The Grandeur of Yasser Arafat

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The Grandeur of Yasser ArafatAuthor(s): Gilles Deleuze and Timothy S. MurphySource: Discourse, Vol. 20, No. 3, Gilles Deleuze: Areason to Believe in this World (Fall 1998),pp. 30-33Published by: Wayne State University Press

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The Grandeur of Yasser Arafat

Gilles Deleuze

The Palestinian ause is first nd foremost he set of njustices hatthesepeople have suffered nd continue osuffer. hese injusticesare acts ofviolence,but also illogicalities, alsereasonings, alse

guaranteesthat claim to compensateor vindicate them. Arafatneeded only ne word o describe hebrokenpromises,heviolated

agreements, t the moment of the Sabra and Shatila massacres:

shameshame.1It's said that this s not a genocide.And yet t's a story hatconsists fmanyOradours,from heverybeginning.2 ionist er-rorismwaspracticednotsolely gainst heEnglish, ut on theArab

villageswhichhad todisappear; rgounwasveryctiventhis espect(Deir Yasin) 3 Frombeginning o end, it involved cting s ifthePalestinian eople notonlymustnotexist, uthad never xisted.

The conquerorswere those who had themselves uffered he

greatestgenocide in history. f thisgenocide the Zionistshavemade an absolute vil But transforminghe greatest enocide in

historynto an absoluteevil s a religious nd mysticalision,not ahistorical ision. t doesn'tstoptheevil;on thecontrary,tspreadsthe evil,makes it fall once again on otherinnocents,demands

reparation hatmakes theseothers uffer artofwhat heJews uf-fered expulsion, estrictionoghettos, isappearance s a people) .With colder means thangenocide,one ends up withthe sameresult.

The United States and Europe owed reparation o theJews.And theymade a people, about whom the east that ould be said

Discourse,0.3,all 998,p. 0-33.opyrighty© 998 aynetateniversityress,Detroit,ichigan8201-1309.

30







Fall 1998 31

is thattheyhad no hand in and weresingularlynnocent ofanyholocaust nd hadn't even heardof t,paythis eparation.t'stherethat hegrotesquebegins, s wellas theviolence.Zionism, henthestateof srael willdemand that hePalestinians ecognize tsright{droit).Butthe stateof srael willnever top denying hevery actof a Palestinian eople. Theywillnever peakof Palestinians ut oftheArabsofPalestine, s ifthey ound themselvesherebychanceor in error.And later, heywillact as if theexpelled Palestinianscamefrom utside, heywillnotspeakof thefirst arof resistancethat the Palestinians ed all alone. Since theyhaven'trecognizedIsrael's right, heywillbe made into descendantsof Hitler.ButIsrael reserves heright odeny heir xistence n fact.Here beginsa fiction hathad to stretch urtherndfurther,nd toweighon allthosewho defendedthe Palestinian ause. Thisfiction,hiswagerof Israel's,was to make all thosewho would contestthe defactoconditions nd actions of theZionist tate ppear as anti-Semites.This operationfinds ts ource n Israel's cold politicswith espectto the Palestinians.

From the start,srael has never concealed itsgoal: to emptythe Palestinian

erritory.ndevenbetter,o actas if he Palestinian

territoryere mpty,lways estined or heZionists. twasclearlymatter fcolonization, utnot nthenineteenth-centuryuropeansense: the local inhabitantswould not be exploited, theywouldbe made to leave. Those who remainedwouldbe made, not intoa dependent territorial orkforce,ut rather nto a mobile anddetachedworkforce,s iftheywere mmigrants laced in a ghetto.From he tart,ands arebought n thecondition hat hey e emptyofoccupants, r can be emptied. t's a genocide,but one inwhich

physical xtermination emains ubordinated ogeographical vac-

uation:being onlyArabs ngeneral, hesurvivingalestiniansmustgo mergewith the other Arabs.Physical xtermination,houghitmayor maynot be entrusted o mercenaries,s mostcertainlypresent.But this sn't a genocide,they ay, ince it's not the final

goal : in reality,t's ustone meansamongothers.The complicityf the United Stateswith srael does not arise

solelyfrom he Zionist obby.Elias Sanbar has shownclearlyhowtheUnitedStates ediscoveredn Israel an aspectof tsownhistory:the extermination f the ndianswhich, here s well,wasonly n

part directly hysical. twas a matter femptying,s ifthere had

neverbeen Indiansexcept ntheghettoswhichweremade for hemas immigrantsrom nside. n manyrespects, he Palestinians rethenew ndians,the ndians of srael. Marxist nalysis eveals hetwo omplementarymovements fcapitalism: onstantlyo mposelimits,withinwhich t developsand exploits tsown system;nd







32 Discourse 0.3

always opushthese imits arther ack,to exceed them nordertobegin tsown foundation nce againon a larger nd more ntensescale. Pushingback limitswas the act ofAmerican apitalism, heAmerican ream,takenup by srael nd thedreamofGreater sraelonArabterritory,n the backs of the Arabs.

How thePalestinian eople learned toresist nd are resisting;how a people of ancient ineage became an armed nation;how

theygave themselves bodywhich didn't simply epresent hembut embodiedthem, utside their erritorynd without state: llthese eventsdemanded a greathistorical haracter, ne who,we

might ayfrom Western ointofview, ould havesteppedout ofShakespeare, nd thatwas Arafat. twasn't he first ime nhistorythat omethingike hishashappened (theFrench an think fFreeFrance, xceptfor he fact hat t had a smaller opularbase at the

beginning)Andalltheoccasionsonwhich solution relement fsolutionwaspossible,occasions thatthe sraelishavedeliberately,knowinglyestroyed,re nothappeningfor hefirstime nhistoryeither. he Israelisheld ontotheir eligious osition fdenying ot

only hePalestinian ight ut lsothePalestinian act. hey leansedthemselves f theirown terrorism

ytreatinghe Palestinians s

terroristsrom utside.Andprecisely ecause thePalestinianswerenotthat, ut ratherwerea specific eople as differentrom therArabsas Europeanscan be among themselves,hey ould expectonly ambiguous aid fromthe Arab statesthemselves, id whichsometimes urnedback intohostilitynd extermination hen thePalestinianmodel became dangerousfor them. The Palestinianshave run through ll the infernal yclesofhistory:he failure fsolutions ach time heywerepossible, heworst eversals f llianceof whichthey ore thebrunt, hemost olemnpromisesnotkept.

And on all this heir esistance ad to nourish tself.Itmaywellbe that ne ofthegoalsoftheSabra and Shatilamas-sacreswas to discredit rafat. e only onsented o thedeparture fthecombatants,he forceofwhichremained ntact, n conditionthatthesecurityf theirfamilies e absolutely uaranteedbytheUnited States and evenby srael.After hemassacreshe had nootherword han shame. ftheensuing risis or hePLO resulted,inmoreor less the ongterm, ither nan integrationntoanArabstate r ina dissolutionnto Muslim undamentalism,hen t couldbe said that the Palestinianpeople had effectivelyisappeared.

But thiswould be in such conditions hat theworld,the UnitedStates nd even sraelwould not finish egrettinghe ostoccasions,including hosethat till emainpossibletoday. o Israel's rrogantformula, Weare not a people likeothers, he Palestinianshavenot stopped respondingwith hecry hatwas invoked n the first







Fall 1998 33

issue oftheRevue 'étudesalestiniennes:e are a people likeothers,we onlywantto be that . . .

By eadingthe terrorist ar nLebanon, sraelbelieved tcould

suppress hePLO and deprive t ofthesupportof thePalestinian

people, already eprived ftheirand. Andperhaps t ssucceeding,since nsurrounded ripoli here snothingmorethanthephysicalpresenceofArafatmonghisown, ll ina sort fsolitary randeur.But thePalestinianpeople willnotlose their dentity ithout re-

ating n itsplace a double terrorism,fthe stateand ofreligion,whichwillprofit rom heirdisappearanceand render mpossibleanypeaceful ettlement ithsrael.Fromthewar nLebanon Israelitselfwillnotescape merelymorally ivided nd economically is-

organized, t willfind tself acedwith hemirrormageof ts ownintolerance.A politicalsolution, peacefulsettlements possibleonlywithan independentPLO which will not have disappearedintoan already xistingtate ndwillnot be lost mongthe diverseIslamicmovements. he disappearanceofthePLO wouldonlybe a

victoryor he blind forces fwar,ndifferento thesurvival fthePalestinian eople.

Translated yTimothy . Murphy(originally ublished nRevue etudesalestiniennes

September1983)

Translator'sNotes

1 Sabra and Shatilamassacres: 982massacres fPalestinianstrefugee ampsnLebanon, arried utbyLebanese halangistsidedbythe sraeli

rmy.2 Oradour: rench illage estroyedyNazioccupation roopsnretaliationor esistancectivityhortlyfterhe tartf he -Daynvasion.

3 Irgoun: ight-wingionist rganizationhat sedterroristacticsagainst ritishorces ndothersnpostwaralestine.





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The Grandeur of Yasser Arafat