The Contestants in the Sandbox -- Yasser Arafat
GW Bush is not the leader of the U.S., and similarly Yasser Arafat is not the leader of Palestine. GWBush is just the figurehead of a coterie of mean-spirited people who were able to gain control of the apparatus of government due to the installation beforehand of like-minded men and women in several strategic places. And meanwhile, because it's not on the map, I define "Palestine" as being the West Bank, Gaza, various parts of Lebanon and Jordan, and in general any spot on which a Palestinian happens to be standing.
Neither Bush nor Arafat is a leader, period, that is, if traces of the atavistic concept of a "leader" still hold, when we think of what it means to be one.
By atavistic I mean harkening back to the hunters and warriors of pre-Sumerian times, as they proceeded through the forest or the desert, the steppe, the savannah. A leader was the warrior who decided who or what they would hunt that day. He picked the paths they would take, and he accepted the biggest risk by being the first in the file as he and his cohorts ventured through the known and the unknown. He hurled the first spear at both the charging buffalo and the enemy chieftain, and, as the battle raged, the others looked to him for guidance, and he received the biggest share of the spoils.
Yasser Arafat doesn't fit this definition in any respect, except for being the first man in the file. He loves that position but could do without the responsibilities and perils that it involves. Instead the best that can be said of him is that he's an opportunist. But what can you expect of a man who, alone among "world leaders," seems to have cultivated an image of intentional sloppiness?
It's true that the headware that so many Arab men wear looks like cloths that they have just snatched off an uncleared table in an aluminum diner, especially the red and white checked jobs, but Yasser Arafat swathes his noggin with a studied recklessness that goes above and beyond that sort of sartorial disarray, and his face perfectly matches, with those folds of flesh that appear to be in a state of near collapse, and the grin... Yasser Arafat has the smile of a man who is in a room in which everyone else is speaking Chinese, and he can't understand a word of it, yet he senses that they're having the time of their lives and he smiles, too, though just a shade less heartily, while praying that no one expects him to crack the next joke.
The Israelis are fond of referring to Arafat as an arch-terrorist.
The absurdity of that charge shoots holes in the rest of their contentions, because how can such an epitome of sloppiness with such an empty grin possibly be a terrorist, especially this late in the day? It is hard to imagine that there is an ounce of that hardness, that single-mindedness, that readiness to sacrifice one's self, and that craziness left in this man, if he ever had it in the first place.
What IS very believable is that Yasser Arafat does know quite well how to tell which way the wind is blowing and how to adjust his sails (but not his headdress) accordingly.
Thus he is merely going along for the ride on which the radical groups like Hamas and the Islamic Jihad are taking him. They do certain things. He reacts in the way that the outside world expects of him, but internally he goes along with those groups because he has no control over them and because they have much more pull with the rest of the Palestinians than he does. His main asset is that he is a symbol. So if the Israelis want to call him a terrorist, it has to be okay with him. If it induces fear of him in the mind of one adversary, that's a gain in his mind, because otherwise he might only be regarded with pity.
Every time there is a suicide bombing in Israel, it would be easy as pie to sit down and write what will be reported in the news for the next week or so, before the world and the media once more lose interest in it. It is automatic and unvarying, to the point that I wonder why the Sharons themselves aren't by now supremely bored with the whole routine. They will barely mention the people who actually did the deed, and instead they will immediately direct all their ire at Arafat, first by condemning him for not doing anything to prevent the bombing, and following that by demanding that he prevent any other such acts that may be in the offing.
There is a grand cynicism at work there, the utility of which is hard to understand, unless it is that big bane of human beings -- laziness. How can Sharon et al expect Arafat to comply, when they know full well that he doesn't have that power, thanks in large part to them? It is the equivalent of screaming that a man is killing you, though in actuality he's lying flat on his back with both legs broken and you're standing over him with your foot crushing his neck.
The Sharons have killed off a number of Arafat's police after accusing them of being terrorists, too, and they are the only group that he could use to exercise a restraining hand on the militants. Meanwhile A. Sharon keeps Arafat personally bottled up, so that he has no freedom to move around and easily exert his supposed influence. And a third singularly cruel and effective method that Sharon and his helpers use to constrain Arafat is to keep reminding him, the Palestinians, and the world that they retain the option to kill him whenever they please, as they already have so many other well-known Palestinians.
Even if he could manage to sling on his kaffiyeh neater and demonstrate any ability to lead that he might have after all, Arafat can't, because for years he has been preempted on the one hand by the radical Palestinian groups and on the other by the Israelis. But he's been the most prominent Palestinian figure almost from the beginning, and he has to be congratulated for surviving this long -- including a near fatal plane crash in the Libyan desert -- and for having played a part in the miracle of the Camp David agreement, and for always being willing to wear the mantle and to take the risk of being seen as the leader of the Palestinians, in lieu of anyone else who might be better or at least as courageous or, if you will, foolhardy.
In that semi-strangled world in which somehow he continues to exist -- "function" wouldn't be the proper word -- Yasser Arafat keeps smiling and tries, unsuccessfully, to hide his apprehensions while waiting for what will come next, which in all likelihood will be a further humiliation and a further hard blow that he can't ward off, at the hands of those supposedly on his side and those who despise him. It is a world in which -- on the Israeli side as well -- while Arafat has endured, so many others have come, suffered their hard knocks and endless frustrations, and have departed.
Neither Bush nor Arafat is a leader, period, that is, if traces of the atavistic concept of a "leader" still hold, when we think of what it means to be one.
By atavistic I mean harkening back to the hunters and warriors of pre-Sumerian times, as they proceeded through the forest or the desert, the steppe, the savannah. A leader was the warrior who decided who or what they would hunt that day. He picked the paths they would take, and he accepted the biggest risk by being the first in the file as he and his cohorts ventured through the known and the unknown. He hurled the first spear at both the charging buffalo and the enemy chieftain, and, as the battle raged, the others looked to him for guidance, and he received the biggest share of the spoils.
Yasser Arafat doesn't fit this definition in any respect, except for being the first man in the file. He loves that position but could do without the responsibilities and perils that it involves. Instead the best that can be said of him is that he's an opportunist. But what can you expect of a man who, alone among "world leaders," seems to have cultivated an image of intentional sloppiness?
It's true that the headware that so many Arab men wear looks like cloths that they have just snatched off an uncleared table in an aluminum diner, especially the red and white checked jobs, but Yasser Arafat swathes his noggin with a studied recklessness that goes above and beyond that sort of sartorial disarray, and his face perfectly matches, with those folds of flesh that appear to be in a state of near collapse, and the grin... Yasser Arafat has the smile of a man who is in a room in which everyone else is speaking Chinese, and he can't understand a word of it, yet he senses that they're having the time of their lives and he smiles, too, though just a shade less heartily, while praying that no one expects him to crack the next joke.
The Israelis are fond of referring to Arafat as an arch-terrorist.
The absurdity of that charge shoots holes in the rest of their contentions, because how can such an epitome of sloppiness with such an empty grin possibly be a terrorist, especially this late in the day? It is hard to imagine that there is an ounce of that hardness, that single-mindedness, that readiness to sacrifice one's self, and that craziness left in this man, if he ever had it in the first place.
What IS very believable is that Yasser Arafat does know quite well how to tell which way the wind is blowing and how to adjust his sails (but not his headdress) accordingly.
Thus he is merely going along for the ride on which the radical groups like Hamas and the Islamic Jihad are taking him. They do certain things. He reacts in the way that the outside world expects of him, but internally he goes along with those groups because he has no control over them and because they have much more pull with the rest of the Palestinians than he does. His main asset is that he is a symbol. So if the Israelis want to call him a terrorist, it has to be okay with him. If it induces fear of him in the mind of one adversary, that's a gain in his mind, because otherwise he might only be regarded with pity.
Every time there is a suicide bombing in Israel, it would be easy as pie to sit down and write what will be reported in the news for the next week or so, before the world and the media once more lose interest in it. It is automatic and unvarying, to the point that I wonder why the Sharons themselves aren't by now supremely bored with the whole routine. They will barely mention the people who actually did the deed, and instead they will immediately direct all their ire at Arafat, first by condemning him for not doing anything to prevent the bombing, and following that by demanding that he prevent any other such acts that may be in the offing.
There is a grand cynicism at work there, the utility of which is hard to understand, unless it is that big bane of human beings -- laziness. How can Sharon et al expect Arafat to comply, when they know full well that he doesn't have that power, thanks in large part to them? It is the equivalent of screaming that a man is killing you, though in actuality he's lying flat on his back with both legs broken and you're standing over him with your foot crushing his neck.
The Sharons have killed off a number of Arafat's police after accusing them of being terrorists, too, and they are the only group that he could use to exercise a restraining hand on the militants. Meanwhile A. Sharon keeps Arafat personally bottled up, so that he has no freedom to move around and easily exert his supposed influence. And a third singularly cruel and effective method that Sharon and his helpers use to constrain Arafat is to keep reminding him, the Palestinians, and the world that they retain the option to kill him whenever they please, as they already have so many other well-known Palestinians.
Even if he could manage to sling on his kaffiyeh neater and demonstrate any ability to lead that he might have after all, Arafat can't, because for years he has been preempted on the one hand by the radical Palestinian groups and on the other by the Israelis. But he's been the most prominent Palestinian figure almost from the beginning, and he has to be congratulated for surviving this long -- including a near fatal plane crash in the Libyan desert -- and for having played a part in the miracle of the Camp David agreement, and for always being willing to wear the mantle and to take the risk of being seen as the leader of the Palestinians, in lieu of anyone else who might be better or at least as courageous or, if you will, foolhardy.
In that semi-strangled world in which somehow he continues to exist -- "function" wouldn't be the proper word -- Yasser Arafat keeps smiling and tries, unsuccessfully, to hide his apprehensions while waiting for what will come next, which in all likelihood will be a further humiliation and a further hard blow that he can't ward off, at the hands of those supposedly on his side and those who despise him. It is a world in which -- on the Israeli side as well -- while Arafat has endured, so many others have come, suffered their hard knocks and endless frustrations, and have departed.
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 7:53 AM
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