Word: arafats
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...khityar,” “Abu-Ammar,” or “Arafat,” the symbol of Palestinian struggle for liberation and independence, is no more. The father of the Palestinian dream passed away. The voice Palestinians for so long counted on to carry their message to the world faded out. It seems impossible, intangible, but it’s real. We Palestinians have to realize that for Arafat, it is game over, but for us, we just made it to another stage, with the difficulty level up, and with one key player down...
...Palestinians in the territories were incensed as the plum posts in the new Palestinian Authority went not to the local leaders who had sacrificed so much in the intifada, but to exiles who returned from Tunis with Arafat and in most cases rushed to use their new positions to feather their own nests. While Arafat enjoyed his new role as feted statesman in Western capitals, some painful realities didn't change for his people: The Israeli settler population of the West Bank doubled during the Oslo years, raising Palestinian suspicions over Israel's intentions. Meanwhile, on the Israeli side...
...other shifts were afoot, to which Arafat appeared dangerously oblivious. Ariel Sharon was doing his utmost to scupper the deal; his grandstanding walkabout on the Temple Mount, the most sensitive piece of real estate in Jerusalem, was designed to challenge Barak's right to negotiate over its future. The action provoked young Palestinians into a series of riots that resulted in fatalities, and seven years of frustration among Arafat's base reached a boiling point. Numb to the dangers of a new round of confrontations, the Palestinian leader instead sensed an opportunity: Even though the new intifada was a rebellion...
...Some of his successors, such Mahmoud Abbas, the U.S.-favored moderate who will likely inherit Arafat's formal leadership roles in Fatah and the Palestinian Authority, recognize the failure of the tactics of the past four years. They will promote compromise as a means of completing Arafat's mission of creating a Palestinian state. But the grassroots operatives of not only Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but also of Fatah itself are in no mood to compromise, and they will proclaim Arafat the very symbol of their unshakable defiance...
...While the formal succession process will likely see titles passed from Arafat to Abbas without any direct challenge, Abbas will lack anything close to Arafat's political authority. There?s little reason to expect that Mahmoud Abbas will be more able to implement U.S. and Israeli demands for action against Hamas now that Arafat has gone than they were when he held veto power over their actions. The militants are already demanding a collective leadership, not simply a consultative arrangement among such old guard figures as Abbas and Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, but also that groupings such as Hamas...