Since the demise of Yasser Arafat last week, swimming pools full of ink have been spilled describing the controversial Palestinian leader.
He made a better terrorist than a statesman. He missed his opportunity to live in a Palestinian state, so he did not die in one. He was the father of modern terrorism. He was a thug, who led a thugocracy.
Few, however, have eulogized Arafat in the manner of Raquel Newman: “He was a guy who didn’t put on any airs. A little guy. And he was quite charming in his way. And he looked just like his pictures.”
Newman was one of the few Bay Area Jewish leaders who met the Palestinian Liberation Organization chairman face-to-face. In 1993, she attended an Americans for Peace Now meeting at his Ramallah compound. In 1996, she met him in his Gaza headquarters while traveling with the peace group Project Nishma.
Newman says she never harbored any impressions that Arafat was a visionary statesman.
“People knew who he was. He was a guerrilla fighter who did not have the slightest idea how to administer and become a peacemaker in more peaceful times,” she said.
“We were in Oslo. I didn’t really think he was trustworthy, but this was the guy we were negotiating with. Those were the days when you spoke to your enemy. That’s the way to make peace with your enemies. I thought so then, and I think so now.”
Arafat, who met many Jewish groups in the headier 1990s, was quite conversant in English, but insisted on making his more formal speeches through an interpreter.
Newman recalls the stunning mass of security personnel Arafat kept himself insulated with — and their odd driving habits.
On the way to meet the chairman in Gaza, she was terrified by the driver’s insistence on exceeding 90 mph on country highways, while a scruffy, Kalashnikov-wielding guard scowled in the front seat.
“I thought it would be a miracle if we got there,” she said with a laugh.
“That feels like a long time ago. It all feels like a long time ago.”
AFTER ARAFAT
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