Leaders Filling Arafat Vacuum

Palestinian officials moved swiftly Thursday to install an interim leadership, convey a sense of calm and make plans to bury their leader, as debate swirled over whether the death of Yasser Arafat would provide an opening for renewed Middle East peacemaking efforts.

The flag-draped casket of the 75-year-old Palestinian leader, who died early Thursday at a military hospital outside Paris of a still-undisclosed ailment, arrived in Cairo hours after a solemn ceremonial send-off at a French military airfield.

Arafat’s body was moved into overnight storage in a hospital on the grounds of a social club for military officers. Early today, dozens of dignitaries, including Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, King Abdullah II of Jordan and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, were expected to commemorate Arafat within the gated Galaa Club near the airport.

After a hasty ceremony, the Palestinian leader’s body was to be loaded into a horse-drawn carriage for the trip back to the airport, and then travel in a military aircraft to the West Bank for burial at the war-damaged compound in Ramallah where Arafat in effect spent the last 2 1/2 years under house arrest.

In symbolic fulfillment of Arafat’s desire to be buried in Jerusalem, the grave was to be lined with earth from Jerusalem’s Old City, home to the key religious spot known to Muslims as the Haram al Sharif, or “noble sanctuary,” and to Jews as the Temple Mount. Israel flatly rejected the idea of a burial on the grounds of the disputed site.

The funeral falls on the last Friday of Ramadan, the most attended prayer day of the Muslim holy month.

Israel wanted the burial postponed for a day because of fears that the combination of a religiously significant occasion and the farewell to the only leader Palestinians have ever known could prove volatile. But Muslim tradition -- like that of Judaism -- dictates that a body be buried as soon after death as possible, and in the end it was agreed to hold all the proceedings today.

Although Arafat had fallen ill about a month ago, and spent nearly two weeks lying gravely ill at the military hospital in France, Palestinians were still struggling to come to terms with his death. For many, the secrecy surrounding the cause of death made his loss harder to accept.

“I feel the future is scary. I feel we lost our source of security, of a secure future for us and for all Palestinians in diaspora,” said Manal Issa, a 33-year-old human rights worker in Ramallah, who visited Arafat’s compound Thursday with her husband and children. “It is frightening.”

Across the Arab world, Arafat’s death was met with expressions of grief and the hope that Palestinians will continue their fight for independence. Jordan and Egypt declared three days of mourning, and the region’s leaders made plans to attend today’s funeral.

But among many Arabs, there was a quiet sense that Arafat’s death has freed the region from a stubborn, anachronistic leader.

An exiled Arafat won Arab hearts with his relentless campaign to forge a Palestinian state, but he also upset many of his allies by supporting Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, overseeing a corrupt Palestinian government and failing to deliver the long-awaited state.

“He was a good fighter -- for a fight you need somebody as inflexible as he was,” said Khaled Batarfi, a columnist for the Saudi daily Arab News. “But in times of peace you need a diplomat, a man of integrity, a man of his word. And unfortunately he wasn’t any of that.”

In Tunisia, where an exiled Arafat made his home after being driven out of Lebanon, law professor Hicham Moussa called Arafat’s death “a service to the Palestinian cause.”

“No matter what I personally feel, the way forward [for the Palestinians] is negotiation,” Moussa said. “The Israelis and the Americans have been refusing to talk to him. Maybe with his disappearance things will start to move.”

As Palestinians mourned their leader, Israeli officials appeared to be trying hard to hew to a biblical injunction repeatedly cited by commentators Thursday: Rejoice not at the death of thine enemy.

“The Palestinian people’s mourning is not ours -- we cannot grieve for someone who killed us and spilled our blood,” said Ehud Olmert, a confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and a member of his Cabinet. “But we respect our mourning neighbors.... We are interested in seeing a leadership that will offer them a better future than Arafat did.”

Sharon, for decades Arafat’s implacable foe, spoke of the implications of the death without referring to the Palestinian leader by name.

“These events can serve as a historic turning point in the Middle East,” the 76-year-old Israeli leader said in a statement. “Israel

Sharon expressed hopes that “the new Palestinian leadership that will emerge will understand that progress in our relationship and the solution of problems depends first and foremost on their fighting terror.”

The Palestinian interim leadership, led by former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, is seen as made up mainly of moderates who might be inclined to seek an accommodation with Israel. Abbas, who was Arafat’s deputy in the Palestine Liberation Organization, assumed the group’s leadership within hours of Arafat’s death. Most day-to-day responsibilities for governing are held by the current Palestinian Authority prime minister, Ahmed Korei.

The Palestinians and Israel have spent the last four years locked in a bloody conflict that has claimed more than 4,000 lives, three-quarters of them Palestinians.

“I have argued that Arafat was the greatest obstruction to peace, and that a responsible leader would emerge after his demise,” said Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom. “We now put this to the test.”

Palestinians, however, made it clear that they had expectations of their own.

Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath urged that both sides begin adhering to the U.S.-backed peace plan known as the “road map,” which has withered over the last year.

In its place, Sharon has been pushing an initiative for Israel to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and four small settlements in the West Bank but maintain its claim to large Jewish settlement blocs elsewhere in the West Bank.

Arafat, who always jealously guarded his own authority, never named a successor, but Palestinian law provides for the speaker of parliament to serve as interim president of the governing Palestinian Authority for 60 days.

The post is held by a relative political neophyte named Rouhi Fatouh, who was sworn in Thursday as president in a brief ceremony at Arafat’s headquarters. However, Fatouh has little political base and is seen as unlikely to be an influential figure in any future leadership structure.

Not all those moving to the forefront are moderates. Exiled hard-liner Farouk Kaddoumi, who has remained outside the Palestinian territories because of his opposition to interim peace accords with Israel a decade ago, was named as the head of Fatah, the dominant Palestinian political faction.

Kaddoumi, in Cairo, lost no time in unleashing a flurry of rhetoric typical of the early days of the Palestinian national movement.

“Resistance is the path to arriving at a political settlement,” he told the Lebanese television station Al Manar, which is operated by the Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah.

Both Israel and the new Palestinian leadership have a strong interest in staving off serious violence in coming days -- particularly in association with Arafat’s funeral.

Israel has sealed off the West Bank and Gaza Strip, though it says it will do all it can to accommodate those Palestinians wishing to attend the funeral in Ramallah.

Signs of mourning were evident everywhere in the Palestinian territories. Flags flew at half-staff at Arafat’s headquarters and posters of the late leader were plastered throughout towns and refugee camps.

Crude impromptu murals of his familiar grizzled visage and checkered kaffiyeh adorned brick walls and the sides of concrete-slab buildings, and Palestinian television broadcast Koranic verses throughout the day.

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King reported from Jerusalem and Stack from Cairo. Times staff writer Ken Ellingwood in Ramallah contributed to this report.

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Leading Palestinian figures

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Mahmoud Abbas, known as Abu Mazen. Considered a political moderate, has expressed opposition to armed attacks against Israelis. The first Palestinian Authority prime minister, from May to September 2003, he had a tempestuous relationship with Yasser Arafat. A founding member of Fatah, the main political faction within the PLO. Chosen to head the PLO after Arafat’s death.

Ahmed Korei, known as Abu Alaa. Has served as prime minister since succeeding Abbas in September 2003. A leading member of Fatah and an architect of the 1993 Oslo peace accords with Israel. Clashed with Arafat over Palestinian reforms, which the late leader resisted. Currently running day-to-day affairs and working in partnership with Abbas.

Marwan Barghouti, leader of Fatah in the West Bank. Serving multiple life terms in Israel in connection with attacks against Israelis, speaks fluent Hebrew learned in Israeli jails. Cultivated personal friendships with Israeli leftists. Very charismatic, with a large grass-roots following, seen by many Palestinians as the natural heir to Arafat.

Farouk Kaddoumi, elected head of Arafat’s Fatah faction. Considered a hard-liner, he remained in exile rather than return to the Palestinian territories with Arafat and other Palestinian leaders after the signing of the Oslo accords. Now says he supports negotiations with Israel, but with armed struggle as an option should they fail.

Mohammed Dahlan, former head of security in the Gaza Strip who retains a strong power base there. A onetime protege of Arafat who had a serious falling-out with the late leader. Considered the only Fatah figure in Gaza capable of taking on militant groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. A favorite of the U.S. during the period of negotiations that lasted through much of the 1990s.

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Source: Times staff reports

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Los Angeles Times