A Palestinian friend recently told me that the Israeli Army has a drilling machine parked next to Yasser Arafat’s office in Ramallah. Every single day since 2002, the machine begins to drill at night, doing nothing in fact, except preventing the PLO Chairman from going to sleep. This carries on from midnight until dawn, and Arafat cannot do anything about it. Psychological warfare is one among many methods practiced by Israel to “break” Yasser Arafat. Having failed to destroy him physically, Ariel Sharon hopes that deprived of travel, proper sanitation, and sleep, Arafat’s nerves will eventually snap. Grinning, my friend, whose family is involved in and greatly influenced by Fateh, said, “Abu Ammar’s nerves will not snap! He is stronger than that! Remember him in Beirut?” She might be right, given Arafat’s record of endurance, but according to all reports coming from Ramallah, the pressure is starting to cave in on the aged and ailing Abu Ammar. The corruption accusations against his wife, prime minister, and ministers, topped by the growing chaos in Gaza and the West Bank, and the insubordination of some of his top officials, have all drained Yasser Arafat. As we progress into 2004, the ongoing question that has occupied observers of the Palestinian scene for four decades, continues: will Arafat survive?

The accusations of misusing public funds, filed against his wife Suha in France, have infuriated Arafat. Reportedly, 9 million Euro coming from Switzerland were deposited in her accounts in the Arab Bank and BNP (Paris) during the period July 2002-July 2003. This aroused suspicion of the Central Bank of France, which ordered an investigation into the case, something that has greatly been welcomed in Israel. The EU has also approved the investigation, much to Arafat’s dismay, fearing that part of its 350 million Euro, paid in annual donations to the Palestinian Authority (PA) is also, not being spent as it should be. Many here in the Arab World, myself included, see the false accusations as a smear campaign triggered by Sharon to further destroy Arafat’s image. Having failed to kill him since 1982, Sharon is trying to destroy his credibility in the Occupied Territories, hopping that the Palestinians will topple him instead. Anyone familiar with the modern Middle East, knows that a rebellion against Arafat is impossible. Anything written to that effect in the Israeli and American press is nothing but wishful thinking. Sharon hopes to ignite the Palestinian street against its leader, wanting the people to see Arafat as a corrupt official who is amassing riches at the expense of the Palestinians. Adding insult to injury was CBS’s 60 Minutes program, broadcasting an episode called “Arafat’s Billions” claiming that Arafat sends his wife a monthly allowance of $100,000 to Paris, whereas the daily wage of a Palestinian worker does not exceed $2. Arafat’s wealth, the program adds, is worth $1 billion. It is invested in companies like a Coca-Cola bottling factory in Ramallah, and a GSM company in Tunis. Earlier, in September 2003, Karim Nashashibi, a senior Palestinian advisor at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said at a conference in Dubai that officials close to Arafat had deposited $900 million in private bank accounts, linked to Arafat, whereas the money had been donated to the PA in 1995-2000 for public services. Talk about embezzlement has for long rocked the streets in Palestine, especially after Jarar Kidwa, head of the PA’s financial monitoring system, published a 600-page report in 1997 on the gross theft in Palestinian government. According to the report, which is highly self-critical, Arafat’s government lost $326 million (40% of the annual budget in 1996), due to corruption and mismanagement. Arafat, who controls all purse strings in the PA, was shocked at the result and reportedly ordered an immediate investigation. David Hurst, the veteran British journalist who covers the Middle East, visited Gaza (also in 1997) and published a report in Manchester Guardian accusing certain top officials in the PA of corruption. It said that Mahmud Abbas, then serving as Arafat’s second-in-command, of living in a $2 million villa while Nabil Shaath, Arafat’s current Planning Minister, held four lavish and extravagant wedding ceremonies for his children. Jamil Tarifi, the ex-minister of civil affairs, was accused of making millions from construction projects, while Mohammad Zuhdi al-Nashashibi, then-Minister of Finance, came under fire for his aristocratic lifestyle. All of these, topped with recent accusations against Prime Minister Ahmad Qurei, accusing him of selling cement to Israel to construct the much loathed Separation Barrier, have also, greatly troubled Yasser Arafat.

Arafat’s other rising fear is the state of lawlessness and chaos that currently prevails in territories under his jurisdiction. In Khan Yunis, Rafah, and Gaza City, entire neighborhoods have been demolished. Armed gangs rule the streets that are no longer safe at night, and internal violence is unprecedented. When the Israeli Army stormed, ransacked, and stole $6.7 million from Palestinian banks in February 2004, so chaotic was the scene that nobody was able to stop them. If Sharon dismantles the 17 Israeli settlements in Gaza, and effectively withdraws his army (as promised by him in February 2004), Arafat fears that Hamas will take over the Gaza Strip with its 1,000 armed cadets. As the authority of Fateh and the PA crumbles, Hamas and other opposition parties would grow in power. Sharon dreams of creating a civil war in the Palestinian territories, between Arafat on one front, and Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Mahmud Dahlan, leader of the secular opposition, on the other. Dahlan, a former Arafat protégé who held office as Security Chief under Mahmud Abbas, currently spearheads the anti-Arafat bloc in Palestinian politics, and is rumored in the Occupied Territories to have his eyes set on the presidency. When serving as Security Chief, he tried, and failed, to disarm and crack down on Hamas and Islamic Jihad in order to appease Israel and the USA, but Arafat, who continued to control much of security affairs, did not let him, claiming that civil war in Palestine would be disastrous for all. He has since raised his criticism of the PA, creating a power base for himself in his native Khan Yunis that Israeli security officials describe him as having established “the independent republic of Dahlan.” When 400 members of Arafat’s Fateh collectively resigned in February 2004 to protest corruption in the Occupied Territories, it was widely believed that their insubordination had been triggered by Dahlan. Most of them were from Gaza, staging a “semi-rebellion” that greatly troubled Abu Ammar. Then, Dahlan, leading an army of thugs, had his men assault Major General Ghazi al-Jibali, the pro-Arafat police chief of Gaza, and kill one of his officers. In February 2004, Ibrahim Abu Naja, another Arafat loyalist, was beaten at his office in Dahlan’s native Khan Yunis. The assailants then stormed and wrecked his office, trying to pressure people to abandon the PLO Chairman. Recently, however, Arafat has tried to reconcile with Dahlan, under the urging of Egyptian President Husni Moubarak. On February 19, 2004 he had lunch with Dahlan at his destroyed office in Ramallah, and six days later, Arafat made a gesture of goodwill towards Dahlan by convening and chairing Fateh’s Revolutionary Council, which has not met in 30 years. Arafat acknowledged that corruption is taking place at a gross level, and must be combated immediately, effectively echoing what Dahlan has been saying since the summer of 2003.

Some describe Mohammad Dahlan as representative of a young generation of ambitious politicians who are eager for “honorable cooperation” with Israel. This is not true, since Arafat once extracted the maximum bargaining from the Jewish State, and any further compromise would be considered treason by the Palestinians. To be fair to Arafat, we cannot say that has been a dictator in dealing with the opposition, since had he wished, he could have arrested the leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and even Dahlan himself, ages ago, and hammered out his differences with Israel. Arafat will not open fire against his own people, nor will he let history label him as the man who filled Palestinian jails with Palestinians. He does not appreciate the opinion of his opponents, but he is not a dictator. He might arrest them and persecute them when they get too loud in times of peace, but in times of war, he realizes that they are fighting a common battle. Likewise, with a few exceptions, they rally around their leader in times of war, as the case since the intifada broke out in 2000. Khalid Meshal said that to me once in Damascus, “Arafat cannot be discredited nor can his role in the Palestinian struggle be forgotten or ignored.” In reference to Sharon's December 2001 decision to cease all contact with the PLO leader and declare him “irrelevant,” Khalid Meshal was clearly not pleased, believing that these statements were an insult to someone who for long has been a symbol for Palestine.

Contrary to what everyone believed, however, I often said that Yasser Arafat will survive Ariel Sharon, George W. Bush, and Mahmud Abbas, who tried and failed to write him off the Palestinian scene, under backing from the White House, in 2003. Arafat has already survived 9 administrations at the White House, starting with John Kennedy and ending with George W. Bush, and 14 Israeli governments, starting with Levi Eshkol and ending with Ariel Sharon. The only factor that can destroy him is death since by the time the Israelis go to the polls again, Arafat will be 78. Yet he has survived many situations harsher than this one: in Jordan in 1970, in the Lebanese Civil War, in the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982, in his miscalculated alliance with Saddam Husayn in 1991, his plane crash in 1992, and now this. Nevertheless, Arafat is finding a hard time sleeping these days, partly because of the rude Israeli drilling next door, but mainly because never in his career since 1963 has he ever been in such a tight spot. History, however, gives us every reason to believe that Yasser Arafat, who has experienced the unbearable, will survive the current upheavals in Palestine.

Damascus
March 9, 2004.