En følelse av uvirkelighet: Hilde Henriksen Waages analyse av Norges fredsrolle virker som etterpåklokskap med fasit i hånd, og en klar politisk preferanse, nå som palestinerne er svakere enn noensinne.

Den som husker fredsprosessen sitter igjen med et annet inntrykk: Diplomati er en kunst, og det sier seg selv at et lite land ikke kan bruke press. Det var det Norge den gang gjorde til et pluss; partene stolte på nordmennene. Det er noe usmakelig over måten Waage angriper Holst på.

Waages største mangel er ikke hennes sym- eller antipatier. Det er at hun synes helt blottet for forståelse for kulturen i Midtøsten. Når hun snakker er det om størrelser fra bøkenes verden: Det er ikke steinene, husene, menneskene som vekkes til live, men statsvitenskapelige sjablonger.

Det er langt herfra til den verden David Rieff beskriver i sitt essay i NYTimes magazine: En amerikansk jøde fra New York gir en god forståelse av hvorfor Yasser Arafat er så viktig. Han har vært Mr. Palestine, og er det langt på vei fortsatt. Ingen palestiner vil angripe ham siden han ble satt i husarrest, som det heter. Arafat beveger seg stadig mer i en fantasiverden, men det gjør også palestinerne. De er også gisler, som ikke kan bevege seg uten tillatelse fra Israel, som har 120 kontrollposter på Vestbredden.

Rieff velger å beskrive en atmosfære av håpløshet. Det kan ikke være bra heller for Israel hvis palestinerne føler at det ikke er noe håp. Nå har Sharon funnet ut at han vil handle på egen hånd. Gjerdet, Gaza, likvideringene: Palestinerne føler seg marginalisert.

Arafat er blitt stadig mer religiøs med årene, og ber mye. Men hans religiøsitet er mottakelig for mer spekulative ideer:

But in taking an interest in Gibson’s film, Arafat was at least reflecting Palestinian concerns. Less easy to explain is his apparent interest in a book called »The Bible Code» and its sequel, »Bible Code II,» which claim that contemporary political events were secretly predicted in code in the Pentateuch. Its author, a former Wall Street Journal reporter named Michael Drosnin, predicts the imminent destruction of humanity (and claims to have predicted the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin as well as the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11); he also asserts that the codes contained in the Bible must have been the work of a superior (read extraterrestrial) species. Arafat has received Drosnin at the Mukata — a cause for embarrassment even among his staunchest supporters.

Arafat’s isolation is such that it is hardly surprising if his touch has lost its deftness. As Mahdi Abdul Hadi, the head of Passia, the most important Palestinian policy group, describes the situation: »Our isolation has shaken people’s identities. Not just Arafat but every Palestinian is living in a prison. There are more than 120 Israeli checkpoints on the West Bank. The result is that every village, town and city is a kind of prison. And Arafat is old and tired, but he is still the glue that binds the Palestinian people together, the symbol of our national pride.»

Abdul Hadi is a fierce opponent of Arafat’s policies. During our meeting in his office in East Jerusalem, he delivered a sweeping attack on the policies of the Palestinian Authority and on Arafat’s manner of ruling. For him, the current situation of the Palestinian people was worse than the nakba — the catastrophe, as Palestinians call it, of 1948 and the establishment of the state of Israel. He was dismissive of Arafat’s ability to master the situation his people faced. »He’s old,» Abdul Hadi said, »he’s losing control, but he can’t accept the idea of leaving the stage gracefully or trying to become the Mandela of Palestine. He has always had a sensitive nose for survival. But I don’t think that nose is working now. Locked up in that compound, he’s become nostalgic — talking about the long-gone glory years in Beirut,» when the P.L.O. resisted the Israeli siege. »It’s like Nasser talking about his success in 1956 after the Egyptian defeat in 1967,» Abdul Hadi continued. »Arafat keeps saying to his intimates that it’s a matter of days before he’s released from the Mukata. But it won’t be.

And yet after delivering this rebuke and telling me that virtually the entire Palestinian leadership, from Arafat down, »has lost its legitimacy» and become little more than »a small bank that pays 120,000 civil servants,» Abdul Hadi pointed to his own kaffiyeh — the Palestinian head cover Arafat always wears in public — and said with immense passion in his voice: »I don’t want this symbol of the Palestinian national movement humiliated. To see that is to see all Palestinians humiliated.»

In contrast, what Palestinians can ever forget either the Israeli soldiers who control their movements or the settlers whose colonies have steadily expanded? Such amnesia is simply not an option, given the way Israeli actions on the West Bank circumscribe the Palestinian present. In their isolation, they may have a less and less clear idea of what is actually going on in Israel — a distortion I had not understood until, at lunch in Ramallah with some Palestinian notables, I found myself being asked about the curfew in Tel Aviv in the aftermath of Sheik Yassin’s death. When I told them there was no curfew in Tel Aviv and that, indeed, I left a crowded beachfront restaurant there at 1 in the morning and the place was packed with young couples lining up to get in, it was clear they were not sure whether to believe me. Palestinians, in a very important sense, are living in a dream world.

At some point the clock stopped and the dream became fixed. Perhaps this is why Palestinians can continue to revere Arafat the symbol even as they increasingly despair of Arafat the practical leader. Palestinians will talk all night about how much they disapprove of the way Arafat has run the Palestinian Authority and how they thirst for change. But whatever the criticisms of him, Arafat re2_kommentars for them the personification of Palestinian national aspirations. That may help answer the question posed by Ambassador Dennis Ross, President Clinton’s chief Middle East negotiator: »How is it that a man who is so admired as a symbol of the Palestinian cause is also so ridiculed?» The fact is that while Palestinians may joke that when Arafat comes out of his office in the Mukata and makes the V sign, he is actually saying, »I have two rooms left,» they continue to revere him. As Kadura Fares, a Fatah leader, noted: »Arafat is a hostage in the Mukata. And the Palestinian people respond to this because they are hostages, too.» Or as the Palestinian journalist Sufian Taha said: »After the siege of the Mukata, Arafat was placed outside the circle of criticism. And yet he was being criticized a lot before. So for me, Sharon turned out to be Arafat’s best campaign manager, whether intentionally or not.»

Arafat er blitt akterutseilt. Kravet om reform er ikke bare noe USA og Israel fant på for å ramme Arafat. Etter at han sa nei til tilbudet fra Ehud Barak i Taba sommeren 2001 på grunn av retten til right of return bl.a., har det gått nedover. Arafat gjør hva han alltid har gjort: lytter til lydene fra gaten og følger mengden.

Sufian Taha says he believes in what he calls Arafat the puppeteer. »Arafat,» he said, »always takes the pulse of the street. If the street is for it, he’s for it; if it’s against it, he’s against it.»

Some Palestinians are appalled by what they view as Arafat’s fundamental miscalculations as he finds himself confronted by these new American and Israeli intentions. For Ali Jarbawi, a professor at Bir Zeit University in Ramallah, the problem is that »Arafat is Arafat,» as he put it. »He hasn’t changed. Between 1994 and 1999, he was hailed as a peacemaker, got the Nobel Prize and was welcomed in the White House. Human rights abuses, corruption, all were tolerated because he was thought able to deliver. But when he didn’t deliver, he was out. Now things are stalled. Arafat thinks that’s O.K.; he thinks that if nothing moves, at some point the Israelis and the Americans will lift the siege. The reality is that for several years now they have been using his incarceration to create new facts and new perceptions. The Israelis say, ‘We’ve no partner,’ and they’ve made that idea stick in the eyes of the world. And Arafat has fallen into their trap. They must have known how he would respond. To him, he is Palestine walking on legs. He sees that he is being marginalized. He thinks he’s responding by saying nothing can move until I’m back. But he’s wrong. Meanwhile, the Israelis and the Americans are moving.»

Men så er det denne identifiseringen mellom folk og leder, som også røper noe av den samme svakhet ved folket:

Yet despite the severity of his critique, Jarbawi too re2_kommentars loyal to Arafat, after a fashion. »My dissatisfaction has to be modified by the fact of Arafat’s imprisonment,» Jarbawi told me. »It’s a matter of national integrity, a matter of simple logic. When you Americans say, ‘We don’t want Arafat,’ we Palestinians have to want him.»

Professor Sari Nusseibeh, en av forfatterne bak Geneve-fredsforslaget, gir det mest pessimistiske anslaget. Burde det ikke oppta oss? Hva betyr ellers empati med israelere og palestinere?

Sari Nusseibeh, president of Al Quds University and the architect, along with Ami Ayalon, of the first serious effort to mobilize grass-roots support on both sides for peace, says that Arafat himself is unconvinced there are any prospects for a peace settlement right now. »He’s just letting things fall apart,» Nusseibeh said. »It’s extraordinary in a way, a kind of suicide, political but perhaps even personal as well, or at least a kind of self-destruction.»

Arafat Among the Ruins
By DAVID RIEFF

Published: April 25, 2004