Mohamed Sid-Ahmed argues that false premises can adversely affect whatever positive results were achieved in the Sharm El-Sheikh summit The late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was given a send-off rarely accorded to any world leader, his passing marked by no less than three funerals, one in Paris, another in Cairo and the third in Ramallah, where he was buried amid an outpouring of genuine grief by his people. And yet this was not followed up by a serious investigation into the cause of his sudden death, no coroner's report to still rumours that he had been poisoned. Although I am as a rule wary of conspiracy theories, the way Arafat died and the news blackout surrounding his death lend credence to the poison scenario. It becomes even more plausible in the light of the dramatic developments we are seeing in the post- Arafat era, which are changing the map of alignments and confrontations in the region. For the first time since he was elected prime minister, Sharon has come to Egypt, the first time he meets with Egypt's president on Egyptian soil. Significantly, Arafat's name was not mentioned once at the Sharm El Sheikh summit, which introduced a whole new political equation in the Middle East. The main contradiction that characterised the Arab-Israeli conflict before Arafat's demise was the one between Palestinians and Israelis. With his passing, the main contradiction is now between the PLO and the Israeli government on one side, and "rejectionist" forces in both camps who oppose their common plan to reach a settlement on the other. The contradiction has moved from being a "horizontal" one between the two protagonists of the Arab-Israeli conflict to a "vertical" one between the proponents of a settlement and its opponents, between those for a peace process on the one hand and those against it on the other. In the last few years, the Bush administration and the Sharon government sought to portray the main contradiction in the Arab-Israeli conflict as one between Arafat and his closest collaborators, notably Abu Mazen and Ahmed Qurei. In defiance of all logic, we were expected to believe that Arafat's differences with his top lieutenants ran deeper than his differences with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, or, on the other side of the confrontation line, than the differences between Sharon and Peres, say, or between Sharon and Netanyahu. The fact is that the alleged contradictions between Arafat and members of his inner circle, if any, were grossly exaggerated. Such differences as did exist were blown up out of all proportion in an insidious attempt to sow dissension within Palestinian ranks. The Arafat with whom Bush and Sharon wanted to deal, more precisely, with whom they did not want to deal, was not the real Arafat, but a demonised version to whom they attributed traits and characteristics that best served their objectives. Arafat always tried to keep channels of communication open with all the Palestinian factions and to avoid friction whenever possible. While remaining at the head of Fateh, he wanted to be seen as a father figure by all factions, which entailed not showing any favouritism or siding with some at the expense of others. His attitude earned him the wrath of Sharon, who accused him of being the main architect of terrorism in the region and, as such, not a worthy partner in any peace process. As far as both Bush and Sharon were concerned, the Palestinian issue was to be addressed independently from Arafat, and whenever possible, in a manner that negated his status as the only viable interlocutor. From the moment Sharon came to power, his aim was to circumvent Arafat and deal directly with other Palestinian leaders he believed would be more amenable to a peace deal on Israel's terms. The aim was to isolate Arafat, even to liquidate him. Sharon made no secret of his personal dislike for Arafat, whom he described as the Bin Laden of the Middle East. In his first days in office, Bush opposed Sharon's line but was soon won over, and neither man ever met with Arafat, the duly elected representative of the Palestinian people. While I do not share the view that conspiracies are the main driving force of events, there is no denying that conspiracies do exist and that sometimes they are at the heart of key developments. A case in point is the plot hatched at the meeting held in Sevres, France, in 1956 between Anthony Eden, Guy Mollet and David Ben Gurion to attack Egypt in retaliation for Nasser's nationalisation of the Suez Canal. While conspiracies remain the exception not the rule, it is interesting to speculate whether the exception applied in the case of Arafat's death. Was he the victim of premeditated murder? Was he given an untraceable poison to which his French doctors had no antidote? After all, this would not be the first time poison was used to dispose of a troublesome political enemy, most recently on Hamas leader Khaled Mishaal and Ukrainian President Yushenko. The breakdown of the peace process was blamed entirely on Arafat, whose "intransigence" was "support for terrorism" and made him an unsurmountable obstacle to peace. On the other hand, his prime minister was a man the Israelis and the Americans felt they could do business with. To that end he was absolved of all blame and held up as a viable alternative to Arafat. The exculpation of Abu Mazen was based on the assumption that his line was the very opposite of Arafat's. The idea behind praising Abu Mazen while condemning Arafat was to draw the former into a tacit alliance with Bush and Sharon against Arafat and the terrorists they accused him of aiding and abetting. And so the groundwork was laid for the gradual political isolation of the Palestinian leader and eventually even for his physical elimination. Sharon has never shied away from killing Palestinian activists and there is no reason to suppose that he had any qualms about doing away with Arafat. Indeed, he frequently threatened to do just that and it is entirely possible that he felt the time was ripe to make good on his threat. This would explain why Israel was the first to announce that Arafat was suffering from a mysterious illness, news that the Arab capitals first denied but were forced to admit the following day. Whether Arafat died a natural death or was assassinated may never be known. But what is certain is that the circumstances surrounding his death are extremely suspicious. It is strange, for example, that the team of highly specialised doctors who attended Arafat on his death bed were unable to diagnose what he was suffering from. After his death, no autopsy was performed to ascertain the cause of death. And last but not least, the investigation was closed with unseemly haste. One is left with the distinct impression that his death was met with a collective sigh of relief by many of the players in the region, albeit for different, sometimes conflicting, reasons. But a solid superstructure cannot be built on a rotten infrastructure. What the war in Iraq and the Palestinian-Israeli peace process have in common is that both are based on false assumptions: the former that the Saddam regime possessed weapons of mass destruction, the latter that the main contradiction in the Arab-Israeli conflict was between Arafat and his closest collaborators. Clinging to such false assumptions can adversely affect whatever positive results were achieved in Sharm El Sheikh.
