RAMALLAH: On Sunday, Palestinians marked the eighth anniversary of the late Palestinian Liberation Organization President Yasser Arafat's death. Several commemorations are scheduled in cities and villages across the West Bank. As the Second Palestinian Intifada waned on, the 75-year-old Arafat was initially misdiagnosed with the flu in late October 2004. However, his health continued to decline. After being visited by doctors from across the Arab region, he was eventually flown to France for further treatment. His condition rapidly worsened, until he fell into a coma on November 3. On November 11th, Arafat was pronounced dead by a French medical team. The official cause was deemed a massive hemorrhagic cerebrovascular accident. His body was flown back to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where he was buried in Ramallah after Israel denied his lifelong wish to be buried near the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Though Israel officially claimed that placing Arafat's tomb in Jerusalem would cause security problems, then Israeli Justice Minister Yosef Lapid stated, “Jerusalem is the city where Jewish kings are buried and not Arab terrorists." Numerous theories about the cause of Arafat's death soon alighted, the most prominent being that the Israelis poisoned him. An Israeli doctor claimed that Arafat's illness and the conditions of his death were consistent with AIDS, but it was dismissed by the Institution of Radiation Physics and the New York Times. In July, Al-Jazeera reported that a nine month investigation at the Institution of Radiation Physics at the University of Laussane in Switzerland found abnormally high quantities of polonium on his personal belongings. In response, Palestinians have called for an investigation into the possibility that he was poisoned. Until now, Arafat's legacy remains subjected to extremely polarized narratives. Many Jewish Israelis view him as an unashamed terrorist and hold him personally responsible for the violence of the Second Intifada. “Everything he stood for was disgusting," Greg, a history student at Tel Aviv University, told BikyaMasr.com. However, Palestinian-American historian Rashid Khalidi notes that “most of [the violence] was perpetrated by his most deadly political rivals in Hamas and Islamic Jihad." Other critics accuse Arafat of financial corruption, noting that his lavish lifestyle was financed by foreign donors while refugees toiled in miserable conditions in UN camps just a few kilometers from his office. Nonetheless, most Palestinians view him as the first defendant of their cause and a symbol of their long struggle for independence and self-determination. “He was the father of Palestinians," said Fadi, a recent graduate. “He was the first true leader of all Palestinians, and he alone deserves that title." “Our leaders today aren't the same, aren't as good," he added, alluding to President Mahmoud Abbas and his rival party Hamas, presently ruling in the Gaza Strip. Paintings, pictures, and posters of Arafat still line the walls of cities, villages, and refugee camps across the West Bank. On the separation wall near the Qalandia checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah, an immense painting of a keffiyeh-cloaked Arafat stretches from the bottom of the wall to the very top. Even many Palestinians who are not members or supporters of the late Arafat's Fatah party reflect on him warmly. “Abu Ammar [Arafat] was a respectful leader of the Palestinian people," began Ghadeer, a 26-year-old from a village outside of Ramallah. “Regardless of whether we disagree strongly about some of his choices, we all look up to him and deeply respect him as a leader. He sacrificed almost every moment of his life for our cause—he was more than a leader; he was the father of each and every Palestinian." The anniversary of Arafat's death comes at a particularly tense time for Israeli-Palestinian relations, as Israel threatens to block all Palestinian funding in response to PA President Mahmoud Abbas efforts to upgrade Palestine to an observer state in the United Nations General Assembly, and as fighting between armed Palestinians and Israel escalates in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian public employees union suspended work on Sunday and called on all public sector workers to instead attend a festival in Arafat's honor at the Palestinian Technical College for Girls. A large commemoration to celebrate Arafat's life was postponed due to heavy raining in Ramallah and has yet to be rescheduled.
