World leaders paid tribute to Yasser Arafat yesterday, singling out his courage and tireless devotion to the Palestinian cause.
US President George W. Bush called Arafat’s death “a significant moment in Palestinian history,” adding: “For the Palestinian people, we hope that the future will bring peace and the fulfillment of their aspirations for an independent, democratic Palestine that is at peace with its neighbors.”
Bush urged “all in the region and throughout the world to join in helping make progress toward these goals and toward the ultimate goal of peace” during the transition period that is to follow.
Former US President Bill Clinton said he regretted the Palestinian leader “missed the opportunity to bring that nation into being” after marathon peace talks in 2000.
Clinton said that “history will record that Yasser Arafat’s greatest moment occurred on Sept. 13, 1993, when he and Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook hands on the White House lawn and signed the Oslo Accords which led to seven years of negotiation, progress and relative peace.”
Arafat and then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak failed to reach agreement on the final status of Jerusalem at a summit at the presidential retreat Camp David in the US in 2000.
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said: “For nearly four decades, he expressed and symbolized in his person the national aspirations of the Palestinian people.”
Arafat took a “giant step” in signing the 1993 Oslo Accords that aimed at settling the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, Annan said. “It is tragic that he did not live to see it fulfilled.”
French President Jacques Chirac said: “With him vanishes a man of courage and conviction who for 40 years embodied the struggle of the Palestinians for recognition of their national rights.”
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said Arafat’s goal was to lead Palestinians to independence and the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state capable of survival.
“Arafat was not granted the completion of his life’s work,” said the chancellor, who called the death “a great loss for the Palestinian people”.
These feelings were echoed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said in the telegram of condolence that Arafat had worked right until the end for the Palestinian cause.
“The life of Yasser Arafat symbolized the turbulent and tragic history of the Palestinian people and the Middle East as a whole. In him were reflected the hopes for peace of many people, but also their disappointments and setbacks,” said a message from German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer.
Many Arab states ordered three days of official mourning for the Palestinian leader, whose body was due to be flown from Paris to Egypt for a funeral service in Cairo today.
Lebanese Prime Minister Omar Karami urging Palestinians to maintain national unity “against the Zionist attacks and massacres”.
But Gulf states gave a measured response with Kuwait, hostile to the veteran leader who was perceived to have backed its 1990 invasion by Iraq, remaining silent.
Arabs across the Middle East saw the death of Yasser Arafat as the end of an era — and said it was up to Israel to make it a chance for peace.
Palestinians poured onto the streets of Gaza and the West Bank to mourn their president. Lebanon’s refugees met news of his death with wails of grief and volleys of gunfire.
“But to all those who think that his passing away will open all the doors for peace, we say that this is false and that the answers never really lay with the Palestinians as much as with the Israelis.”
Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and Yemen declared three days mourning. Some called for Palestinian unity.
Tunisian President Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali said: “The values and high virtues that Arafat embodied during his struggle for the Palestinian cause will inspire the Palestinian people.” Egypt’s presidency said Arafat “led his people with courage”.
The Yemeni presidency urged Palestinians “to unite during this difficult time to rob the enemies of Palestine of the chance to stir up differences”.
“He was the only one who understood the importance of national unity and there will never be a Palestinian leader willing to bear the consequences of saying ‘no’ to the Americans and Israel,” Arafat aide Jibril Rajoub told Al Jazeera television.
Randa Ashmawi, columnist with Egypt’s Al-Ahram Hebdo, said a moderate Palestinian leadership could emerge if Israel and the United States revived the peace process, but added: “If there is a deterioration, Hamas will take over.”
Iran also offered its condolences to the Palestinian people and appealed to them to remain united.
“What is important now is for the Palestinians to stay united and understand the sensitivity of the situation to confront the plots of the Zionist regime, which wants to take as much advantage as it can from Arafat’s death,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said.
Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon, who had called the Palestinian leader an obstacle to peace and sought to isolate him, said his death was “an historic turning point in the Middle East”.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the international community needed to “work tirelessly” to achieve peace in the Middle East on the basis of the two-state solution Arafat aimed for.
The European Union vowed to work for the creation of the independent Palestinian state that their “historic leader” had striven for with “devotion and single-minded commitment”.
Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja said Arafat deserved the Nobel Peace Prize he shared in 1994 with Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.
But it was not all praise.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard criticized Arafat for “failing the cause of peace” by missing the opportunity to secure a deal with Israel four years ago.
“I think history will judge him harshly for not having seized the opportunity in the year 2000 to embrace the offer that was very courageously made by the then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak,” Howard said.
The Czech government said it “believes that the Palestinian Authority will be able to overcome this loss and lead the Palestinian people to an independent Palestinian state, living side by side in peace with the State of Israel.”
In a swift reaction, jailed West Bank Fatah leader Marwan Barghuti, regarded as the inspiration behind the Palestinian uprising, urged Palestinians to stay committed to the intifada.
“We must retain our national unity, our commitment to the intifada and our commitment to real democracy and the establishment of law and order,” he said in a statement sent via one of his lawyers.
Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam said the Palestinians had lost a great patriot and visionary, while Pakistan vowed to continue its “unflinching” support for the Palestinian cause.
Pakistan declared three days of mourning as President Pervez Musharraf expressed sorrow at the death of the “great leader”.
“We stand by our Palestinian brethren in this moment of grief — grief that has touched everyone in the Muslim world,” Musharraf said.
Chinese President Hu Jintao described Arafat as “a great friend of China” and urged Palestinians to continue peace efforts.
“Chairman Arafat was a brilliant leader of the Palestinian cause and an outstanding politician who devoted his life to the just cause of striving to recover the legal rights of the Palestinian people,” Hu said in a statement.
“His death is not only a great loss to the Palestinian people, but China has also lost a great friend.”
In Japan, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said: “I sincerely hope the Palestinians overcome their sorrow and continue with their struggle for achieving peace and prosperity in the region”.
“He was indeed a pioneer who had laid out the foundation for the establishment of a Palestinian state,” Koizumi said in a statement, adding Arafat had visited Japan six times since 1981.
“I pray that his soul would rest in peace. I sincerely hope the Palestinians overcome their sorrow and continue with their struggle for achieving peace and prosperity in the region.”
Afghan President Hamid Karzai described Arafat as a “great personality, whose courage and leadership was respected worldwide for over half a century”.
“While his absence will undoubtedly be felt strongly, I hope that a new generation of leaders will emerge to take forward the cause of peace and stability in the Middle East,” Karzai said.
Indonesia, the world’s most populous nation, expressed its “profound sadness” and said it was confident “the people of Palestine will respond by strengthening their resolve to form an independent Palestinian state”.
The president of Indonesia Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, said “hopefully (Arafat’s) dreams for a free Palestine will be achieved someday.”
Malaysia called on Palestinians to remain united. Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said Arafat’s death “marks not only the departure of a great leader but also a turning point in the history of the Middle East”.
Filipino President Gloria Arroyo and the governments of Singapore and Thailand also sent their condolences.
South African President Thabo Mbeki praised Arafat as a “giant and gallant hero”.
“History will record that President Arafat epitomized that rare bread of leaders whose lives were defined by the unflinching sacrifices they made in the noble and just cause of the struggle of their peoples”.
For Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, Arafat was “a towering figure.”
Pope John Paul II, who had several audiences with Arafat, said he shared the pain of the Palestinian people.
“The Pope prays to the prince of peace that the star of harmony will soon shine on the Holy Land and that the two peoples dwelling therein may live reconciled among themselves as two independent and sovereign states,” he added in a message of condolence.
