Analysis / Screen test for Arafat
By Danny Rubinstein
Yasser Arafat does not give conventional interviews. In his infinite meetings with the press over the many decades, there has never been an orderly discussion of question and answer. He always quarrels, argues and gets angry. He usually also smiles and jokes.
In his interview with Channel One's Oded Granot on Friday night, he was just angry.
The diplomatic message was clear and well-known: he and the Palestinian Authority are in complete control on the ground; they are committed to a cease-fire and arresting wanted Palestinians; U.S. policy helps Israel, and he is extending a hand in peace to Israel.
Arafat's statements always contain odd and embarrassing sections. So, too, this time.
The first part of the interview focused on the October assassination of Israel's right-wing tourism minister Rehavam Ze'evi (a confused Arafat initially referred to him as Ha'aretz veteran military analyst Ze'ev Schiff). It is a known fact that Israel apprehended two of the collaborators in the murder, but two others, including the one who pulled the trigger, escaped and are in hiding, while Arafat's men arrested members of their families.
"You want to go and visit them in jail so that they'll tell you who they collaborated with?" Arafat asked Granot with defiance. The hint was obvious: There was some sort of Israeli conspiracy in the Ze'evi assassination. Arafat and his men have spoken nonsense a couple of times in recent weeks, and this time was no different.
Arafat has also made similar comments after other attacks that angered him. He believes that there was some Israeli plot involved in the Beit Lid attack in 1995 in which a suicide bomber killed 22 soldiers, and that the Israeli mafia played a part in one of the 1999 attacks on the coastal city of Netanya.
There is no arguing with the man. Another embarrassing segment was when Arafat lambasted the media, and hinted heavily at Israeli, and moreover Jewish, control of the international media. Just as Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev uttered that immortal line "some of my best friends are Jewish" upon his first visit to the United States, totally unaware of the anti-Semitic implications of those seven words, Arafat, too, is unaware of the anti-Semitic undertones of his hints that the Jews control the global media.
Arafat also does not come off as a great democrat. When Oded Granot commented that there had been no clear order on his part to stop the shooting, Arafat exploded: Bring me whoever told you that, and I'll throw him in prison. After failing to apprehended Rehavam Ze'evi's assailants, he boasted to British Prime Minister Tony Blair that he had in the meantime arrested their brothers. The prime minister of the birthplace of the parliamentary democracy was clearly embarrassed. Though Arafat has little to be ashamed of compared to the Israeli security services, which also arrest the families of terrorists.
Arafat was, as is his way, very theatrical, raising arms and calling, "O! Salam [Peace]!" or when he got angry, "Am I bin-Laden?" And as always, the aides who constantly surround him whispered in his ears, helping him find the fitting word and reminding him of things that may have slipped his mind, such as "extending a hand to peace."
But on one central and important matter, we Israelis should believe him. He said in the interview that, "the harsh attacks are not just against Israel, but also against the Palestinian people." And indeed, the bloody conflicts have cause enormous damage to Arafat and the Palestinians, and there is no reason whatsoever to believe that this pleases Arafat. |
