make these troubles, which will affect indirectly or directly the Jordanian-Palestinian relation. Arafat paid the price of his political maneuvering. At an Arab summit in Amman in 1987, King Hussein refused to receive the Palestinian leader at the airport. As well as this diplomatic snub, the Palestinian issue was relegated to the periphery of the agenda. Arafat departed, claiming he was satisfied with the results of the summit, but he appeared to have reached the limits of his tactical capabilities. The PLO leader found a lifeline. It was to come from an unexpected source. Free Palestine! Free Palestine! After decades of oppression, the Palestinians still living in the occupied territories were about to raise their voices. After years of bloody infighting, the various Palestinian factions began to resolve their differences. Tumultuous events in the region were to prove both a solace and a setback for the Palestinian cause. Yeah, Imani. By 1987, the various factions of the PLO had come closer together after the past 4 years of inter-Palestinian strife. The Palestinian parliament in exile, the Palestine National Council, met in Algiers in April of that year. A common cause helped unify ranks. That cause was opposition to Jordan. The different factions all agreed to cancel the Amman Accords that had outlined a confederation between Jordan and the Palestinians. بدأت محاولات جدية من قبل الأردن لاستعادة العلاقة الفلسطينية الأردنية على أساس Jordan tried to restore Palestinian-Jordanian relations on a basis of political advantage to Jordan. We rejected the Amman Accords because we thought it impinged on our sovereignty. The agreement was abrogated at the Algiers PNC, which was called the National Unity Session. The DFLP participated in the reunification of the PLO session, but the Syrian authorities punished the DFLP for participating in that PNC session, and the Syrian intelligence prevented the DFLP members who attended from returning to Damascus. National unity was the slogan of the time for the Palestinians, as they sought to put behind them the bitter squabbles and factional fighting of the past. That national unity was about to get a huge and popular boost from an unexpected place. In December 1987 in Gaza, an Israeli driver killed 4 Palestinian neighbors and wounded 9 when his car ran off the road. We were walking, and he just ran over us. The Israelis termed it an accident. The Palestinians said it was premeditated murder. Whatever the case, the incident sparked an outbreak of Palestinian protests that spread like wildfire throughout the occupied territories. No justice, no peace! The Intifada, or uprising, was born. The Intifada was the first time since 1948 that Palestinians living under occupation were at the vanguard of resistance. From 1967 till 1987, the cause of Palestine was based on the premise that liberation would come from abroad. We want exactly what the Israeli people enjoy: democracy, At the same time, the Intifada is a message of hope. It is a message of hope not only to the Palestinians, but also to their neighbors, the Israelis. For the first time since 1967, the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories had become center stage in Palestinian affairs. The Fatah-dominated PLO were quickly pushed to the sidelines. Arafat and the men around him realized the importance of organizing cells within the Palestinian territories. Arafat's deputy Abu Jihad told me very clearly then. He said, we have neglected our people living under occupation and became embroiled in intrigue on the outside. Palestinians in the homeland were now at the vanguard of the revolution. They became the symbol of resistance to occupation and an icon of the Palestinian struggle. Other important developments were also taking place. Amid the Intifada, the first signs of the emergence of a Palestinian Islamist movement began to appear. Hamas was encouraged by Islam. Israel to form Islamic societies specifically in Gaza before Oslo, because when Arafat was still a super terrorist, before he became a super statesman, and then of course later was made a super terrorist again, Hamas was seen as a logical balancing act for the Israelis to play against the PLO. Increase the religiosity, increase the Islamic element of Palestinian society, and the nationalist terrorist However, the Israelis did not seem to realize that these new Islamist groups would also be intent on liberating Palestine. The seeds of a new force in Palestinian politics were planted, a force which began to compete with the PLO factions in the showdown with the Israeli occupation. This new and growing Islamic fundamentalist group, The Islamist trend, which heralded the formation of such groups as Islamic Jihad and Hamas, found natural allies in several wealthy Arab states. We attended a meeting, and more than half of those in attendance were Kuwaitis and not Palestinians. I found that surprising. Chairman Arafat knew that Hamas received support from the popular level in the Arab Gulf states. The PLO, on the other hand, wasn't allowed to solicit donations because it was bound by agreements However, support for the Islamist groups among the Palestinians was still in its infancy. Wary of the new challenge, Arafat and Abu Jihad soon stamped their authority on the Intifada. Arafat knew the Palestinian uprising had thrown the Palestinians a lifeline that could help them realize their aspirations for a homeland. We are the leaders of the Palestinian revolution. بالنسبة إلى ياسر عرفات لا وجود شيء اسمه انتفاضة من أجل الانتفاضة. for yasser arafat there is no such thing as an intifada for the sake of an intifada. it's an intifada or an uprising to achieve a certain political goal. hence he was always in a state of uprising. نحن لا نقاتل من أجل القتال ولكن نقاتل من أجل سلام عادل. In March of 1988, Abu Jihad sent a group of Palestinian commandos into Israel. The gunmen hijacked a passenger bus in the Negev Desert, transporting employees to Israel's top-secret nuclear complex at Dimona. In the ensuing firefight, the 3 hijackers and 3 Israeli employees were killed. The Israelis were exasperated with Enough! Enough! I'm done winning this war! A month after the bus attack, on April 16th, 1988, an Israeli commando force assassinated Abu Jihad at his home in the Tunisian coastal town of Sidi Bou Said. Far from stifling the Intifada, Abu Jihad's assassination had the opposite effect. The occupied territories erupted in angry demonstrations. Abu Jihad's funeral was held at the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus. Hundreds of thousands of mourners attended to pay their respects. Allahu Akbar! 5 years after his expulsion from Syria, and after years of a bitter feud, Arafat returned to Damascus for the funeral. He was given a hero's welcome. It turned out to be a vote of confidence for the Arafat-led PLO in the heartland of his rivals. There was a tremendous turnout at the funeral. The coffin was carried for hours throughout the camp. People tried to lift the cart carrying Arafat off the ground as a token of their support. He was carried on people's shoulders. It shook the splinter groups opposed to him, because it restored the stature of Arafat and Fatah's leadership. The Intifada propelled the Palestinian issue onto the world headlines and back to the top of the agenda for the Arab world. It was an extraordinary turnaround. Just a year earlier, at an Arab summit in Amman, the Palestinian issue Had been relegated to the bottom of the agenda. Now, in June 1988, at an extraordinary meeting in Algiers, Arab heads of state pledged strong support for the Intifada and the Palestinian people. هو ستصبح فلسطين عربية ليس بكلام ولكن بجيل الغضب الذي يقود الثورة الآن والذي هو الذي دفعنا إلى الاجتماع الذي ما كنا At the end of July, Jordan formally broke off all political and administrative ties with the West Bank. King Hussein effectively renounced his kingdom's historic claim to the West Bank, paving the way for the area to be part of a Palestinian state if ever Israeli occupation were to end there. أننا أعلننا موقفنا الواضح. حول تمسكنا بحق الشعب الفلسطيني في تقرير مصيره على ترابه الوطني بما في ذلك حقه في اقامة دولته الفلسطينية المستقلة قبل قرار قمة الرباط باكثرة من عمل وهذا هو الموقف الذي سنظل متمسكين به إلى أن يحقق الشعب الفلسطيني أهدافه الوطنية كاملة غير منقوصة بمشيئة الله كما تفضلت طفح الكيل وتجاوزنا الخط الأحمر حاولنا المستحيل ودعمنا المنظمة بكافة القرارات التي We had had enough and done everything possible. We supported the PLO, but in the end, we concluded that the PLO had to be independent of us. The Palestinians were jubilant, but King Hussein's decision was opposed by some senior Jordanian officials. وصل جلالة الملك مرحلة لا يعتقد. King Hussein had concluded that he could no longer hope to regain the whole of the West Bank. And that therefore he had to put an end to any misunderstandings. If concessions were required, let the Palestinians make them, not Jordan. It was an attempt to give priority to Jordanian matters and step away from the historic burden of responsibility for the West Bank. I disagree with the decision, which wasn't an easy one for His Majesty to make. In November, the Palestine National Council met in Algiers, where Arafat made a historic announcement. و باسم الشعب العربي الفلسطيني قيام قيام دولة فلسطين. The formal declaration of a Palestinian state was a defining moment. But the Palestinians understood that establishing a state would require more than rhetoric. The PLO had no control of any territory. I hope that Israeli I will try to be positive in the response. The same thing also at the U.S. I'm an American. I'm rather disappointed, because instead of facing reality and drawing the necessary conclusions, they have engaged in an evasive sort of resolution. Which in real terms are meaningless. Palestinians also understood that America's backing was imperative if the dream of Palestinian statehood was to be fulfilled, and they began to realize that their longtime ally, the Soviet Union, was no longer the dependable friend of old. فاس كنت أنا والأخ أبو عمار واجتمعنا مع جورباتشيف. Arafat and I met with Gorbachev. I felt we had no common ground with him, that he didn't see our viewpoint. We told him the Palestinian people had a very high literacy rate, and he said, sure, the Israelis fear you. I realized then that he was no friend of ours, and I did not set foot in the Soviet Union afterwards. Arafat's declaration implicitly recognized the state of Israel, though this was never explicitly stated. It was enough for U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz to ask his Swedish counterpart, Sten Andersson, To convey a letter to the PLO. جاء رئيس الوزراء ليقول للرئيس أبو عمار. The message was that if you, Yasser Arafat, declared the following points in public, chief among which was the renunciation of terrorism, then the United States would be prepared to recognize the Palestinian Liberation Organization and establish a dialogue with it. The General Assembly of the United Nations was preparing to convene in New York. Yasser Arafat was scheduled to give a speech. What he did not count on was America's refusal to grant him an entry visa. In an unprecedented move, the General Assembly moved its meeting to its headquarters in Switzerland. Arafat delivered his speech and waited to reap the diplomatic rewards. He believed that by implicitly recognizing Israel and renouncing armed struggle, he had met America's conditions to open a dialogue with the PLO. Hereby once more declare that I condemn terrorism in all its form. But the Americans did not hear the terminology they required. About the renunciation of terrorism, and not all Palestinians believed the price was worth paying. طيب ما هو مقابل أننا ننقذ؟ I said, "What do we get for renouncing terrorism, meaning the right to launch military operations?" I was against making this concession. I said, "Let's await the reaction to your speech, and then we'll see." But I was overruled. But Arafat's mind was made up. Desperate for American recognition, the next day he held a press conference and uttered the magic words. Totally and absolutely renounce all forms of terrorism. The U.S. announced that it was now ready to begin a dialogue with the PLO. Several sessions of talks were held between PLO officials and Washington's ambassador to Tunisia, Robert Pellegrino. The talks failed to satisfy Arafat's aspirations. As it was, the dialogue did not last long. Yet another Palestinian faction was about to make world headlines through violence. The Palestine Liberation Front, headed by Abu al-Abbas, had first come to prominence back in 1985 with the hijacking of the Italian cruise liner the Achille Lauro. The operation quickly fell apart, and the Palestinian gunmen gained infamy when they killed and threw overboard a wheelchair-bound American. Now, in June 1990, the Palestine Liberation Front struck again. A unit of its commandos landed on a Tel Aviv beach intending to kill Israelis. The attack was quickly thwarted. Years later, the group's leader admitted the operation was aimed at Derailing the negotiations. One of the political goals of the operation was to stop the Palestinian-American dialogue, which we felt was an insult to the Palestinian revolution and Palestinians in general. The Americans wanted the PLF punished. Arafat refused. شك الأبو عمار لنا التحقيق. Arafat refused the American requests because he felt the Palestinians had gained nothing from the dialogue with America, which wasn't supposed to be about the ABCs of the Palestinian issue, but about something more substantial. His message to the Americans was, if you want me to halt military operations, then you have to move on the political level. I told Arafat that if punishing us would help restore the national rights of the Palestinian people, then he should go ahead and do it. He refused and said he wasn't going to be blackmailed, and the dialogue was severed. Any hope of a resumption of dialogue was soon overshadowed by another tumultuous event in the Middle East. In August 1990, Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait, changing the political face of the region. Arafat failed to unequivocally condemn the Iraqi occupation and announced he was seeking an Arab solution to the issue, a position supported by the Palestinians of the occupied territories. We are not going to accept the occupation. We were seeking an Arab resolution to the crisis and tried to preclude any outside involvement, to solve it among Arabs. We had an official initiative to get Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. العراق من الكويت. التقييت أبو عياد عدد مرات. أبو عياد told me, "I don't want to talk to the Iraqis. It's hopeless." I interviewed Arafat at the time and begged him. I told him Saddam was going to lose and advised Arafat not to support him. He was hesitant, especially towards the end, but he couldn't break away from Saddam Hussein. Arafat's position was criticized within the. PLO. Salah Khalaf, also known as Abu Iyad, who was now recognized as Arafat's second-in-command, distrusted Saddam Hussein from the outset. The last time I saw him was just before Saddam Hussein started making his move on Kuwait. It was just after the Abu Labbas affair. And I was in Tunis and met Abu Iyad, and he He said, you know, this is Saddam's doing, this Abu al-Abbas affair. And he's courting Arafat. He's trying to get Arafat to move the headquarters to Baghdad. And he said, he has something in mind. I don't know what it is, but I'm trying to figure it out, 'cause he wants the Palestinians in— he, Saddam, wants the Palestinians in his corner when it happens. And we have to figure out what he's up to, because it's going to be bad news for us. You know, whenever an Arab regime tries to get its hands on us, we know there's trouble. And so he said, it's very important for us that the U.S.-PLO dialogue not be ended, because that's what Saddam— that's why Saddam did this. He wants to force an end to it, because he doesn't want us to be dealing with you. Abu Iyad's opposition to Arafat's alliance with Saddam proved his death sentence. In 1991, a few days before the air campaign to liberate Kuwait was launched, Abu Iyad was gunned down in Tunis. The perpetrator was Arafat's old nemesis, Abu Nidal, who was once again Iraq's gun for hire. Ironically, Abu Iyad had, in the past, turned down the opportunity Abu Iyad used to tell me that he couldn't order a hit on Abu Nidal because he had broken bread with him at his home. He said he couldn't kill him for the sake of his children. So what happened? Abu Nidal assassinated him. I swear, more than once I told Arafat and Abu Iyad, that I'd have Abu Nidal killed in Baghdad. If his Iraqi friends got upset, then I'd fix things with them. But Arafat and Abu Iyad turned down my offer. People like Abu Iyad and Abu Jihad had an influence on Arafat's decisions and the policies he adopted. By taking them out, Arafat was left with no effective people around him. Ultimately, this had a negative effect in the years to come. By the end of February, Saddam Hussein's army had been ejected from Kuwait. His regime almost shattered. بعد حرب الخليج الثانية كل الدول العربية خسرت حرب. After the Gulf War, all Arabs lost so much. They lost everything. The occupation of Kuwait by the Iraqis was a stain on our honor. There is absolutely no excuse for it. Arafat did not openly and clearly condemn the occupation of Kuwait. At the same time, he didn't openly and clearly support it. He tried in his own way to simultaneously play both sides, and his position was interpreted as supporting the Iraqis. His calculations were wrong, and we paid a tremendous price for them. Arafat had hoped the international community would link an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait to Israeli concessions in the occupied territories. But the Palestinian leader miscalculated badly. The dreams of statehood and recognition The vision he had harbored not too long ago now lay in ruins. With the prospect of a new order in the region, the PLO needed to shift emphasis from revolution to negotiation. But new political forces were making their presence felt within Palestinian society. Threatening the role and relevancy of the PLO. Following the 1991 Gulf War, U.S. President George Bush and his Secretary of State, James Baker, decided it was high time to resolve the problems in the Middle East. They devised a formula to bring a reluctant Israel to the negotiating table. I think Bush was really annoyed, and he and Baker came up with this idea, which I thought was actually quite smart, and said, you can have the loans, but only if you agree to a complete freeze on settlements, because we are not going to subsidize policies in the West Bank that we oppose. In the U.S. Congress, Baker increased the pressure on the Israelis, goading them to call. It's going to take some really Good faith, affirmative effort on the part of our good friends in Israel. And if we don't get it, and if we can't get it quickly, I have to tell you, Mr. Levine, that everybody over there should know that the telephone number is 1-202-456-1414. When you're serious about peace, call us. Thank you. The American strategy worked, and Israeli and Arab delegations attended a peace conference in the Spanish capital Madrid in October 1991. Although PLO leader Yasser Arafat was not invited, he was well represented by Palestinian negotiators from Gaza and the West Bank. Arafat kept a tight rein on the Palestinian negotiators, and they made sure they toed the party line. نحن شاركنا فيها في افتتاح المؤتمر، ولكن شاركنا بالمشاهدة على التلفزيون ولكن من أرض مدريد. The speech delivered by Haider Abdushafi in Madrid was written by Hanan Ashrawi and Nabil Chaath. Mamdouh Noufal and Akram Haniye contributed to it. But in the end it was faxed to Tunis and we waited till morning until by return fax we got Arafat's blessing with notes and amendments in his handwriting. The Americans and the Spanish knew this. After the Madrid conference, further negotiations continued in Washington. Away from the media spotlight, secret talks were also held between Israeli and Palestinian officials. In April 1992, a plane carrying Yasser Arafat crashed in the Libyan desert. Arafat survived. But the crash highlighted the lack of any clear successor to the Palestinian leader. Inshallah, in the near future. The transition of power was becoming an increasingly important matter. In the Palestinian territories, Islamist factions, which were not members of the PLO, were steadily building a solid base of support. They were vocally opposed to the negotiations Arafat was conducting with Israel. After failure of the secular system to practice their ideas in Madrid, the people will shift voluntarily, without any force or violence, towards the Islamic movement. Many Palestinians shared such views, unconvinced that negotiations with Israel would lead to a breakthrough. Aware of this skepticism, Arafat gave the go-ahead to a secret channel of talks in the Norwegian capital, Oslo. Arafat's strategy was to open many channels and let many people try to achieve something. He keeps his windows open and awaits the incoming winds. The end result is what's important, not the person or persons delivering the goods. On August 20th, 1993, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators reached accord in Oslo, agreeing to a framework for resolving their decades-long conflict. The Oslo Accords were announced to the world. Death to the occupiers! Hamas was quick to condemn the Accords. It was a first sign of a growing divide between Hamas and the PLO. On September 13th, 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat The children of Abraham, the descendants of Isaac and Ishmael, have embarked together on a bold journey. Together, today, with all our hearts and all our souls, we bid them shalom, salaam, peace. The first time I met President Obama, We who have fought against you, the Palestinians, we say to you today in a loud and a clear voice: Enough of blood and tears! Enough! السلام هيته السيدات والسادة هي أصعب معارك حياتنا وهي تستحق منا كل الجهود لأن أرض السلام لأن أرض السلام تطوق للسلام العادل والشاب. It was the first time. The Israeli and Palestinian leaders had come face to face. Condemnation of the Oslo Accords spread like wildfire throughout the Arab world. في هذا اليوم الأسود. On this black day, the PLO betrays the blood of the martyrs who fell for their homeland. Today, the PLO has harmed beyond belief its own people and sold out their right in their homeland Palestine. Today, the PLO recognizes Israel and acknowledges Israeli sovereignty over the whole of. Historical Palestine. Notwithstanding these criticisms, the Oslo Accords found supporters in the Palestinians. Faisal Husseini, God rest his soul, used to say that he had reservations about the Oslo Accords, but he called it our child. And that it was better for us to defend Jerusalem from Ramallah next door than defend it from faraway Tunis. Yeh-weh-weh-weh-weh-weh! But the peace process initiated by the Oslo Accords soon began to founder. On February 25th, 1994, Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish extremist, opened fire on Palestinian worshippers in the main mosque of Hebron, killing 29 and Speak up! Just weeks later, Hamas responded with 2 suicide bombings inside Israel, killing 15 civilians. Suicide attacks were to become a trademark tactic of Hamas. The mosque massacre and the suicide attacks did not preclude the signing of the Gaza-Jericho Agreement in May 1994, in which Israel agreed to undertake troop withdrawals from those areas. In July 1994, Arafat returned to Gaza. He received a hero's welcome. It was the first time in 27 years that the PLO leader returned to the homeland he had devoted his life to regaining. Their return heralded the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority, or PNA, set up to fulfill the terms of the Oslo Accords and administer the Palestinian territories. But Arafat found it difficult to make the transition from the leader of a liberation movement to the builder of a nation. الأخ أبو عمار بنى سلطة تقوم على قاعدة شمولية توتاليتارية. Chairman Arafat built his authority on a totalitarian basis. The criteria for admission to the instruments of state was contingent upon being a member of his Fatah movement and recommendation of one of his security apparatus. It was single-party rule with no accountability. As Arafat tried to build the foundations of state, he also needed to continue negotiations. Final status issues, such as the status of Jerusalem, security, borders, and refugees remained unresolved. But the prime minister of Israel at the time, Benjamin Netanyahu, maintained a hardline negotiating stance. It did not endear him to U.S. President Bill Clinton. Well, initially, I mean, he actually said, after this first set of meetings, when Netanyahu came, he left the room and he said, who does he think the superpower is? He is and we're not. Final status issues came back on the negotiating table following the election of Ehud Barak as Israeli prime minister in 1999. Barak quickly gained the ear of the U.S. president. And Barak's logic is, what do I need and what do I want? I want to get to a final status agreement with the Palestinians by the time you, President Clinton, leave office. That's what he tells him in August '99 when he visits. Baraka's offer was for Israel to withdraw from much of the West Bank while keeping sovereignty over key parts of Jerusalem. In 2000, he convinced Clinton of the need to convene a meeting with Arafat in the United States to resolve the final issues. One, and he couldn't say no to the president. He came with a profound suspicion and resentment, suspicion that the Americans and the Israelis were going to present him with a fait accompli that he couldn't accept. Resentment at Ehud Barak, who he believed had chased the Israeli-Syrian negotiation for the preceding 7 months, ignoring him and Israel's commitments, and who was prepared to give to Assad 99.9% of the Golan Heights, minus 400 yards off the northeastern portion of the lake. And yet Mr. Barak's offer to Arafat at Camp David was 90%. Barak refused to meet alone with Arafat at Camp David. Now, at Camp David, Barak took this position, I don't want to meet alone with Arafat. I don't want to build that kind of personal connection, because, again, once I'm with Arafat alone, he will write down everything. And Barak would say, he always has this note— Arafat always has this notepad, and he writes down everything that people say. He'll keep it in his pocket, and one day he'll come out and say, Barak has agreed to divide Jerusalem. And so I can't accept that. كيف تريد من عرفات أن يذهب إلى كام ديفيد وأن ينهي النزاع هناك؟ How do you want Arafat to go to Camp David and end the conflict without getting a written offer from Barak? I'm certain that if he had been presented with a written offer, he would have asked to have had it initialed and put it in his pocket. I'm certain of that. Before agreeing to attend the Camp David summit, Arafat sought assurances that he would not be made a scapegoat if the talks failed. Arafat rejected Barak's proposals at Camp David. He concluded the Palestinian state envisaged would not be viable, made up of cantons and completely surrounded by territory to be annexed to Israel. طلع Clinton. And then what does Clinton do? He breaks his promise and blames Arafat for the failure of Camp David. So Arafat is made out to be a liar. That's plain shameful. Much of the Western media criticized Arafat at the time for rejecting the proposals. But today, former U.S. administration officials acknowledge that Arafat had little choice. What was presented at Camp David, I think, if you ask any American negotiator today, any of us, do we think the Palestinians could have accepted the ideas that— or should, could have accepted the ideas that President Clinton put on the table or already briefed Arafat on in July 2000? I think they would all say, they would have to say in hindsight, no, they couldn't accept them. Couldn't accept them because there was no There's no way he could defend a 9-to-1 swap. There's no way he could accept Israeli sovereignty over the Haram. There's no way he could accept this patchwork of sovereignty over Jerusalem, etc., etc. In fact, the proof of the matter is, the Palestinian leaders who today are lauded as the most moderate— Mahmoud Abbas, Abu Mazen, etc., Yasser Arafat— they all rejected what was on the table, or not on the table, at Camp David. In terms that were even more harsh than Arafat himself. They were adamantly against them. So that tells you something about whether these were the kind of proposals that a Palestinian could accept. Should he have taken the deal at Camp David? Probably not. A last-ditch attempt by Clinton at the end of his presidency failed to produce an agreement, and Arafat was blamed. I blame it partly on Clinton and Dennis. They told the incoming administration, Bush and Cheney, literally on Inauguration Day, that Arafat was totally responsible for the failure of the peace process and that he was a liar and you couldn't count on him, you shouldn't deal with him. After the meeting at Camp David, Arafat returned to Gaza and received a hero's welcome for refusing Refusing to accept what the Palestinians viewed as unacceptable. He was by now, however, a pariah in Washington, unwelcome and untrusted. Just weeks later, the Second Intifada erupted, triggered by Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount, or Noble Sanctuary, in Jerusalem. The Palestinians had lost hope with the diplomatic approach. Amid the death and violence of the new intifada, Hamas increased its role and its power base in the occupied territories. In Israel, Barak lost the elections to the leader of the Israeli opposition, Arafat's old archrival Ariel Sharon. Sharon was in no mood for concession. And following the September 11th attacks on the United States, he was quick to spot an opportunity to get the Americans more on his side. September 11 allowed Sharon to gain sympathy for Israel's internal security situation. In effect, what he was saying was that what you in America faced on September 11, I face on a daily basis. And Sharon was able to convince the world that Yasser Arafat was the source of terrorism. Israeli military actions that kill children, women, and the elderly This caused Palestinian reactions to be emotional instead of political, and therefore revenge became the source of justice for the weak. The Israelis knew this, I believe. The crushing of the Palestinians' political backbone is one of the great achievements of the Israeli army during the Intifada. So, in other words, there was chaos. In the spring of 2002, Ariel Sharon decided to hold Yasser Arafat Arafat was personally responsible for every act of violence perpetrated against Israel. Israeli forces quickly surrounded Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah and set out to systematically destroy all the instruments of Palestinian state infrastructure. Besieged and with few remaining allies, Arafat turned down an offer from Sharon to depart. He feared he would not be allowed to return. Instead, Arafat announced that he would fight to the very end. Under pressure, Arafat devolved some of his powers to the newly appointed prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen. But in Arafat's eyes, Abbas proved ineffective. I was with Arafat when Prime Minister Abbas was in Washington, and Arafat received a phone call telling him it was no good. The White House had not agreed to him regaining his freedom. At that point, Arafat said, if the Americans refuse to grant Abbas the freedom of Yasser Arafat, the democratically elected president of the Palestinian people, does he think they will give him the rights of the Palestinian people in Jerusalem and borders and the issue of refugees? They will not. Arafat subsequently quickly moved to engineer the fall of Abu Mazen's cabinet. And he did. Surrounded in his Ramallah headquarters, Arafat held out until October of 2004, when he was struck down by a mysterious illness. Israel said it would allow him to seek treatment abroad and return. Arafat died in a Paris hospital. Cause unknown. The Palestinians claimed he was poisoned. The Israelis protested their innocence. We want justice! I am interested in what we are going to say about former President Arafat. He was an icon in the proper sense of the word. He was not only concerned with the liberation of the Arab people, but He was a champion of all the oppressed people throughout the world, Arabs and non-Arabs. And to lose a man of that stature and thinking is a great blow to all those who are fighting against oppression. We regret that. And we give our condolences to his family and to the Arab people to which he belonged. Thank you. ما عيب عيب العالم إنه يقبل. What a shameful thing! The way the world stood by and watched while Arafat was treated that way in the last years of his life—it's absolutely shameful. Following Arafat's death, Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority, but he lacked the power base and hold over Palestinian politics. that Arafat had established. Abbas soon faced a challenge to his authority from Hamas, the Islamic movement, which now commanded the loyalty of a large proportion of Palestinians. In January 2006, Hamas defeated the Fatah movement of Abbas in parliamentary elections. A power struggle ensued between the Palestinian Authority, led by Abbas, and Hamas. Open battles broke out between Fatah and Hamas gunmen. In the summer of 2007, Hamas fighters captured the Fatah headquarters in Gaza, securing control of the area. Gaza became the confirmed stronghold of Hamas. Fatah had been supplanted. Would Arafat have lost control of Gaza the way Abu Mazen did? It's hard to believe that he would have, for one simple reason. Arafat was an icon. He lost a lot of support among Palestinians. I felt it, even as time went by. But he, he He was an icon because he put the Palestinian issue on the national, the international map. He established for the international community a sense that somehow what he identified as Palestinian national aspirations had to be achieved. So he put the Palestinian movement on the world stage, and he also unified the Palestinians in a way that no other leader had. I think what's happened since he has died should tell us something about how central he was to the Palestinian map. And, you know, it is ironic that even some of those who were most critical of Arafat among Palestinians during his final days are the most eager to rally behind his name and his picture and his flag. Today, the Palestine Liberation Organization is no longer the force it once was. The emergence of new groups, such as Hamas, has eroded support for the traditional PLO. Rather than being a unifying force, the PLO is now a protagonist in inter-Palestinian discord. The revolution is over. The revolution, started over 40 years ago, may have faded, but the dreams of the Palestinians for statehood live on, as strong as ever. No! No! No!