Stardate 20020523.1403

(On Screen): The end has finally come for Arafat. He has met the one challenge even he cannot survive: the loss of confidence of the Palestinians.

A poll among Palestinians shows that support for Arafat is at nearly an all-time low. Polls like this are notorious for having systematic errors; polls in Iraq, for instance, tend to show that nearly everyone absolutely loves Saddam. In a police state, you do not criticize the boss; it's better to pretend to be loyal, and to keep your real feelings hidden. You can never tell if the pollster is actually a member of the secret police.

Arafat's regime is less strict than Saddam's only because it is less capable of imposing that kind of discipline-by-force. But the potential for dreadful consequences to Palestinians who are seen as being soft on Israel has always been there, as demonstrated by the occasional mob who grabs two or three people, accuses them of being Israeli collaborators, and then murders them and desecrates their corpses.

So it is all the more remarkable that even in a climate of fear like that, two thirds of those polled did not approve of Arafat's performance. Even a vile dictator requires some degree of consent from those he rules, and Arafat is losing it.

Arafat sold out six of those who were trapped with him in Ramallah to buy his own freedom from Israeli siege, and the Palestinians are grumbling. He is seen by the Palestinians as having sold out thirteen more in order to end the siege in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

Once he was finally free, he started touring the areas damaged in the fighting, and the response by the "street" was distinctly muted. He made a speech to the Palestinian Parliament and the response there was also distinctly muted. He promised reforms and elections Real Soon Now. He's said that many times before; and it's never happened. The Assembly said, "Real Soon Exactly When?"

When the Israelis pull out, he said. Not good enough, they responded, and the entire committee responsible for planning elections resigned, raising the pressure. And again, he was asked, "When?"

By Winter, he now says, and this is a remarkable concession. The previous answer demonstrated that Arafat saw elections as being a foreign policy move, something to do to placate the US (primarily), and the likelihood is that he figured they would be rigged along the lines of the Zimbabwe election. The new answer makes clear that elections will actually be a domestic Palestinian issue, done because the Palestinians want it – and they're not taking "Real Soon Now" for an answer anymore, and they're unlikely to put up with massive election fraud.

Arafat is resisting elections, and other Palestinians are pushing them, for the same reason: Arafat's going to lose. He knows it, and they do too.

This isn't the only thing they're pushing. They want him to sign The Basic Law, a bill that the Parliament passed several years ago. It amounts to a constitution, and if he does sign it then his ability to rule by fiat ends and he enters into a more balanced relationship with the Parliament. This, too, he is resisting, through his usual approach of promise and delay, and it's not playing.

Arafat's time has come, but his dictatorship will end with a whimper, not a bang. I think he will come to wish he truly had become a "Martyr! Martyr! Martyr!" in Ramallah rather than to live through the ignominy of becoming progressively more irrelevant and more despised by his people.