How Arafat Changed Global Politics

By Barry Rubin November 8, 2004

Yasir Arafat’s effect on global politics is one of the most extraordinary stories of modern history. Indeed, Arafat is the godfather for this era of global terrorism and radical Middle East movements.

As leader of a numerically small people without no state or material resources, Arafat’s international impact is particularly remarkable. This is made even more true given the number of disasters Arafat survived, which in turn is a point magnified further by the fact that he himself caused so many of these setbacks.

Briefly, Arafat’s disproportionate impact on the world can be attributed to four factors:

* Using the Arab states as a force multiplier magnifying his importance. Arafat always claimed that he could control the policy of Arab states; that those who crossed him would face their wrath and those who pleased him enjoy their largesse. The power of oil money and the growth of Islamic-oriented politics seemed to reinforce this power.
On one level, this was pure bluff. The Arab regimes held him in low regard. They did not consult him on their actions or heed his threats. When it suited their interests, they cut off his money and killed his men. Yet in a sense Arafat’s claim was partly true because the Palestinian issue was indeed useful for the regimes. It was the great excuse of Arab politics. The conflict’s continuation was used to explain why the Arab world lacked democracy and failed to progress economically and socially. It was simply too useful to end and Arafat, by battling on, kept this system going.

* Arafat’s brilliance at public relations also allowed him to reinvent himself periodically, to avoid responsibility for his defeats, intransigence, and terrorism. As early as the 1970s, American officials called him the “teflon terrorist.” He took advantage of other’s wishful thinking that peace could be obtained or their vanity that they might be the one to solve the great Middle East problem if only they were nice to Arafat. He showed how easy it was to fool the well-intentioned West and how quickly they forgot what he did last time.

* The power of terrorism as a systematic strategy. During the 1960s, Arafat had already developed his plan for victory. By deliberately targeting Israeli civilians he thought he would bring about Israel’s collapse. To his dying day, he never lost belief in the efficacy of this method. But while this failed, terrorism had certain other advantages. It grabbed headlines, making the rest of the world feel both frightened and that it was urgent to resolve such a violent issue. It also proved very popular among Arabs and Muslims, while he was able to pass this off as revolutionary élan to the armchair left.

* Who he was fighting. If Arafat had not been fighting Jews, however, much of these factors would still not have added up to the global impact he would have. While Arafat tried to avoid direct antisemitism, he did so by the simple method of transferring all the traditional antisemitic feelings and stereotypes to Israelis. Fighting in a land with which the world was obsessed guaranteed attention. Murdering what might be called the world’s most despised people ensured a sympathy that would otherwise not have been forthcoming.

Given this background, Arafat played a major role in affecting global politics. Of course, other considerations here include his long career; his involvement in so many wars, incidents, and diplomatic efforts; and other things. But if one wants to look at the deeper impact of Arafat it was in proving some key principles which were learned by imitators:

* Terrorism is a very effective tool for mobilizing people if they are willing to overlook the moral issues and rejoice in the deaths of other ethnic groups. Of course, terrorism had been used many times before in history but not really as a populist revolutionary tool for building a movement. Arafat proved how politically profitable a terrorist strategy could be, thus encouraging imitators.

* Terrorism could be carried out without paying a price for it. For years, Western politicians have warned of the terrible punishment awaiting terrorists. In fact, though, few of those who killed under Arafat’s command were imprisoned, and many of them were sprung from jail by further attacks, hostage-taking, or political deals. Arafat proved that being a terrorist was much riskier than it seemed, another factor inspiring imitators.

* He made the Palestinian issue a central concern of the world, through terrorism, propaganda, courting sympathy, threatening to unleash the wrath of the Arab and Muslim worlds, and ensuring that the conflict would not go away.

* He showed how much can be achieved through intransigence, the power of saying no, and the constructive use of weakness. When Arafat refused to make peace or stop terrorism, he showed how he could make his adversaries and bystanders give him more concessions.

* Arafat played a major role in the contemporary renewal of antisemitism to its high traditional level. By constantly portraying Israel and—albeit more subtly—Jews as evil, Arafat returned this stereotype to international acceptance, thus reversing the impact of the Hitler regime and Holocaust. It is especially noteworthy that this event happened after Israel offered to give him just about everything he claimed to want, making his achievement all the more impressive.

* Equally, he had a large effect in spreading anti-Americanism globally. While it is easy to attribute Arafat’s hostility to the United States to U.S. support for Israel, it was actually part of his revolutionary ideology from the beginning, going back to the early 1960s long before the United States even gave any aid to Israel. Again, the true blossoming of this effect came only after President Bill Clinton tried so strenuously to produce a political solution which met Palestinian needs and interests.

* Using Western morality and moderation as a pressure point. Since the West so sincerely wants to do good in the world, this desire can be manipulated by totalitarian movements or states which no how to portray themselves as victims and progressive forces fighting oppression.

* Perhaps the single most powerful wider political effect of Arafat was his contribution to maintaining the status quo in the Middle East. By fomenting terrorism, extremism, and anti-Western sentiment and especially by refusing to make peace in 2000, Arafat helped destroy the incipient trend toward moderation in the Arab world. In this way, he gave Arab dictators the perfect rationale to crack down. With the Arab-Israeli conflict still going on, the Palestinians still—albeit by their own leadership’s decisions—without a state, and violence continuing, Arab rulers could explain that reform was a trick by the hostile West and democracy an unaffordable luxury in a time of war.

In short, Yasir Arafat’s global impact has been disastrous. That is a travesty. At the same time, it has been catastrophic for Israel, which has lost hundreds of lives to terrorism after taking risks and making concessions for peace, and the Palestinians, who might long have enjoyed peace and an independent state under a more moderate leadership. That is a tragedy.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and co-author of Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography and Hating America: A History (Oxford University Press, August 2004). Prof. Rubin's columns can now be read online at http://gloria.idc.ac.il/columns/column.html.

Barry Rubin at Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center