Volume 52, Number 2 · February 10, 2005
The Last Palestinian
By Hussein Agha, Robert Malley
Much as his political ascent gave shape to the contemporary Palestinian landscape, Yasser Arafat's death will fundamentally transform it. Arafat was unique, and uniquely suited to his people's condition following the 1948 war: defeated, dispossessed, and dispersed, without a state to defend them, a territory to hold them, or a political strategy to unite them. Palestinians were divided by family, class, and clan, scattered throughout the region and beyond, exploited by the competing purposes of many and prey to the ambitions of all. By dint of his history and personality, charisma and guile, cajoling and bullying, luck and sheer perseverance, Arafat came to represent them equally and to emerge as the face of the Palestinian people, to them and to the world.
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