The delegation’s appointment was arranged by Dr. Sami Mussalam, Arafat’s Chief of Staff in Jericho. A week after Israeli Prime Minister Sharon lifted the siege of Arafat’s “muqa’a’tah” or “district,” the delegation’s bus was able to drive directly into the compound and up to the front door of the sole remaining building in the Palestine Authority’s headquarters. Other buildings have been reduced to piles of rubble by Israeli bulldozers after two suicide attacks in Israel. A pile of wrecked and flattened cars, four to five layers deep, loomed directly across the courtyard from the entrance to Arafat’s building. In between, a small skip-loader and a half dozen laborers worked feverishly in a large hole. New reinforcement bars could be seen across the shattered façade of the other building facing the courtyard, an apparent part of reconstruction already underway.

Our delegation was greeted by a security official and watched by a dozen uniformed Palestinian police and security officers carrying weapons. We soon were ushered past a 20 foot pile of sandbags into the front door and up two flights of stairs to the rather drab rectangular conference room where Arafat awaited us. President Arafat sat humped over a writing table. To his right rose an 18” pile of papers. As we entered he was rapidly writing his signature or notes in red pen on correspondences and reports taken off the stack to his right and set to his left on the table. Arafat wore his black and white kufiyeh and olive green military uniform. Each breast pocket sported a small metal Palestinian flag pin. I noted an emergency oxygen tank and mask at each end of the room. Arafat looked frail. But he came alive and became more animated as we spoke. He addressed us in English, only occasionally turning to his press spokesman Nabil Abourdeineh, who sat to his right, when he was at a loss a word or needed a gentle prompt to recall a name or place.

After introductions and learning that we had visited Gaza Strip two days previously, President Arafat said his sister had just entered Gaza from the Egyptian border. It had taken her twelve hours to cover the 25 kilometers (15 miles) to Gaza City due to the Israeli’s military checkpoints. It was fitting that our conversation began with reference to so mundane a matter as travel time. We have seen that the lives of Palestinians are dominated by the 250 checkpoints now peppering the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The checkpoints come up in nearly every conversation. Arafat spoke of the horror of women in labor being stopped at checkpoints and losing their newborn children.

President Arafat gave a detailed analysis of the likely destabilizing consequences of a US war on Iraq. Touching on each country bordering Iraq, he predicted that overthrowing Saddam Hussein would result in Iraq breaking into three parts. The northern Kurdish dominated section would threaten Turkey and the former Soviet republics to the west and north. The Shiite south would impact Iran, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The remaining central section would destabilize Jordan and Syria. He said this prospect of vivisecting Iraq is why George Bush Sr. adamantly prohibited any country from pursuing Hussein in the Gulf War.

In response to various issues raised by the delegation, Arafat gave remarkably detailed accounts of his role in brokering agreements in the region to maintain the peace and prevent war, including Afghanistan and India/Pakistan. “I am concerned about what will happen from a war … it will be a big disturbance in the whole area: for the Kurds in the north and the Shiites from the south.” He emphasized that he was “speaking as an expert” and as the permanent Vice President of the Islamic Conference.

In response to a question about the setback in terms of US public and government opinion about the Palestinian cause as a result of the second or Al Aqsa Intifada, Arafat gave an equally detailed summary of his attempts to prevent the uprising. He described a meeting at the home of Ehud Barak at which he pleaded with the Israeli Prime Minister to not allow Arik Sharon to visit the “Haram el Sharif,” or the Temple Mount area in the Old City of Jerusalem. He said he had reminded Barak that on June 17,1967, Israeli General Moshe Dayan had ordered troops to remove the Israeli flag that had been placed in the Haram El Sharif after Israel conquered the Old City. He further ordered that no Jew was to visit the Haram el Sharif. “Why now is Sharon making this visit?,” Arafat pressed Barak, when he hadn’t done so under previous Israeli Prime Ministers.

When Sharon visited the Temple Mount two days later, “with large support from the Israeli army,” Palestinians rallied against his presence. Shots were fired during the Muslim prayers and 19 Palestinians were killed. As the violence spread, Barak immediately re-occupied all the areas which had been “liberated” on 28 September 2000. Arafat made it clear that he considered Sharon’s visit and Barak’s reoccupation of Palestinian territories to be part of a joint or coordinated plan. “The Palestinian lands had been liberated according to the ‘peace of the brave’ which had been negotiated with our pattern in peace Yitzhak Rabin.” Sharon’s provocation served as the pretext for Israel to reoccupy the same territories.

President Arafat said the Palestine National Authority (PNA) was prepared to proceed with elections, but that elections could not be held until Israel withdraws from these reoccupied territories. He said that training of Palestinian security personnel was already taking place in Jericho with Egyptian and Jordanian participation under US supervision.

In response to a comment about a strong perception in the US Congress that Arafat has not done all he can to stop suicide bombings, Arafat reminded us that “Hamas was established by the Israelis to compete with the Palestine Liberation Organization” during the first Intifada. He described a meeting with President Mubarak of Egypt, former King Hussein of Jordan, and former Israeli Prime Minister Rabin with Arafat at which Rabin acknowledged that Israel had created Hamas and allowed funding of the Islamic extremist movement in a futile effort to create an alternative to the PLO. Arafat’s assistant, Nabil Abourdeineh, for the first time separated himself from his role as occasional translator to comment, “It was the same with Ossama Bin Laden, created by the United States - the snake comes back to bite.” Just as Bin Laden had destroyed an agreement that he had brokered in Afghanistan, according to Arafat, “the suicide bombings done by these fanatics” had destroyed the peace process.

In response to our concern that the Palestinians were not effectively communicating their cause to the people of the US, President Arafat detailed efforts to increase and improve communications. It was clear from his response, however, that Arafat’s focus is communication between states (the PNA and the US government), rather than outreach to the US public being a priority.

Arafat commented, “We are not asking for the moon. We are only asking for the Tenet and Mitchell agreements to be implemented. Why doesn’t the United States force both of us [Israel and the PA] to enforce their agreement?”

Discussion continued twice as long as we had expected and included the Palestinian Right of Return. Given that 60-70% of the immigrants from the former Soviet Union are estimated to not be Jewish, “How do Muslim Russians have a right to come here, and how do Christian Russians have the right to come, while Palestinian Muslims do not have a right to come here?” He referenced agreements reached with President Clinton’s support to relocate 200,000 “displaced refugees” from the 1967 War from Lebanon to the West Bank or to provide them compensation. Rimon indicated to me that we really had to leave due to the imminent curfew. We excused ourselves, thanked Arafat for meeting with us, and stood. Arafat suggested a group photo and one of his aids took photos with cameras belonging to each member of our delegation as well as his own. As we filed out of the room, President Arafat grasped my left hand. I thanked him for our meeting and released his hand as I followed the rest of the delegation out the door. He continued to squeeze my hand. At the top of the stairs, I again thanked him and released my hand. He held tight and indicated he motioned for me to proceed downstairs. At the foot of the second flight of stairs and as we approached the door, uniformed guards with machine guns stomped their right foot and offered a crisp salute as President Arafat passed. We pushed past other members of the delegation who had been instructed to wait inside the door. Still clasping my left hand, Arafat moved me towards the door. We stepped into the night air - to be greeted by two dozen photographers and cameramen.

Arafat clasped my hand and greeted the crowd. He then kissed me on both cheeks and gave me a warm smile. Each delegation member in turn was similarly sent on their way down the stairs. During the hour-long bus ride back to Jerusalem, we debriefed our visit with Arafat. George observed that Arafat tended to look to the past rather than to the future and that he didn’t communicate a strong vision. Still, he evidenced a lot of commitment to the continuing struggle of the Palestinians. Michael noticed that throughout his comments Arafat never bashed either Sharon or Bush, even though we might have expected harsh words about them. Several commented that Arafat was very gracious toward us and that he demonstrated to us a very strong feeling of identity with and empathy for the Palestinian people. I was made aware how much easier it is to hate and demonize Arafat in the abstract than in person. I think we all were surprised to find him so personally engaging. Rimon remarked at the family style meeting that seemed more a discussion among friends than other gatherings he had observed.

As a delegation, we definitely enjoyed meeting President Arafat. As a result of our time together, we could more readily understand the way in which and the extent to which Arafat symbolizes the Palestinian movement for national self-determination.

Arafat may well be past his prime. The Palestinians definitely need a new generation of leadership. And it was difficult to know whether to credit his frail appearance to advancing age, his struggle with Parkinson’s disease, or the weeks that he has been interned and besieged within his Presidential Compound.

Nonetheless, when Bush and Sharon demand “regime change,” most Palestinians rally around Yasser Arafat as the embodiment of their struggle as a people to be counted among the world’s nations.

More News from the Delegation: Tuesday October 8:

Our mini-bus has yellow Jerusalem license plates, so we are able to traverse #60; Palestinians from the West Bank are prohibited from using driving on designated by-pass roads that enable Jewish Israelis to travel from within “the Green Line” to Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza without passing through Palestinian communities.

We stopped at Efrata, a large Jewish settlement on the hills stretching on a North-South axis paralleling Route 60 to the East. Efrata is large enough that it is a municipality. We met with a former member of the town council who said he was speaking as an individual and not as a spokesperson. He began with an account of his own journey, fulfilling a destiny interrupted when his grandfather fled Europe for Palestine in the 1920’s but left for the USA a year later after a bout with cholera. Moving to Israel and then to Efrata was a natural outgrowth of his Jewishness, “walking the talk as a Jew.” He and his American-born wife and their six children consider the town just another Jewish “community.” He said he resented our use of the words “settler” and “settlement” as pejorative terms comparable to calling someone “nigger.”

“It’s impossible for me to separate the historic ties to this piece of real estate - this is where I have to live.” “The problem is not at the local level but at the higher level. Every time the siege [of Palestinian communities by Israeli forces] was lifted, there are more suicide bombers and more deaths in Israel…. They’ve made it a situation of our lives or their lives. Very unfortunately, until this changes it will stay the same. We don’t have to allow them to kill us.” On the other hand, he sees coexistence with the Palestinians as entirely feasible - if not in the near term. “They’re not going any place, and we’re not going any place…. The majority of Israelis today would accept the creation of a Palestinian state alongside us - but not in the immediate future and not with the current corrupt regime. I hope our problem is not with the Palestinian people” but with the corrupt Arafat regime.

Back on our bus, we stopped several times to photograph the barricades of massive concrete blocks and piles of dirt and rubble used by the Israeli authorities to block every road off Highway 60 to the numerous villages and individual farms of Palestinians. We passed through several military check points before entering the “H-2” - the area of Hebron given to Israeli control by the Oslo Peace Process. Israel controls H-2 despite it being in the center of an Arab metropolitan area with 120,000 Palestinian inhabitants. Before the Al Aqsa Intifida, or “uprising,” that began in September of 2000, 2,000-2,500 Israeli soldiers provided protection for 200-400 Israeli Jewish settlers in the heart of the City. When the settlers want to walk to the Tomb of the Patriarchs on the Sabbath, the Arab neighborhoods are put under curfew (which means they are unable to exit their homes, look out their windows, stand on their balconies or be in their rear courtyards if they are fortunate enough to have one). Curfews are also imposed following any clash with the Palestinians as well as for all Jewish holidays. Locking 40,000 Palestinians in their homes for every Jewish holiday seems as sure a way of teaching anti-Jewish sentiment among the Palestinains as any textbooks they may be using.

Our delegation left our bus and stopped briefly at two small shops for snacks and beverages. We then walked through the deserted streets of Hebron to Shuhada Street. We went to Beit Hadassah, the Jewish settlement dating back to the 1970’s. At Beit Hadassah we visited the museum and memorial for Jewish residents of Hebron killed by Arabs during rioting in 1929. At that time the Jewish residents abandoned Hebron. Beit Hadassah and the other settlements are renewing the Jewish life in Hebron cut off at that date. The memorial includes photos of all the Jewish people who were killed and an account of the pogrom against them.

We were met by representatives of the Christian Peacemakers Team, a group of volunteers who provide accompaniment for the Palestinian residents of Hebron under Israeli occupation and human rights observations. They gave us a tour of the old vegetable market, first burned and then taken over by Jewish settlers. We photographed doors of Arab shopkeepers with graffiti (“Death to the Arabs,” “Arabs Out,” and “Revenge”) then went to their apartment for an orientation to the CPT program and the situation in Hebron.

A Palestinian called up to the CPT and told them that a car of Jewish settlers had been ambushed by Palestinians on the road to Yatta south of Hebron. Several settlers were badly wounded and perhaps killed, and we had best return to our bus as a curfew was to begin in a few minutes. The few Arabs still in business after two years of curfews were closing and securing their shops. We were also told about an incident where we had earlier sipped coffee and tea and soft drinks at the Arab shops in the area around the Tomb of the Patriarchs. Soon after the delegation left the storefront, a car with two Jewish women and their children pulled up and stopped. They jumped out and proceeded to pull over stands and knock over tables, breaking glasses and spreading merchandise across the sidewalk and into the street, apparently in revenge for the shooting several miles away in which the shopkeepers had no part. According to the shopkeepers and eyewitnesses, three Israeli soldiers standing nearby at a checkpoint, did not intervene to stop the vandalism.

When we returned to the shops on our way back to the bus, a dozen young boys in school uniforms were on their hands and knees gathering up the spilt merchandise and putting it back on tables and onto display racks.

When entering the market street earlier that day, a soldier had asked to have has picture taken with a woman in our delegation. I obliged and offered to send him a copy (he declined). I went up to him and asked how a soldier could just stand by as vigilantes rampaged through the two shops. He turned beet red and turned away in shame. A commanding officer nearby instructed him to walk away and not to talk with me. (In the next morning’s English-language version “Jerusalem Post,” we read that the soldiers had tried unsuccessfully to restrain the women. This report flies in the face of everything we heard from the shopkeepers and eyewitnesses.)

We left Hebron and returned north to Bethlehem.

Scott Kennedy
Delegation Leader