I had many way-after-midnight meetings with Yasser Arafat.
Indeed, Abu Ammar, or the Old Man, as his people call him, began his real work day at 2am. That is when he was at his best.
He would gather people at whim. What was supposed to be an interview frequently became a free-wheeling brain-storm with friends, dignitaries or visitors over what Abu Ammar dubbed as dinner, which to him was really breakfast.
In dozens of such sessions I shared in Tunis, Beirut or Amman, the consistent thing was a miserable fare. Everyone knew that if Abu Ammar said come to dinner what you got were boiled eggs, toasted bread and some honey. If he wanted to be kind, he would throw in some foul, or Egyptian Fava beans.
After I became familiar with this punishment, I made it a point to have a "real dinner'' at the house of my close friend and Arafat's super-confidant, Bassam Abu Sherif, who acted as my passport to Arafat's world. Bassam knew so he took pity on those who were to dine with Abu Ammar.
Usually, at about 9pm, Bassam would say something like "Guys, you are going to Abu Ammar's tonight. Let me order some real food for you.'' Then way after midnight we got into a procession of cars with bodyguards and the full midnight show at Abu Ammar's home-away-from-home, wherever.
Arafat knew that Bassam offered a different fare of stuffed lamb, oriental delicacies and fine wines. He did not mind, although he lived simply. He was never judgmental in this way.
Indeed, Abu Ammar always seemed oblivious to the quality of life around him. In Amman, Beirut, Gaza and Ramallah he lived sometimes as a king, often as a tracked man amidst ruins. Throughout it all he seemed perfectly adaptable as if the real environment he depended upon was somewhere within, not something around.
None of it mattered to him, even as many of his close aides and associates, including his own spouse Suha, lived in relative opulence. He wanted his wife and daughter to enjoy all the benefits of being spouse and daughter of an Arab head of state, but was personally content sharing with fellow Palestinians the harshness of Israeli occupation which reduced much of the living to daily misery.
That is one reason Palestinians loved him even though he has taken them on one hell of a trip filled with his sometimes masterful strokes, such as the Oslo Agreement that returned him and many of his comrades to Palestine and some serious misjudgments which turned his beloved Palestine into a cage hounded by sadistic Israeli zoo-keepers.
Politically he was Machiavellian, deceitful, even capable of ordering murder if need be, but always for what he viewed as his people's best interest. What some call duplicity he viewed as doing what you have to do.
"Look here," he once told me when I ventured too far questioning his moves, "I have to cajole, to embrace, to stab in the back and to extort, but in the end I am only doing it for my people. My loyalty is only to my people." For example he knew many around him lined their pockets. He let them when it suited him.
Money was a means to an end for him, a way to maintain allies loyal and advance what he saw as his objectives, never more than a means to an end.
Thinking about dozens of meetings I had with him over the years, the least that can be said is that he was never boring.
He could be infuriating, charming, funny, sometimes so obnoxious he was right-in-your-face, always unpredictable.
He liked to play mind games which often reflected his conflicted personality. After he miraculously survived his plane crash in the Libyan desert I asked to explain what he kept referring to as a "miracle''. He simply said "you are a man of little faith'', but then proceeded to tell a story of how in those last minutes with the plane coming down fast he quickly arranged passengers on his crashing jet. When he was done, he was seated near the tail end of the nose-diving plane.
He took his faith very seriously, yet at heart he was a secular man. He embraced military struggle, but resorted to negotiations behind the scenes at all times without telling his own close associates. He was bound by no ideologies, always reducing everything to barter. Politics was his drug.
His secret was he never took anything personally. I can absolutely assert that Arafat lived up to every notion of the Godfather philosophy it is always business, never personal. People had to do what they had to do. He did not look back, never learned from an error nor apologised for one. He just moved on.
I will remember him as the man who never gave up the Palestinian dream and got back to live in his home under the nose of the very Israelis who stole it. I will also remember him as the man who allowed so much water to run through his fingers when he should have held onto it.
Youssef M. Ibrahim , a former Middle East correspondent for the New York Times and Energy Editor of the Wall Street Journal, is Managing Director of the Dubai-based Strategic Energy Investment Group. He can be contacted at ymibrahim@gulfnews.com
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