RAMALLAH, West Bank, 29 October 2004 — If Yasser Arafat goes, will there be chaos for Palestinians?
That was what worried many of them yesterday as word spread the iconic helmsman of their struggle for nationhood was seriously ill, suffering spells of unconsciousness and delirium. The rush to get doctors to Arafat’s compound in the Israeli-ringed city of Ramallah, and news that Arafat’s wife was headed back from France after years apart, fueled rumors that the 75-year-old president’s old survival skills might fail him.
Beyond emotional concern for the health of the man known to many as “Abu Ammar”, ordinary Palestinians dread what might follow a leader who has never groomed a successor and who neutralized anyone who tried to forge a broad power base.
“Abu Ammar is not just a symbol, he is the head of the whole Palestinian household. I’m afraid if he dies, there will be no authority. It will be a catastrophe for our people,” said Jawad Juda, 50, a Ramallah shoe merchant.
“I think it will be a disaster. We will fight each other, and the Israelis will just sit back and watch,” said Abu Salem, 30, who was selling CDs in Ramallah’s teeming market center. Palestinians point to outbreaks of fighting between security force factions in Gaza as a harbinger of life after Arafat.
Two weeks ago, a Gaza security commander — who is Arafat’s cousin and said by foes to be part of a corrupt elite — survived a car bombing against his convoy. At other times, rival security men have waged street battles and abducted opponents.
A decade ago, Arafat came home to popular acclaim in the West Bank and Gaza after interim peace accords that gave Palestinians some self-rule on land Israel captured in war.
But statehood negotiations foundered in 2000. A Palestinian uprising erupted. Israel contained it and isolated Arafat.
Now, saying it has no negotiating partner, Israel has a unilateral plan to leave Gaza and keep much of the West Bank, shutting off Palestinians in both areas behind fences and walls.
Most Palestinians remain sentimentally loyal to Arafat but fret at his refusal to delegate power or to offer a way out of what seems to be a ruinous dead-end imposed by Israel. But they have also rebelled at US and Israeli efforts to bypass him and promote favorites to replace him.
“We are afraid of the political chaos in store here if a successor is appointed and proves just a weak front for America and Israel,” said Mohammed Abdel-Aziz, 30, a Gaza City teacher. “I am afraid that Palestinians will be saddled with a new leader like Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan or Iyad Allawi in Iraq who will be an appointee of America,” said Juda in Ramallah.
“Who can replace Abu Ammar? I see no one capable. God willing he will recover,” said Um Majed, a Gaza mother.
Among the throngs awaiting news on Arafat in his Ramallah compound was a young woman wearing a chequered headdress that is his trademark. Seated on the ground with her back to rubble left by Israeli raids, she was reading prayers for him from a Qu’ran.
