Yasser Arafat: Am I Dead?

[Zhukov]

So apparantly he is seriously ill and may not have long to live. I've heard he's in a coma or clinicaly dead, and I've also heard he is perfectly fine. Whatever the situation is, it's clear his days are numbered.

He is disliked by many Palestinians for his role as a collaborator with the US and the Israeli state, and many blame him for not having stood up firmly enough to the continuing Israeli onslaught. But he is also seen as the embodiment of the Palestinian people's struggle for national liberation, and he gets mad respect and the like.

Arafat, however, has not prepared his own succession. Fatah’s various components have always been kept together by the figure of Arafat. The old guard within Fatah, people such as former and current Prime Ministers and the heads of the various security agencies, are not likely to form any viable collective leadership. There might be an internal power struggle of some sort - who knows. What will happen is the weakening of Fatah.

In the short term Hamas is going to be the winner in this process. It is going to play even more of a central role in the leadership of the Palestinian nationalist movement than it has done up till now. I would say Hamas is preparing to at least fill part of the gap that will be left by the departure of Arafat.

However, its gains will not last for ever. By being forced to play more of a central role, Hamas will also have to show what policies it stands for. Not only the fundamentalist line, but also as a reactionary force and a collaborator to imperialism. The limited narrow, nationalist outlook of Hamas will be exposed. This will give the genuine revolutionaries among the Palestinian population new opportunities to emerge and spread the ideas of the class struggle as opposed to ethnic conflict.

It will be like in Iran. The Islamic fundamentalists hijacked the revolution and then formed a new regime. Once in power the fundamentalists clamped down on the working class. Now the Iranian workers and youth are beginning to mobilise and this time it is against the fundamentalists. The same will happen among the Palestinians.