Palestinians Look to
Future Without Arafat
Does Arafat’s death offer a
chance of peace for Middle East?
A day after Yasser Arafat was buried,
Palestinians began taking stock of a future without the man who led their fight for
independence, while Europe and the US look at ways to revive the stalled peace process.
In stark contrast to the dramatic outpouring
of emotion among the Palestinian people in Ramallah on Friday, Arafat’s successors
gathered solemnly for prayers on Saturday at the Muqata compound that had been a virtual
prison for the last years of the Palestinian leader’s life.
The newly appointed Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO) chairman Mahmud Abbas, Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and the caretaker
head of the Palestinian Authority Rawhi Fattuh gathered at Arafat’s marble tomb. They
were joined by the deceased leader’s nephew Nasser al-Qidwa and the Palestinian
representatives to the United Nations for the intimate morning prayer service marking the
end of the holy month of Ramadan.
After the ceremony, ordinary residents of
Ramallah filed past the burial site, reciting verses of the Koran and kneeling at the
grave of the only leader most of them had ever known, a man who championed their cause for
two generations.
Meanwhile the Palestinian leadership began
preparing for elections due to be held in two months time. Fattuh will serve as caretaker
head of the Palestinian Authority for 60 days, at which time presidential elections must
be held under Palestinian basic law.
Restoring the peace process
Many in the Middle East and the international
community are viewing the death of Arafat and the election of a new leader as an
opportunity to revive the stalled peace process.
On Friday, President George W. Bush promised
to rally the international community to the cause. "I believe we’ve got a great
chance to establish a Palestinian state. I would like to see it done in four years. I
think it is possible, " Bush said after a summit with British Prime Minister Tony
Blair.
Blair, who has been pushing his US colleague
to take a more active role in the peace process, said a Palestinian state must be nothing
less than a "proper democratic state" and the first step is to ensure that
elections take place.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who
has traveled frequently to the Middle East as a negotiator in the peace process, expressed
condolences for the loss of Arafat, but said it was time for the Palestinian people to
pull together and "find the strength to turn itself into a sovereign, independent and
democratic state, existing side-by-side in peace with its neighbor Israel."
"Everything must be done to ensure a
civil transfer of power. Elections must lead to the naming of a legitimate leader, who is
committed to the peace process," Fischer said in the name of the German government.
Legitimate representation
"I hope Europe and the United States
will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with us in order to carry out the presidential
elections," Palestinian Negotiations Minister Saeb Erakat told AFP newswires.
"If we can do that, the transition will be smooth and will take the Palestinians
towards democracy, pluralism and peace."
Unlike Arafat, the new head of the
Palestinian Authority must be recognized by Israel, he said. Since coming to power in
early 2001, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, with the support of Washington, had
boycotted Arafat, rejecting him as an unsuitable partner for peace talks.
"In the last four years, the obstacle to
peace was Sharon," Jibril Rajub, chief of security in the West Bank and Arafat’s
former security advisor, told AFP. But the entire international community also needs to
recognize and endorse the newly elected leader for the Palestinian people in order for the
peace process to succeed.
The United States, the European Union, Russia
and the United Nations — the so-called Middle East quartet — need to work
together with Israel and the Palestinians to make sure the roadmap to peace, which
foresees the creation of an independent Palestinian state, can be realized.
(Text Courtesy: Deutschland magazine,
Embassy of Germany) |
