Five years on, Palestinians still mourning Arafat (News Feature)

By Maher Abukhater and Ofira Koopmans Nov 10, 2009, 1:04 GMT

Ramallah - Five years after the death of Palestinian icon Yasser Arafat, the absence of a strong leader to unite Palestinians can be felt more than ever.

President Mahmoud Abbas has been unable to fill the shoes of the legendary 'revolutionary.' Faced with internal criticism and frustrated with the stagnation in the peace process and in the attempts to reconcile rival Palestinian factions, he has announced he will not run for a second term.

Had he lived, Arafat would likely not have stood for Palestinians living divided between a West Bank ruled by a Western-backed administration still dominated by his Fatah party and a Gaza Strip controlled by the radical Islamist Hamas movement.

Negotiations with Israel on a final peace deal are once again frozen more than 14 years after Arafat signed the Oslo interim peace accords that created a temporary, partial autonomy in the occupied territories on the road to Palestinian statehood.

The Palestinian leader died aged 75 of a stroke triggered by a stomach flu in a Paris hospital on November 11, 2004.

Five years later, Palestinians generally have forgiven (if not forgotten) the corruption, nepotism, mismanagement and one-man rule that - according to many - characterized the Palestinian Authority under his rule.

An overwhelming majority of Palestinians (nearly 82 per cent with a margin of error of 3.6 per cent) say they still miss Arafat, according to the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion, which questioned 1,050 adults late last month in a survey.

'Arafat was a great leader, a symbol of the Palestinian people. He will never be forgotten,' says Hasan Rushdi, 35, from the northern West Bank city of Jenin, as he entered Arafat's mausoleum in Ramallah on an ordinary weekday to 'pay tribute.'

The dark-haired, mustachioed Palestinian, who works as a goods trader, says he visits the memorial each time he is in the central West Bank city because 'I want to thank him for keeping my cause alive in the consciousness of the world and to tell him how much we miss his leadership today.'

Filled with symbolism, the memorial housing Arafat's remains appears to be a reflection of the man himself. Its cubic shape, clean lines and pale limestone match the sobriety of Arafat, who was never lavish. Despite allegations that he handed out luxuries to others whose loyalty he sought to ensure, he himself always seemed to have lived a simple life, devoted entirely to the Palestinian cause.

Abbas, elected president some three months after Arafat's death, lacks the latter's charisma, many charge.

The two men contrast sharply, not only in appearance, but also in approach. Arafat never shed the military jacket (epitomizing the revolutionary he saw himself as) or his keffiyeh, the traditional Arab headdress. The Westernized, dovish and - some might say - 'grey' Abbas always wears a suit.

Arafat was accused by the West of dancing at two weddings for simultaneously embracing both negotiations and a violent uprising to end the Israeli occupation. Abbas on the other hand is accused locally of putting all of his eggs in one basket, opting against armed struggle and for negotiations only, which have thus far failed to deliver.

The result has been growing criticism by a Palestinian public that feels increasingly disillusioned with the peace process, now stalled because hardline Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who took office seven month ago following new elections, has not accepted Abbas' preconditions for resuming negotiations.

Abbas has demanded a stop to all Israeli construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and that the talks resume from where they left off with the previous centrist Israeli premier, Ehud Olmert.

Netanyahu says he can only afford a temporary, partial construction moratorium - excluding Jewish neighbourhoods of Jerusalem expanding onto occupied West Bank land and 3,000 housing units already in the pipeline in existing settlements.

Abbas, already seen as weak, cannot afford to lower his demands ahead of upcoming Palestinian presidential and legislative elections, and already facing fury at home after he yielded to US and Israeli pressure to meet Netanyahu in New York and postpone a UN vote on report on last winter's Gaza war.

The combined result is more stagnation and uncertainty. Still unclear are whether the Palestinian elections can be held on time on January 24, who will run at the head of Arafat's secular Fatah, and whether a last-minute reconciliation deal can be reached with Hamas, or whether the Islamists ruling Gaza will prevent voting from taking place in the coastal enclave under their control.

It is not for nothing that the Palestinians referred to Arafat as their 'qaid,' Arabic for leader, and to Abbas simply as 'rais,' or the 'head' of the Palestinian Authority.

'People miss Arafat,' explains Hani Masri, an analyst from Ramallah, 'mainly because of the vacuum he left behind.

'And as more time passes, people miss him even more.'