An Epitaph for Arafat

Does the death of Yasir Arafat create an opportunity for peace in the Middle East? FP spoke with Dennis Ross, a counselor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who served as the United States' lead negotiator on the Middle East peace process from 1993 to 2001. Excerpts below:

Foreign Policy: Is Arafat's death good or bad for the peace process in the medium to long term?

Foreign Policy: Is Arafat’s death good or bad for the peace process in the medium to long term?

Dennis Ross: The fact is that Arafat was an impediment to change for Palestinians. There was going to be no serious possibility of ending the conflict [while he was alive] because the conflict defined him.

FP: What advice would you give the Palestinians and the Israelis about how to proceed?

DR: Embrace the concept of elections. The only way you are going to have an empowered Palestinian leadership is with elections…. Those who want to focus on the big issues first are living an illusion. Even an empowered Palestinian leadership is not going to make as its first act concessions on issues like Jerusalem and right of return.

FP: What do you think Arab leaders are saying in private?

DR: I think they’re all breathing a sigh of relief.… I never had a conversation in private with an Arab leader who had a good thing to say about Arafat. Never.

FP: When did Arafat begin to hurt the Palestinians more than he helped them?

DR: I think when we began to deal with permanent status issues. He didn’t have a strategic bone in his body. Everything was ad hoc. He never faced up to what he was going to have to give; he focused only on what he was going to get.

FP: What was his greatest triumph and his greatest mistake?

DR: He put the Palestinian cause on the international map. [But] he didn’t do anything to build institutions, didn’t do anything to build a rule of law, [and] he perpetuated corruption because corruption suited his personal rule. That was all a disaster ultimately for Palestinians. But the bigger disaster was saying no to peace when it was available. He could have ended occupation, and he chose not to. He really wasn’t up to the task of history. Had he been a Nelson Mandela, we would have made peace in 2000. But we didn’t have that. We had Yasir Arafat.

FP: What should be Arafat’s one-line epitaph?

DR: [It] will be that "He was the Palestinian cause."

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