Bemildred & Herschel
I have a handful of essays in this book, some are on the internet, but the ones I am referring to are not. In attempting to find the ones I want, I found this. In this essay Said reflects the same opinion as Uri. I guess they are both speaking of Arafat in relation to Sharon tactics whose aims are to ostrasize Arafat. Neither feel Sharon's boycotting of Arafat is based in any reality that he is the "terrorist" the propaganda has him pencilled in as (at least that is my take on both of these author's opinions). Neither, in this instance speak of him in those critical terms that I have read more than once Said hone in on (criticism which reflect on Arafat's negotiating tactic, ineptness, disorganization, and lack of commitment to the Palestinian Cause). I am still looking for those examples, but in the meantime here is this.
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Uri Avnery is right: Arafat is being murdered. And with him, according to Sharon, will die the aspirations of the Palestinians. This is an exercise short of complete genocide to see how far Israeli power can go in sadistic brutality without being stopped or apprehended. Today Sharon has said that in the event of a war with Iraq, which is definitely coming, he will retaliate against Iraq, thus no doubt causing Bush and Rumsfeld the nightmares they rightly deserve. Sharon's last attempt at regime change was in Lebanon during 1982. He put Bashir Jemayel in as president, then was summarily told by Jemayel that Lebanon would never be an Israeli vassal, then Jemayel was assassinated, then the Sabra and Shatila massacres took place, then after 20 bloody and ignominious years the Israelis sullenly withdrew from Lebanon.
more...
http://www.counterpunch.org/said1005.html--------------------
another one that I was not thinking of but will suffice until I find the essays I had actually intended to place.
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There has been much talk of vast sums coming for development: one prominent Arab daily reported that Arafat was bringing $ 2.7 billion to the deal. The West Bank is supposed to get an additional $ 800 million. The Scandinavian governments are said to have pledged considerable amounts for West Bank and Gaza development; Arab governments and the US are expected to be asked for money, although given the unfulfilled promises of the past, Palestinians are justifiably sceptical.
The PLO has transformed itself from a national liberation movement into a kind of small-town government, with the same handful of people still in command. PLO offices abroad - all of them the result of years of costly struggle whereby the Palestinian people earned the right to represent themselves - are being closed, sold off, left to neglect. For the more than 50 per cent of the Palestinian people not resident in the Occupied Territories - 350,000 stateless refugees in Lebanon, twice that number in Syria, many more elsewhere - the plan may be the final dispossession. Their national rights as people made refugees in 1948, solemnly confirmed and reconfirmed for years by the UN, the PLO, the Arab governments, indeed most of the world, now seem to have been annulled.
All secret deals between a very strong and a very weak partner necessarily involve concessions hidden in embarrassment by the latter. Yes, there are still lots of details to be negotiated, as there are many imponderables to be made clear, and even some hopes either to be fulfilled or dashed. Still, the deal before us smacks of the PLO leadership's exhaustion and isolation, and of Israel's shrewdness. Many Palestinians are asking themselves why, after years of concessions, we should be conceding once again to Israel and the US in return for promises and vague improvements in the occupation that won't all occur until "final status" talks three-to-five years hence, and perhaps not then.
We have not even had an explicit agreement from Israel (which has yet to admit that it is an occupying power) to end the occupation, with its maze of laws and punitive apparatus. Nothing is said about the 13,000 political prisoners who remain in Israeli jails. We must put into whatever is going to be signed (no one is sure by whom) that Palestinians have a right to freedom and equality and will concede nothing from that right. Can the Israeli army march in at will? Who decides and when? After all, limited "self-rule" is not something around which to mobilise or give long-term hope to people. Above all, Palestinians now must have the widest possible say in their future as it is largely about to be settled, perhaps irrevocably and unwisely. It is disturbing that the National Council has not been called into session, and that the appalling disarray induced by Arafat's recent methods has not been addressed.
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With the PLO in decomposition and conditions in the territories abysmal, there never was a worse internal crisis for Palestinians than the one that began this past summer - that is, until Arafat fled into the Israeli plan, which in one stroke propels him on to centre stage again and rids the Israelis of an unwanted insurrectionary problem that Arafat must now work at solving for them. I admire those few Palestinian officials who bravely aver that this may be the first step toward ending the occupation, but anyone who knows the characteristic methods of Arafat's leadership is better advised to start working for a radical improvement in present conditions.
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http://www.mideastfacts.com/esaid-arf.htmlThe above article is more indicative of the kinds of criticisms Said expresses. His criticisms seem to focus primarily on Arafat's undemocratic process, his autocracy, as well as what Said claims was Arafat's unpreparedness and sometimes incompetence in regards to his ineptness at negotiating with Israel and the US during the Oslo process afterwhich Said meticulously documents, it in fact only got worse for the Palestinian people, with none of the important issues that were placed on final status (as they remain today with this roadmap) ever being addressed, let alone resolved or reconciled.
HERSCHEL --- This begins to explain what I meant when I said Arafat sold the Palestinian Cause down the river. There are other Said essay's that illustrate this better. I will place those in this thread as well. I just have to locate them.
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