ISRAELI BULLDOZING AND WAS YASSER ARAFAT POISONED
The furore surrounding Farouk Kaddoumi and the subsequent expulsion of al-Jazeera from the Occupied West Bank has caused controversy in the media. The heading of this posting has not been chosen lightly; there are unfortunately, a lot of unanswered questions. The most important one being, who would gain by the death of Yasser Arafat? Qui Bono ?
In the immortal words of the legendary Professor Ilan Pappe,...”the Oslo agreement , accorded the Palestinian people, a lot of salata (honours) but without sulta (authority).” The late 1980’s saw the appearance of Islamic movements in Palestine and Israel. The main entities were Shuahada al-Aqsa (the Martyrs of al-Aqsa) who were closely aligned with the Fatah movement and the Battalions of Izz al-Din al-Qassam, the preacher affiliated to the Hamas. Hamas and Islamic Jihad took root in the Occupied territories and in southern Lebanon. Political Islam was a fairly new term in those days, replacing Islamic Fundamentalism but explaining the same phenomenon. In general, the term is a scholarly attempt to assess the impact of religion on politics in the Arab world and beyond. Like all the other Islamists in the late 20th century, those in Palestine and Israel were anti-American and opposed to American brokered peace deals. It was the failure of the PLO that drove the people into the arms of political Islam. The Oslo accords were not for the benefit of the Palestinian people, more for the self-aggrandizement of Clinton who is still under the delusion that he offered a golden opportunity to Arafat.
The Israeli army uses yellow Caterpillar D9 bulldozers. They are ubiquitous in the Occupied Territories but the one that arrived in the city centre of Ramallah in early April 2002 caused quite a stir. This particular one aroused interest because it was heading directly for the Muqata compound, Arafat’s headquarters, after the Oslo accords. This particular D9 Caterpillar arrived at Arafat’s headquarters in tandem with an armed excavator, a gargantuan, behemoth of a bulldozer. This one was equipped with a customized augur, similar to a massive corkscrew that exposes the foundations of a building and demolishes it within minutes. After the demolition, Arafat was confined to a small corner of the remnants of the building and besieged for two years.
His health deteriorated during this time, probably due to food poisoning. His food would be handled by the numerous Israeli checkpoints adjacent and handled disrespectfully for want of better words. It was during this period that various Palestinian sources believe that their leader was poisoned by the Israelis. In October 2004, he was airlifted to France and hospitalised. He died in the beginning of November from what his doctors called “a mysterious disease.” He was buried on the 12th of November 2004, aged 75. Directly after his death, with the support of the Israelis, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) was appointed leader. Abbas lacked depth and understanding and did not have the experience that Arafat did. This enabled the Israelis to successfully splinter the solidarity of the Palestinian people and their movement for freedom and basic human rights. Why has the cause of death not been declared and the results of the autopsy made public?
Courtesy and acknowledgements to professor Ilan Pappe
A HISTORY OF MODERN PALESTINE
Pappe, I. Cambridge University Press,
second edition Cambridge 2006
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