Yasser Arafat, the man who embodied the cause of the Palestinian people for four decades, died today a hospital outside Paris. He was 75. Arafat was flown to France nearly two weeks ago with what was said to be an intestinal disorder, but he lapsed into a coma and suffered a brain hemorrhage and liver and kidney failure. Doctors never said publicly what caused the illness that led to his death. Arafat’s body is being flown to Cairo for a state funeral tomorrow and will then be buried on Saturday at his partially shelled headquarters compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where he had been confined by Israeli troops for the past two-and-half years. Arafat’s duties heading the Palestinian Authority will be assumed by Prime Minsiter Ahmed Qureia. The Palestine Liberation Organization will be run by its deputy, former prime minister Mahmoud Abbas. The speaker of the Palestinian legislature, Rawhi Fattouh, will take over the ceremonial role of president until elections for a new president can be organised within the next 60 days. Middle East analysts and officials say Arafat’s death could help break the logjam in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking efforts and perhaps usher in a political realignment as well. The transition period, though, will be perilous. It is likely to be marked not only by succession struggles among Palestinian factions, but by the advent of long-suppressed change in a society that has seemed, like its late leader, to be somehow frozen in time. Arafat was very much in the mold of autocratic Middle Eastern leaders who surrender power only in death. Although he presided over a national movement rather than an actual state, he was for decades synonymous, in the eyes of his people, with a Palestinian state to be. Israel considered him the chief architect of the bloody Palestinian uprising that is now in its fifth year— although senior Israeli policymakers privately acknowledge grave mistakes and missed opportunities on their side as well. ‘‘This is a golden opportunity for Israel to change the course of things,’’ said Ephraim Sneh, an opposition lawmaker and onetime deputy defense minister. Arafat’s demise ‘‘demands accommodation with the new Palestinian leadership. This is a real chance, and we will regret it for generations if we miss it,’’ he said. But no one believes re-establishing some form of rapport will be easy. ‘‘A window of opportunity will open, but not in the immediate future, as Arafat’s successor will not be one person, but rather a group of people who will together fill the roles Arafat held for himself,’’ said Amos Malka, a former head of Israeli army intelligence. ‘‘Both sides need time before moving forward.’’ The first test of any new Israeli-Palestinian relationship could come even before Arafat has been laid to rest. Israel is deeply worried about an outbreak of unrest in the West Bank and Gaza in connection with his funeral. In the meantime, many Israeli commentators are urging that army activity be kept to a minimum to avoid sparking an ill-timed confrontation. ‘‘Clearly, Israel must do everything to restrain military activity—it must not initiate new operations, and should put off previously planned ones,’’ military-affairs commentator Zeef Schiff wrote in the Haaretz newspaper. ‘‘The army must only react to ‘ticking bombs’ that endanger the lives of Israelis.’’ If the two sides can avoid slipping back into the kind of all-out fighting that characterised the earlier years of the intifada, the main Palestinian militant groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, may seek to strike at least an informal truce with Israel. Arafat’s death could provide a face-saving means for Hamas, in particular, to shift its emphasis away from armed struggle and toward seeking a share of political power in a new Palestinian leadership structure. Over the past 18 months, Israel has assassinated nearly the entire Hamas leadership in Gaza, and has eliminated dozens of its senior field operatives as well. Analyst Shaul Mishal of Tel Aviv University said he thought a coalition of Hamas and Fatah was by no means unlikely. Much of their past enmity stemmed from deep-seated personal animosity between Arafat and Hamas leaders such as Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was assassinated by Israel in March. ‘‘What has seemed unthinkable might become a very plausible development in the future,’’ said Mishal. Over the past several years, Arafat had made no discernible effort to rein in Hamas and Islamic Jihad as they pressed ahead with a campaign of suicide bombings in Israeli cities and towns. Instead, faced with burgeoning popular support for Hamas, he effectively competed with them. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militia affiliated with Arafat’s Fatah faction, also began staging suicide attacks. Sharon has long insisted he will have no dealings with any Palestinian leader who refuses to crack down on the militant groups. But Arafat’s successor or successors risk undermining their own domestic support if they appear to be knuckling under to Israeli demands, especially early on in any transition period. Arafat’s death leaves Sharon himself in an awkward position as he fights to move ahead with his plan for a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. ‘‘In a certain sense, Arafat was a convenient adversary,’’ political commentator Nahum Barnea wrote in Yediot. ‘‘It was so easy to dismiss him, to demonise him. Now it will all be much more complicated.’’ — (with John Ward Anderson, Molly Moore, LA Times-Washington Post)
