A great gulf has opened up between the West and the Arab world over the fate of "Mr Palestine". While Israel is boycotting the Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, and Western commentators glibly predict his physical or political demise, Palestinians and other Arabs are rallying to his defence.
When Mr Arafat took over the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 1968, it was an Egyptian tool. He freed the PLO and maintained its independence from interfering Arab governments. He secured recognition for his people by overcoming Israel's contention that the Palestinians do not exist.
In 1974 he was invited to address the UN General Assembly. From the podium he told the international community: "I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand." Israel rejected the olive branch and the international community did not impose a settlement. In 1988 Mr Arafat prepared to brandish the olive branch again. He secured PLO recognition of Israel within the boundaries it achieved in 1948 and staked a claim to Gaza and the West Bank, 20 per cent of geographic Palestine. He followed this up by maintaining pressure on Israel by means of the gun until 1993, when the government of Mr Yitzak Rabin grasped the olive branch. The result was the first Oslo accord.
Palestine was reinstated on the map of the world when Israel pulled its troops out of portions of Gaza and West Bank Palestine. The people who "did not exist" had acquired patches of land of their own. In 1994 Mr Arafat returned in triumph and in 1996 he was elected president by 80 per cent of the voters.
But he did not meet the Palestinians' high expectations. He established one-man rule, making the Palestinian enclaves his personal fiefdom. He maintained control by various means: creating consensus among political figures and factions, co-opting rather than crushing opponents, and establishing a dozen competing security and intelligence agencies to keep dissidents and each other in check. He appointed ministers and provided them with grand offices but gave them no authority. He hamstrung the Legislative Council and nobbled the judiciary. His administration has been characterised by inefficiency, wastefulness and corruption. He has blocked every reform effort.
Between 1993 and 2000 the olive branch withered: Israel did not implement its commitments under the Oslo accords, the promised state did not emerge, Mr Arafat lost popular support. The international community colluded with Arafat because he continued to proffer the olive branch and Israel connived because it preferred a weak rather than a strong Arafat.
At first, ordinary Palestinians simply shifted to the sidelines but after the uprising, the intifada, erupted in September 2000 many gave their backing to the Islamist groupings Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Today Hamas, on its own, has a higher approval rating than Mr Arafat. He cannot wrap up the militants without totally alienating his own people. In recent months he has been demonised by Israel and abandoned by the US and Europe. Officials and analysts speak of "the post-Arafat era". But this is an illusion. Whatever happens to Mr Arafat personally, "Arafatism" will reign in Palestine for the foreseeable future.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad do not have leaders capable of taking over or the muscle to impose their rule against the wishes of Mr Arafat's 40,000 policemen. Therefore, the successor regime is likely to be a coalition of Arafat loyalists and others, bolstered by his security forces. The men he has placed in senior positions can be expected to hang together so that they do not hang separately. A second alternative is the takeover of the Palestinian enclaves by local bosses. This would lead to anarchy. A third is Israel's permanent reoccupation of Palestinian towns and villages, setting back the course of history by at least two decades. The international community seeks to build on the accomplishments of the past: there is no going back. The world accepts that the Palestinian people are entitled to a West Bank-Gaza state with East Jerusalem as its capital. More than half of the Israeli public, Europe and the US understand that this will emerge sooner or later - Arafat or no Arafat.
Thanks to Arafat.