By Lubna Abdel-Aziz For half a century his name was synonymous with Palestine. It evoked visions of the eternal struggle of the oppressed, the down-trodden, the persecuted, and those who never yield or surrender. As long as he was alive Palestine was alive. To him Palestine was never lost, only out of reach. "We shall overcome" was the phrase that defined the black civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. "We shall return" was the phrase that defined the leader of Palestine, Yasser Arafat. How and why, more than any other, did Yasser Arafat become so clearly associated for decades with the plight of the powerless people of Palestine? He was not even born there! His birth certificate states Mohamed Abdel-Raouf Arafat Al- Kadwa Al-Husseini, born in Cairo of Palestinian heritage on 24 August 1929, but he always insisted he was born in Jerusalem 20 days earlier. Arafat's childhood was divided between Cairo and Jerusalem. At age five he went to live with his uncle in Jerusalem following his mother's death. Jerusalem, the capital of Palestine was under British rule. Yasser, as he was called by his mother, often remembered vividly the night the British soldiers barged into his uncle's home, smashed the furniture and cruelly beat all the members of his family. The nine year-old boy was brought back to Cairo to live with an older sister. He entered Cairo University, but spent all his time fighting for the cause. The 19 year-old became a tireless national activist, smuggling arms and recruiting volunteers and freedom-fighters to fight the British and Jewish occupation of his homeland. Forever constant and steadfast, the dream of regaining Palestine was already taking shape. In 1956 he managed to graduate with a degree in engineering and relocated in Kuwait where he established his own contracting firm. But all his resources, his money, his time, his waking hours were spent in working diligently to free Palestine for the Palestinians. In 1958, while in Kuwait, he founded his underground network of "Fatah". In 1964 Arafat moved from Kuwait to Jordan where he developed his "Palestine Liberation Organisation" and established a state within a state, with its own military force. He was free to move around but his heart and soul were always enchained and captive in a land called Palestine. This land of Palestine goes back to the Palaeolithic age where human remains were discovered by Lake Tabariya c.a. 600,000 BC. Prehistoric man probably lived there for over 100,000 years. With the arrival of the early Bronze Age 3,000 - 2,000 BC several ancient peoples settled there like the Amorites and the Canaanites. It became known as the land of Canaan. In 1900 BC a Semitic people called Hebrews or Israelites left Mesopotamia and settled in Canaan. Some journeyed to Egypt but in 1200 BC Moses led them out of Egypt to Canaan. While others worshipped many gods the Hebrews were alone in practising the religion of one God. About 1020 BC, tired of constant wars against each other, the 12 tribes of Israelites united under one king, Saul, and formed the United Kingdom of Israel. King David established Jerusalem as their capital and his son King Solomon built the first temple there for the worship of God. Upon his death the tribes were again divided. The North continued to be called Israel, the South, Judah. Jerusalem became the capital of Judah and to this day, the name ascribed to all Hebrews -- Jews -- comes from Judah. The Assyrians who lived in what is now Iraq conquered Israel in 700 BC. In the sixth century BC the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar took control of the Assyrian Empire, conquered Judah in 586 BC and destroyed Solomon's temple in Jerusalem. Fifty years later Cyrus, king of Persia conquered Babylonia and gave the Jews more freedom, allowing them to rebuild their temple and resettle in Jerusalem. The Persain rule lasted 200 years until the arrival of Alexander the Great who was followed by the Seleucid Dynasty. When the Romans invaded Judah in 63 BC it became Judea, part of the Roman Empire. The Roman Emperor Titus destroyed their second temple in 70 BC. Jesus was born during the early years of Roman rule. Conflict with the Romans, forced the Jews to flee from Palestine. For the next 500 years Palestine remained part of the Roman Empire and in time Christianity spread throughout the area. In 600 AD the Arabs swept across the Arabian peninsula, conquered Palestine and spread Islam and Arab culture. Christian crusaders came from Europe to regain the birthplace of their religion, and establish the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1099. Salahuddin Al-Ayoubi of Kurdestan took control of Jerusalem in 1187. The Mamelukes succeeded the Ayoubis until Palestine came under Ottoman rule. It was inhabited predominantly by Arabs since 1250. By the 1800s the European nations gained political and economic influence over much of the Ottoman Empire. Oppression of the Jews in Eastern Europe, started a mass of illegal emigration to Palestine between 1878 to 1903. They came and they came and they kept coming. They formed a movement called "Zionism" which sought to make Palestine a Jewish state. Help came from everywhere. In 1882, French Baron E de Rothschild financially backed the Zionist activities, and in 1896 Theodore Hertzel, an Austro-Hungarian journalist, published Der Judenstaat, advocating the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. The process of mass immigration of Jews into Palestine had started with the express intent of establishing the Jewish state of Israel on Palestinian land. After WWI Great Britain and some of the allies planned to divide the Ottoman Empire among themselves. In 1917 the Balfour declaration supported the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. By the end of WWI British forces occupied the area. Emboldened by the support of Britain and the League of Nations, the Jews systematically expelled Palestinian farmers from their land in favour of Zionist immigrants. Relentless clashes began between the Haganah, a Zionist terrorist organisation, and the Palestinians, 119 Palestinians were killed. And so it went and so it goes. The more things change the more they stay the same. The position of the Zionists was that they came to reclaim their ancestral homeland. The world sided with them following their ordeal during WWII, while totally disregarding the rights of the indigenous Palestinians. So far the world has been unable to right this wrong. Like a cat, they said, he had nine lives. He miraculously escaped repeated attempts at abductions and/or assassinations, accidents and disease. Fortune always seems to favour the brave. People thought that like the eternal flame he would never die and his light would burn brightly forever. But while you can stop a man's life, you can never stop his death. Death waits for no man. Small and fragile, his diminutive figure possessed a heart bigger than a mammoth, braver than a lion. Perhaps no other figure in recent history has been the object of such controversy, but love him or hate him he remains the father figure of all Palestinians. To some he is viewed as a terrorist, to the rest of the world he is the ultimate freedom fighter. To his people he is the chairman, the champion, the leader, the hero. Heroism is based purely on emotion. It seldom uses reason. Without reason opportunities were missed through the course of his struggle. Thus the Palestinians remain displaced -- a people without a homeland. At death's door they bicker over where he should be buried. It matters little where heroes are buried. Most die on foreign soil in some forsaken field of dreams. It was never his body, but his dauntless undying spirit that spurred him on. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Thus thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882) Bury his body where you will, his soul has always been alive and well, in a land called Palestine!
