The Mountain Shakes

by Toine van Teeffelen

November 5, 2004

We all cannot sleep, this Friday early morning. Mary, Jara and I sit around the TV

to watch the latest news about Arafat. The best news on offer is the announcement

that he is not yet dead but in coma, a "reversible coma," it is said later on.

Palestinian spokespersons in Ramallah and Paris were yesterday contradicting each

other. I am reminded of the repeated complaints, at a recent conference, by young

Palestinian media students about the presence of multiple spokespersons at the PNA.

Jara solemnly announces that she hopes that "our leader will not die." Mary tells

about the students at Bethlehem University who yesterday were repeating a slogan

about the Palestinian struggle often used by Arafat himself: "Ya jabal, ma hizzaq

reeh" [Oh mountain, don't let the wind shake you]. Now Arafat himself is shaken.

Mary gets angry when she watches settlers dancing and celebrating in the streets of

Jerusalem: "Hayawanaat" [animals], she throws out.

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Yesterday she and our friend expressed their genuine sadness about Arafat's

situation. Standing near our door-post the friend pointed at an orange-colored

butterfly on the wall. "Usually this type of butterfly is said to bring good news,

but now there is nothing of that. Look at Arafat," she continued, "how he was

humiliated during the last years, left alone in his dilapidated bunker, never

treated as a president should be treated. He is like the Palestinian people, he was

walked upon like we all are walked upon. Nobody cares." She thought that Arafat

should have better stayed in the Muqata'a in Ramallah, in his working place.

Struggling against his illness he should have remained among his own people rather

than allowing himself to be dependent upon an Israeli permission to leave Ramallah

and his country. "It doesn't feel good." Afterwards, Mary directs herself at me:

"When you have your radio interviews, tell the people that it was Sharon and Bush

who killed him!"

I am a little taken aback by her anger. I myself had met Arafat twice, once in

Tunis, deep in the night, and at another occasion in Ramallah a few months ago.

Unlike many other visitors, I was not at all impressed by his personality and

temperament, his so-called "radiating warmth," as it is said. I found him a

diminutive figure with a fabulous memory, certainly not a person that puts a spell

on you. The likely reason for the difference between Mary and me is that she is a

Palestinian and I am not. Arafat is for Palestinians a very concrete person as well

as a symbol. Concrete, because many, many Palestinians have met him personally. How

often was I surprised to see a random barber or restaurant owner here in Bethlehem

proudly taking out and showing a picture of himself in the company of an

ever-smiling Arafat. (I myself too, had kept over the years a picture of me and

Arafat deep down in cupboard. Watchful visitors could glimpse it. Tongue-in-cheek I

used to tell them that we kept it there so that I could handle the security police

once they were after me.) Arafat was also available for concrete personal help,

such as when he was willing to pay the hospital costs of somebody who was poor, or

intervening in a family feud. "Should he do that as a president?" I ask Mary, who

shrugs her shoulders, not interested in political theory, at least not for now.

Arafat was not just a concrete father figure, he was also "larger than life," as

Hanan Ashrawi commented last week. A father of the nation who as a symbol somehow

could escape all the rightful criticisms that were leveled against him, of

corruption, nepotism, and divide-and-rule. It was not him who was corrupt, people

used to say - "after all, look at his simple style of living." The blame was put on

his advisors, the "corrupt clique around him." I am pretty sure that Mary in the mid

1990s voted for Arafat as a president, although she afterwards consistently refused

to acknowledge that, probably because she did not want me to categorize her as an

"Arafat supporter" or that I would start a sermon, or because she herself later on

felt too ashamed about Arafat's incompetent handling of the Palestinian Authority.

But the more the symbol was attacked by the Israelis, and the more he was kept under

siege, the more she once again began to feel for him. In a way, she feels that now a

part of herself is dying, too, under the heavy burden of oppression that is hidden

under the medical straw breaking the camel's/Arafat's back.

What will happen when he passes away? How should he be buried? Arafat himself wants

to be laid at rest near the Haram al-Sharif, near the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Israelis

don't want him there, but say that he would be allowed to be buried in Abu Dis. Just

behind the Wall, as if symbolically kept outside Jerusalem. What could be more

humiliating? "What we should do," our friend says, "is organizing a march without

any weapons, with an enormous amount of people behind the bier. Just walking and

continuing to walk. Would the Israelis shoot at us?" "No," I say, "but they would

probably create a human or non-human barrier, as they are used to do. Then you can

start a waiting game."

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Meanwhile people are holding their breath for what may happen the morning after. The

grocery owner next door says that he is afraid that the Israeli army will re-enter

Bethlehem. Would there be chaos in the Authority? "It's already chaos," people tell

me. There is also a whispering concern, at least among some in Bethlehem, about the

position of Christians in Palestinian society. Arafat is often considered here a

kind of guarantee against infringements upon the position of Christians. His

marriage with a Christian woman and his good relations with Church leaders are

quoted as proof. But now the mountain shakes, how strong will be the foundations of

Palestinian society? Recently, our friend was advised by her foreign employer that

she might better leave the country. "There is no future for the Christians here, he

said. Imagine, he just talked like the Israelis. I was so angry, I didn't know what

to say."

Officially, political leaders and Palestinian commentators stress the strength of

the institutions of the Authority and the PLO. Moreover, there are no strong

political contenders waiting in the wings, at least not ones who possess a broad

popular base, except for Marwan Bargouti, who is however in Israeli prison. Hamas is

known not to go for an open confrontation with the Palestinian Authority. It will

not prepare for a sudden putsch, knowing that the large majority of the people would

not support this. I myself think that power struggles are likely to come but not

immediately and not very openly. After all, nobody except the ruling government in

Israel is helped by a breakdown in political or social control in Palestine. A big

issue will be the elections, which should happen not long after Arafat's death. How

can they be organized in a situation of the Israeli army coming in and going out the

Palestinian areas at will, and how can the Palestinian inhabitants of East-Jerusalem

participate?

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Jara somehow feels the heavy weight of the moment. This summer she and I watched the

Olympic Games and while she loudly cheered with me the large Dutch group of waving

sportsmen and -women entering the stadium, she withdrew into a solemn silence when

the Palestinian delegation, two or three persons, entered the crowd, with the

leading woman controlling a smile and keeping her fingers high in a V-sign. A rare

moment of national dignity. At school Jara learns about the national symbols, the

flag, the Al Aqsa Mosque, Saladin liberating Jerusalem. Tamer too likes to go to his

school, that is, the kindergarten, and he carries his schoolbag proudly on his back.

"Bakussik," he told Mary yesterday morning at the moment of departure. He conjugated

the Dutch verb kussen [to kiss] in the Arabic manner: I kiss you. Afterwards Mary

murmured, "I hope that he will not be governed by the Israelis."