The impressive funeral of Yasser Arafat in Ramallah was ample evidence of the late Palestinian leader's popularity, Khaled Amayreh reports from Ramallah The tumultuous "popular" funeral and burial of Yasser Arafat in Ramallah on 12 November stood in stark contrast to the stately processions the late Palestinian leader received in Paris and Cairo on the previous day. Arafat's farewell perhaps caricatured the complications and challenges facing the Palestinian people, now bereft by the death of the man who not only put the Palestinian people and its enduring plight on the world map but also served as a "safety valve" for and a guarantor of national unity. Arafat was often described as the adhesive that kept Fatah together. Fatah, the largest PLO faction, intact (and predominant), thanks to his political acumen, financial exploits, personal charisma and authoritarian mode of leadership. Now, with Arafat no longer around, Fatah would have to re-formulate itself to adapt to the new realities or else face the prospect of fragmentation and disintegration -- even ultimate demise. The present "care-taker" leaders of the Palestinian Authority and the PLO, most of whom are also Fatah leaders, realise that what worked during Arafat's era is unlikely to work in the new post-Arafat era. More to the point, they understand quite well that the "legitimacy" stemming from "affiliation with Arafat" will wear-out steadily. They know that they should garner support for a fresh legitimacy of their own -- one which they will have to earn by public approval and free and fair elections. At the moment, the old-guard of Fatah -- people like Hani Al-Hassan, Farouk Kaddoumi and Ahmed Qurei -- seem to favour former PA premier Mahmoud Abbas as Fatah candidate for the Palestinian presidency. However, it seems sufficiently clear that a decision to that effect will be more an expression of respect for Abbas's seniority. It will also be driven by a yearning to maintain stability and continuity. It does not reflect any major political currents within Fatah itself and certainly not in the wider popular Palestinian context. Abbas is rather unpopular in the occupied Palestinian territories and his candidacy for president of the PA might very well alienate, and even divide the rank and file of Fatah -- a horrendous prospect that leading Palestinian figures are trying desperately to avoid. Abbas, better known as Abu Mazen, drew angry reactions from a wide cross section of the Palestinian public in 2003 during his brief power struggle with Arafat, which ultimately brought his government to an abrupt and unceremonious end. More to the point, Abu Mazen's notorious so- called "Aqaba speech", which he made in the presence of United States President George W Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and in which he implicitly labelled as "terror" the legitimate Palestinian resistance against Israel. He even voiced willingness to recognise Israel as "a Jewish state", which was interpreted as an endorsement of Israel's discriminatory policies against its own ethnic Arab community which constitutes some 20 per cent of Israel's total population. Indeed, there are widespread concerns among Palestinians that Abu Mazen, if granted the democratic legitimacy he so craves, would cross the "national constants" and "red lines" and toe the US and Israeli line. Some Palestinian observers have stressed that the shooting inside the mourning tent in Gaza last Sunday was a warning to Abu Mazen not to expect Fatah to rally behind him as it did with Arafat. Abu Mazen, who does not have a "home-turf base" will have to seek the widest possible national consensus and that must include the militant Islamist movements -- especially Hamas. Abu Mazen, in order to gain popular acceptance, will also need to publicly denounce or at least distance himself from the so-called "Belin-Abu Mazen understanding" in which Abbas reportedly agreed to make the village of Abu Dis outside Jerusalem the capital of a future Palestinian state. One prominent Fatah leader put it succinctly: he said that any future Palestinian leader would be expected to "at least" not retreat from the ruling issued earlier this year by the International Court of Justice at The Hague which ruled that the entirety of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip were occupied territories. It is possible that Fatah, especially the movement's rank and file, might choose to nominate a less experienced but more popular figure such as Marwan Al-Barghouti, the imprisoned secretary-general of Fatah. However, Al-Barghouti is spending five consecutive life-term sentences for leading the resistance against Israel, and the government of Ariel Sharon is unlikely to agree to set him free unless it comes under intense international and American pressure. The Sharon government might also be persuaded that Al-Barghouti's release will serve Israeli interests. Still, many Palestinians believe that whoever the next Palestinian leader is going to be will not dare compromise on the cardinal issues such as Jerusalem, the refugees as well as the inviolability of the 1967 borders. Radical change is expected to take place in Palestinian politics in the aftermath of Arafat's passing. During his life, Arafat was both head of the PLO, president of the PA, leader of Fatah and commander-in-chief of the Palestinian Security Forces. He held all the reins, took all the major political decisions, and controlled funding. Now, no single Palestinian leader, elected or otherwise, could assume all these responsibilities or wield such powers. Indeed, the new PA leader will have to be answerable to the new Palestinian legislative council which most likely will be truly independent and, more significantly, accountable only to the wider Palestinian public. Moreover, the prospect of Hamas participating in the upcoming legislative elections will consolidate the council's independence and power. Consequently, Hamas will enable the council to effectively rein in the PA president and prime minister whenever deemed necessary. It is true that there are "certain fears" that the weakening of the office of the prime minister or the president vis-�-vis a stronger legislative council might be a bad omen for the peace process. However, it is also true that a peace settlement endorsed and approved by truly representative Palestinian institutions will have a better chance to be durable and lead to a historical reconciliation in the region.
