Yasser Arafat is not too found of Sheikh Hasan Nasrallah, and this is no secret to anyone familiar with Abu Ammar. He is upset that Hizbullah managed to liberate South Lebanon in May 2000, something that he tried and failed to do. On the contrary, Arafat’s efforts led to the occupation of Beirut in 1982, rather than liberation of the South. Nasrallah replaced Arafat as an Arab champion in 2000 and garnered much popularity in the Occupied Territories. Nasrallah was further endeared to the Palestinians when Hizbullah rallied in favor of the intifada in September 2000, allying itself with Hamas and Islamic Jihad and abducting Israeli soldiers in October 2000, to put pressure on then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Nothing could embarrass and further enrage the PLO Chairman, however, more than the latest prisoner exchange deal that is being negotiated by Nasrallah with Israel, via German intermediaries. If it works, 450 Arab prisoners, many of whom are Palestinians, will be released—something that the PLO tried and failed to achieve under Arafat.

The first to surpass Yasser Arafat in a large scale prisoner exchange was Ahmad Jibril in 1985, when the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) secured the release of 1,150 Arab and Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 3 Israeli captives. Back then, Arafat applauded the deal, although he secretly wished to have been the man responsible for such an achievement. Today, the Sharon cabinet has approved the transaction with Hizbullah on November 9, but many issues remain pending with Nasrallah. Some in Israel are skeptical, claiming that such a wide-scale prisoner release would only encourage more future violence against Israel. They see the transaction as foolish, but Ariel Sharon argues that the exchange could raise Israeli moral. It would regain confidence in his leadership, which has been dropping in recent months for his failure to stop the violence. After all, if it succeeds, Hizbullah would release the bodies of 3 Israeli soldiers, abducted in 2000, and an Israeli businessman named Elhanan Tennenbaum. It would also reveal the fate and whereabouts of the Israeli pilot Ron Arad, who was captured in South Lebanon in 1986. To achieve that, Israel is willing to give Nasrallah maps indicating the location of landmines it left behind in South Lebanon and set free hundreds of Arab prisoners, possibly even Marwan al-Barghouti, the charismatic West Bank leader who led the early stages of the current intifada. This would be a great embarrassment for Arafat. In 1987, his then aid-de-camp, the charismatic Abu Jihad (Khalil al-Wazir), was architect of the first intifada and was killed by Israel in 1988. Arafat failed to save or protect him then, and failed to protect or release Barghouti now. Both men were immensely popular in the Occupied Territories and their termination was a sharp blow to Arafat. Unlike Nasrallah, who insists, in every occasion or speech, to release his arrested comrades from Israeli jails, Arafat has made no reference to Barghouti since the later was arrested in April 2002.

Another prominent detainee earmarked for release is Mustapha al-Dirani, a leader of Hizbullah who was abducted from his home in South Lebanon in 1994. He was the man who captured Ron Arad in 1986. The fate of many missing Palestinians might also be revealed if Nasrallah succeeds in his diplomacy. Some of the released might be one-time members of Arafat’s entourage, like Nabil Salameh, who has been missing since 1982. Salameh is the cousin of Abu Hasan Salameh, the charismatic leader of Arafat’s Force 17, who was killed by Israel in Beirut in 1979. Nabil Salameh was an early member of Fatah and a co-founder of Black September, a resistance organization created after the bloodbath in Jordan in 1970 and which is coined “terrorist” by most of the western world. Salameh was a radical commando who believed that the Palestinian cause would only reach every corner of the world through making headlines by violence. He was the man who personally shot Jordanian Prime Minister Wasfi a-Tal in Cairo in 1971 and co-orchestrated the Munich Massacre with Abu Dawoud in 1972, where Israeli athletes were killed at the Olympic Games. He was abducted by the Israelis in Beirut in 1982 and has been missing since. Both the PLO and his family refused to consider him dead although according to PLO laws, a missing member is considered dead if he remains missing for over 4 years. Arafat refused to accept Salameh’s death until 1997, when he gave up hope of retrieving his comrade. If Nabil Salameh is still alive, he might be released by Hasan Nasrallah.

The fate of Nasrallah’s deal lies in whether Israel agrees to release Samir al-Qantar, a Lebanese Druze and member of the Palestinian Liberation Front who was arrested in 1979 for killing 5 Israelis near the coastal town of Nahariyeh in norht Israel. Back then, an Israeli court sentenced him to 542 years in prison (99 years for every victim and 47 years for attacking an Israeli officer during interrogation). Qantar, described by Nasrallah as “dean” of prisoners in Israeli jails, has been in jail for 24-years. No deal will be made, Nasrallah insists, unless Qantar is released. The prisoner exchange would undoubtly raise Nasrallah to the limelight and boost his reputation dramatically in the Arab World. It leaves Arafat with one option: to work on domestic reform and make life better for the Palestinians. Only then would his failure to secure a similar prisoner release be forgotten by the Palestinians. Arafat must address the plight of his subjects; 3.5 million Palestinians, 61% of whom are below the poverty line, making less than $1/day. Currently, 282 villages are under siege, and average income has dropped by 46% since the intifada broke out in 2000. An estimated 60% of Palestinian cities are poor by international standards, as compared to only 46% in 2000. According to recent a UNDP report, the amount of damage that the Palestinian Authority (PA) currently faces is a staggering $930 million, as compared to $305 million in 2001. According to UNICEF, 600,000 children are denied access to schools in the Occupied Territories, while 580 schools have been closed by Israel and 9,300 teachers are deprived safe passage to their classrooms. These are the real problems facing Yasser Arafat today. He must insist on giving the Palestinians a better life, and this can only be achieved through investing in Hassan Nasrallah’s diplomacy, and being proud, rather than embarrassed, by it.

Damascus
Al-Ahram Weekly
November 20, 2003