Friday, Nov 12, 2004
Palestinians on Friday interred Yassir Arafat in what they promised would be a temporary resting-place until they fulfilled his dream of establishing their capital in liberated Jerusalem.
Thousands of mourners who had breached the walls of his siege-battered compound in Ramallah overwhelmed a Palestinian police cordon and surged towards the two Egyptian helicopters that brought him and his successors from a state funeral in Cairo.
The crowd chanted "Arafat, Arafat", as the aircraft whipped up a storm of red dust over the parade ground of the mukataa where the Palestinian leader spent almost three years as a virtual prisoner of the Israelis.
There was a constant chatter from automatic weapons as police fired into the air to try to hold back the crowd and Fatah gunmen on surrounding rooftops and in nearby streets fired volleys to mark the final return of their movement's founder.
Israel closed West Bank borders but allowed mourners to travel by bus and taxi from towns and villages in the territory.
It was just two weeks since a helicopter had taken the ailing Arafat from the same spot on his way for medical treatment in Paris. He fell into a coma soon afterwards and died early on Thursday.
In Cairo on Friday, kings, presidents and state dignitaries from around the world had gathered to pay their respects to a man who, almost exactly three years ago, was officially declared "irrelevant" by the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon.
The US, which was later to endorse Israel's view, sent William Burns, assistant secretary of state, to represent the Bush administration.
Washington is expected to come under pressure from its European allies and from the new Palestinian leadership to help ensure elections can be held as scheduled in two months' time to choose a successor to Arafat as Palestinian Authority president.
The Cairo ceremony was attended by Mahmoud Abbas, the new chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, Rawhi Fattouh, interim PA president, Suha Arafat, his widow, and their nine-year-old daughter, Zahwa.
Mr Abbas has already emerged as the key member of the new leadership and is tipped as Fatah's candidate in the presidential elections that must, by Palestinian law, be held within 60 days.
"There is only one way that we will be able to give strength to a new president - democratic elections," said Bassam Abu Sharif, an Arafat adviser and former comrade-in-arms from the days of Palestinian exile in Beirut.
Speaking at his home, 100 yards from the mukataa, he said no successor would be able to reach a settlement with Israel on terms less favourable than those set by Arafat.
These include the establishment of an independent state on all the Palestinian land occupied by Israel in 1967, with its capital in Jerusalem, and the right of return to their homes of Palestinian refugees.
"No one can bypass the lines drawn by Arafat, otherwise the people will not accept it," he said.
"The Israelis will come to realise how mistaken they were. He was a man of peace and an honest partner. They want a dishonest partner but they won't get one."
In 1988, Mr Abu Sharif penned the first proposal in which Arafat endorsed the strategy of sharing territory with Israel in order to end their conflict. However, Arafat died leaving the ideal of a two-state solution unfulfilled.
Reflecting on his own feelings about the end of the Arafat era, Mr Abu Sharif said: "I still can't believe it. The world without Arafat is a different place."
Harvey Morris in Ramallah
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