No Resting in Peace for Arafat

The stench of fish and rotting vegetables floats into Yasser Arafat’s family burial plot in this forlorn corner of the Gaza Strip. Discarded soda bottles and plastic bags are trapped in the overgrown weeds. Flies swarm over the sandy tombstones.

This hardly seems the appropriate resting place for a man so many Palestinians regard as the symbol of their independence struggle. But a more desirable gravesite in Jerusalem has been ruled out by the Israelis.

The debate over where Arafat should be interred -- one that is raging even before his death -- encompasses some of the hotly contested issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It involves claims to the holy city of Jerusalem. It includes the complicated logistics needed to stage a state funeral for a leader who does not have a state: Scores of dignitaries would have to be transported through Israeli military checkpoints into occupied land where an uprising rages.

Arafat’s desire was to be buried in Jerusalem, preferably on the revered site of the Al Aqsa mosque, in the shadow of the golden Dome of the Rock, said Ikrema Sabri, the mufti of Jerusalem. The plateau on the edge of Jerusalem’s Old City is known to the Jews as Temple Mount, and is the holiest site in Judaism.

Palestinians claim eastern Jerusalem, including the Old City, as the capital of a future state. Jews claim all of Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel. The Israeli government fears allowing the Palestinians to bury Arafat in Jerusalem gives them a foothold to pursue their claim.

Placing the body of the Palestinian Authority president in the vicinity of the Temple Mount would outrage many Jews. Jerusalem, as one Israeli Cabinet minister put it, is for burying “Jewish kings, not Arab terrorists.”

The Israeli prohibition would seem to rule out the eastern suburb of Abu Dis, a historically Arab village mentioned by some Palestinians as an alternative because of its proximity to Jerusalem. A view of the Dome of the Rock was once possible from Abu Dis, but the village now lies behind the lumbering concrete wall that Israel is building to fend off Palestinian attacks.

And so Israel is supporting the idea of sending Arafat to his final repose in Gaza.

One option is the Khan Yunis cemetery where Arafat’s father and a sister are buried. A visit there Monday shows it a difficult place to hold a state funeral.

The small, private cemetery is flanked on one side by an open-air food market and, on the other, by a shantytown of low-slung buildings whose tin roofs are held in place by stacks of concrete blocks.

It is separated by a narrow road from the main cemetery and is a short distance from a parking lot where taxis blare their horns incessantly. The only entrance to the cemetery is a narrow metal door, dented and painted gray.

Arafat’s beloved sister Inam was buried here in 1999, under a flat, white-stone tomb, and next to her is the grave presumed to be that of their father, Abdel Raouf. It is unmarked, not an uncommon practice among older Palestinians, but bears the same wilted purple flowers as Inam’s tomb.

“It’s illogical to bring [Arafat] here,” said caretaker Hamid Barbakh. “There’s a fish market there. It’s dirty and it smells. The vegetable hawkers put their stalls right up next to the entrance. Day and night they’re there. They won’t move.”

“There’s no room, look!” said policeman Hamid Qidra, 33, pointing at the 30 or so graves crowding the cemetery. He said a large funeral would be utter chaos, remembering how Arafat’s annual visits to his relatives’ burial sites triggered mayhem, with youths climbing trees and walls to catch a glimpse.

The cemetery belongs to three of Khan Yunis’ oldest families. The Agha family was related by marriage to Arafat’s father, which is how he ended up here.

Mohammed Batta, the head of another of the owning families, recalls the elder Arafat, a simple man who frequently stopped by for tea. Batta, 75, in a gold-trimmed robe and snow-white kaffiyeh, said he would be proud to bury the older man’s son in his cemetery.

“Somebody like Yasser Arafat, a symbol for all Palestine, is most welcome,” he said.

But he acknowledged that the plot was very small, and the impoverished city -- one of the most conservative in the volatile Gaza Strip -- would have difficulties accommodating dignitaries and reporters. There’s only one hotel, for example, occupied by the Red Crescent.

Another option is to bury Arafat in Gaza City, where his family owns another plot. A second sister, Yusra, is buried in a walled-off corner of the larger Sheik Radwan cemetery, where top leaders of the radical Islamic movement Hamas, assassinated by Israel during the last year, are also interred.

Access to this site is much improved over Khan Yunis, though still problematic. Goats scampered through the cemetery when a reporter visited this week.

Arafat could be buried in a more elaborate site constructed specifically for the purpose in his presidential compound near Gaza’s seashore. Or, some senior Palestinian leaders may opt for Ramallah in the West Bank, rejecting Gaza on the grounds they find it offensive to accede to Israel’s wishes on such an emotional matter. A mausoleum inside the Muqata, for example, the compound where Arafat endured an Israeli siege for more than two years, could fit the bill.

Wherever Arafat ends up, all options pose formidable challenges and risks to the safety of those in attendance. Every site is a difficult destination for the number of mourners and the high-ranking official delegations likely to attend. Heads of state and government, some of whose nations don’t even recognize Israel, might be forced to pass through Israeli security checkpoints or travel through the rubble left by Israeli incursions.

The Israeli media reported Monday that the government would refuse to allow planes to land in the Gaza Strip, meaning transport by land is inevitable.

Yet another idea that has been floated is to hold the formal funeral in Cairo, Arafat’s birthplace and the nominal capital of the Arab world, and then perform a smaller burial within the Palestinian territories for Palestinians. Even with this scenario, Israeli police, who plan to go on high alert when his death is announced, anticipate widespread rioting, but believe the violence could be contained.

Amna Musallam, a mother of 11 shopping for potatoes at the market by the Khan Yunis cemetery, said the important thing was to bury Arafat anywhere within “Palestine.”

“We must bring him home, to be with us,” she said, before riding away on the back of a donkey-drawn cart.