Arafat’s Skill as a Crafty Fox Is Inadequate to the Tasks of Nationhood : Palestinians: Their dream needs a Mandela, not a Castro, if it is to survive its embryonic state of acceptance by Israel.

Yasser Arafat has done it again. Just as the PLO was taking control over Jericho and the Gaza Strip from the withdrawing Israeli army, he urged, in a closed meeting in Johannesburg’s Great Mosque, a jihad, a “holy war,” for the liberation of Jerusalem. Although he later asserted that the “holy war” he had in mind was a peaceful one, the damage was done.

Arafat’s propensity for shooting himself in the foot--the jihad remark coming on the heels of his last-minute refusal to sign the self-rule agreement in Cairo; his siding with Saddam Hussein during the Kuwait crisis--casts serious doubts on whether he is the right person in the right place at the right time in Palestinian national history.

Tragically for Arafat, his vast popularity among Palestinians (at least until recently) has never been matched by real power. His authority has been consistently challenged by extremist elements, most notably the Hamas militant religious movement, which has come to represent roughly half of the Palestinians in the occupied territories; moreover, his grasp over the Palestine Liberation Organization itself has been far from complete. Having to tread a thin line among rival Palestinian factions has forced him to play the fox rather than the lion, manipulating and cajoling, pitting friend and foe against one another, seeking the lowest common denominator.

While these traits may have been useful, perhaps indispensable for keeping the PLO intact during its dark moments, they may prove counterproductive at this stage in Palestinian history. What is needed now is a leader who will make difficult and responsible decisions, even at the risk of temporary unpopularity, not an arch-manipulator tuning his antennae to the loudest noise; what is now needed is a down-to-earth leader who will not shun the less than glamorous aspects of nation- and state-building, rather than a high-profile jet-setter: a Nelson Mandela rather than a Fidel Castro, a healer and bridge-builder rather than a captive of anachronistic revolutionary exultations.

Whether Arafat can make this transformation is highly questionable. When a deranged Jewish settler killed Muslims at prayer in Hebron in February, Arafat quickly bowed to Palestinian popular rage and pulled out of the peace talks, despite the general indignation in Israel over the atrocity and the condolences and apologies of the Israeli government. Conversely, when Hamas carried out gruesome massacres of Israelis in Afula and Hadera, Arafat offered no unequivocal condemnation of these acts, in violation of his signed agreement with the Israeli government.

That Arafat is sensitive to the Palestinians’ popular mood is understandable; they are after all his constituency, and their well-being is his responsibility. What is not excusable is his catering to public whim. For all their horrendousness, the Hebron, Afula and Hadera massacres vindicate the historic choice made by Chairman Arafat and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin; if anything, they prove the indispensability of peace and the hopelessness in the perpetuation of the conflict. Flinching in the face of obstacles that are bound to litter the road to reconciliation between Arabs and Jews is an assured recipe for disaster.

Nor is Arafat’s complete insensitivity to Israeli public opinion likely to benefit his own people. He may score short-term points among them, but it is only Israel that can deliver the territories. If the Israeli public remains unconvinced of Arafat’s trustworthiness, no government will be able to deliver the painful concessions needed for the sake of peace.

Regrettably, this reality seems to have escaped Arafat. Unversed in the ways of democratic government, and mindless of the Israeli ethos, having demonized it through decades of bitter struggle, he seems not to have missed a single opportunity to alienate the Israeli public. Whatever he hoped to achieve by the bizarre episode in Cairo on May 4, 70% of Israelis polled the following day expressed severe doubts regarding the viability of peace with Arafat.

To everything there is a season. Certain leaders fulfill distinct functions at specific moments in their nations’ history. Winston Churchill was indispensable as a wartime leader, only to be rejected by the British electorate once the war was over. Chaim Weizmann was instrumental in laying the foundations of the Zionist movement but was reduced to playing second-fiddle by David Ben-Gurion, who, in turn, would lose the national leadership, despite his centrality in the establishment of the state of Israel.

The same could apply to Yasser Arafat. He has been instrumental in inducing the mainstream PLO to disavow its commitment to the destruction of Israel, bringing his people closer than ever to the realization of the national aspirations--if alongside rather than in place of the state of Israel. In this he has fulfilled a historic function in the life of the Palestinian people. Yet he may not be the most suitable person to carry this endeavor to its natural conclusion. This daunting task will probably be better shouldered by a new and more realistic generation of Palestinians, unburdened by vainglory and old thinking and better acquainted with both the daily needs of ordinary Palestinians and the intricacies of the Israeli democratic system. Arafat can then take the back seat as the grand old man of the evolving Palestinian statehood, a national figure outside and above the political squabbles. Remaining in the driver’s seat for too long can only end up in an accident.