Abed Rabbo: Arafat Was Mischievous with Gaddafi…Syrian Military Had Inherited Animosity Towards Him

What is happening in the Gaza Strip is closely related to Israel’s ongoing injustice, mainly the insistence of Israel’s successive governments on avoiding peace obligations. This injustice exacerbated after the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo Agreement on September 13, 1993.
Arafat hoped the Oslo agreement to be a first step to the establishment of a Palestinian state on some parts of the land, but Benjamin Netanyahu built his policy on assassinating the agreement. The Oslo Accord is related to what preceded it, mainly the wars of capitals and the complex relationships between the PLO and some prominent Arab countries.
This dialogue with Yasser Abed Rabbo, former Secretary-General of the executive committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), is meant to shed light on some events that some born after Oslo did not have the opportunity to experience. Here is the third and final episode:
Asked how Arafat dealt with the 9/11 attacks and about President George Bush’s refusal to shake hands with Arafat at the United Nations headquarters after that.
Abed Rabbo recalled: “It was the result of what the Americans saw as test after test for Yasser Arafat.” For them, Arafat “failed the test in terms of condemning the actions carried out by Hamas and other factions targeting civilians, and because he did not do enough to prevent those actions, and that Yasser Arafat was also complicit to some extent. Their evidence of this is the ‘Karen A’ ship and others.”
“A new situation was created after Bush’s famous statement that the “Palestinian people deserve better than this Palestinian leadership, which is involved in terrorism”... This statement created a situation in which we have actually moved to the stage of complete rupture with the US administration, and complete hostility to the person of Arafat and towards the authority as a whole under his leadership.”
Thorny Relation with Hafez Assad
Relations were not friendly or normal between Yasser Arafat and Hafez Assad.
Yasser Abed Rabbo went to Damascus on a mission after the Syrian military intervention in Lebanon in 1976 where he met Assad.
He was asked: What did Assad tell you? Abed Rabbo replied: “There was a military clash in Sidon (southern Lebanon), and also some clashes and skirmishes in the Sawfar region (Mount Lebanon) and elsewhere. The situation became tense and an armed confrontation erupted between us and them (the Syrians), so the leadership in Beirut decided not to engage in the clash at this stage.”
"I believe that several countries, including the Gulf states particularly Saudi Arabia, stepped in to stop the conflict and contain the situation. The Syrians therefore agreed to receive our delegation to meet President Assad. I went there with Faoruk al-Qaddoumi. He was the Foreign Minister, and he is of course the head of the delegation. We met with President Assad”.
Abed Rabbo added that Assad was frowning and looked angry when he first entered the room. “He immediately surprised us and said: “What are you doing?...You cut off the heads of the Syrians who entered Sidon and played football with them in the streets.””
Abed Rabbo noted that he made sure to explain to Assad that the situation was a serious misunderstanding, and that no Syrian soldiers were hurt.
“...It was a miserable military failure”, Abed Rabbo told Assad “Is it reasonable for us to take Syrian prisoners?
“I confronted (Assad’s words) and said to him: Mr. President, how are these words possible? Firstly, it is shameful for anyone to use the term prisoners. Syrian soldiers are not prisoners. There was a mistake made by a commander and he found himself (lost) in Sidon. The militia members in Sidon saw tanks that they did not know for whom they belonged. A confrontation erupted but fortunately no one was injured by the gunfire. The forty soldiers are well and there were no beheadings. He (Assad) replied: By God, these are the reports I received. Are they writing false reports for me?
I said: Please make sure. There was no one injured... Let them send someone to get them back. We don’t know to whom we shall send them”.
Arafat Not a Fan of Expanding the War in Lebanon
On accusations that Arafat incited Kamal Jumblatt to take the war to the Mountain area, Abed Rabbo said: “Honestly, never. I believe that Kamal Jumblatt wanted the Palestinian resistance with all its forces to expand the front to the Mountain... He requested Fatah's participation in the process.”
But “Fatah did not participate, and if it did, it did so in a symbolic way...I am confident that it was not his (Arafat) plan to go to the mountain or turn to Bikfaya from the side of Dhour El-Shwair, as others had expected.”
Abed Rabbo added that “no one could ever go to the Mountain area and Aley” except with the consent of the socialist party.
Cruelty against Arafat is Inherent in Syria
Asked if Chief of staff of the Syrian Army General Hikmat al-Shehabi was very harsh to Arafat, Abed Rabbo said: “It seemed inherited among the leadership of the Syrian army. Mustafa Tlas did not like Yasser Arafat. Sometimes in some of his speeches he was extremely obscene and insulted him with vulgar and cheap insults. Hikmat Al-Shehabi could not stand the name Arafat at all. He was open about it to us.”
Asked about Sabri al-Banna (Abou Nidal), Abed Rabbo said: “He is extremely narcissistic, proud of himself and highly suspicious...he is quick to accuse... he doesn’t make you feel comfortable. At other times it is as if he had a real split personality, you find him calm and sociable.
“Abou Nidal immersed himself deeply in Palestinian blood, mainly during the Syrian-Palestinian rapprochement after the October war, and the emergence of the peace project and the PLO's Ten Point Program. It was the first seed of accepting the notion of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.
This was a warning bell for the Iraqis. They started working against the PLO and Fatah. They resorted to assassinations. They assassinated the ambassador in Kuwait and in Paris and in many other places”.
Gaddafi and Arafat’s Charisma
Asked whether an understanding was difficult between Arafat and Gaddafi, Abed Rabbo said: “It was difficult and easy. Gaddafi used to welcome Arafat warmly and friendly...Yasser Arafat dared to speak harshly to him, and even reprimanded him.
Gaddafi used to accept that because “Abou Ammar” considered himself not only older in age but also older in terms of his revolutionary history.
Abou Ammar did not give Gaddafi much importance because he was stingy in supporting Fatah and the PLO.
Arafat was charismatic. He had real charisma that some could not bear. Hafez Assad could not bear it. Ahmed Hasan Bakr could not stand Arafat. Saddam, maybe, felt himself at no competition with anyone because he had the conviction that since his young age he was above all humanity. Gaddafi was also jealous... He had to deal with Arafat with respect.”
Gaza Was Sacred for Arafat
Abed Rabbo met Arafat for the first time during The Battle of Karameh in 1968 in Jordan. It was the battle that gave legitimacy to Fatah and Arafat.
Asked if he misses Arafat today, Abed Rabbo said everyone who knew Arafat misses him and misses his role today.
“He would not have allowed all the circumstances that led to the latest aggression on Gaza,” Abed Rabbo said, adding that if Arafat was still alive he would not have allowed that division between the ranks of the PLO or Hamas’ diversion from the rest of the factions.
“It was not possible for this division to occur within the Palestinian movement and for Hamas to separate from the rest of the factions and the PLO, or for Gaza’s separation from the West Bank.
Gaza was sacred to Yasser Arafat. It was not possible for him to leave Gaza even if Hamas carried out a hundred coups”, he stated.
Abed Rabbo was asked how he left Jordan after the bloody 1970 events, he said: “I left in 1971. We remained in hiding in Amman after it came under the control of the Jordanian army. We then moved to live in the forests in Jerash and Ajloun where all the resistance forces gathered and (were subjected to shelling).
The meeting of the Palestine National Council was held in July or August. We, Abou Jihad (Khalil al-Wazir) and I, were asked to leave for Cairo to attend the meeting. We left under Arab protection and the forests of Jerash and Ajloun were swept after we left”.

In the quiet seaside town of Amchit, 45 minutes north of Beirut, public schools are finally in session again, alongside tens of thousands of internally displaced people who have made some of them a makeshift shelter.

As Israeli strikes on Lebanon escalated in September, hundreds of schools in Lebanon were either destroyed or closed due to damage or security concerns, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Of around 1,250 public schools in Lebanon, 505 schools have also been turned into temporary shelters for some of the 840,000 people internally displaced by the conflict, according to the Lebanese education ministry.

Last month, the ministry started a phased reopening, allowing 175,000 students - 38,000 of whom are displaced - to return to a learning environment that is still far from normal, Reuters reported.

At Amchit Secondary Public School, which now has 300 enrolled students and expects more as displaced families keep arriving, the once-familiar spaces have transformed to accommodate new realities.

Two-and-a-half months ago, the school was chosen as a shelter, school director Antoine Abdallah Zakhia said.

Today, laundry hangs from classroom windows, cars fill the playground that was once a bustling area, and hallways that used to echo with laughter now serve as resting areas for families seeking refuge.

Fadia Yahfoufi, a displaced woman living temporarily at the school, expressed gratitude mixed with longing.

"Of course, we wish to go back to our homes. No one feels comfortable except at home," she said.

Zeina Shukr, another displaced mother, voiced her concerns for her children's education.

"This year has been unfair. Some children are studying while others aren't. Either everyone studies, or the school year should be postponed," she said.

- EDUCATION WON'T STOP

OCHA said the phased plan to resume classes will enrol 175,000 students, including 38,000 displaced children, across 350 public schools not used as shelters.

"The educational process is one of the aspects of resistance to the aggression Lebanon is facing," Education Minister Abbas Halabi told Reuters

Halabi said the decision to resume the academic year was difficult as many displaced students and teachers were not psychologically prepared to return to school.

In an adjacent building at Amchit Secondary Public School, teachers and students are adjusting to a compressed three-day week, with seven class periods each day to maximize learning time.

Nour Kozhaya, a 16-year-old Amchit resident, remains optimistic. "Lebanon is at war, but education won't stop. We will continue to pursue our dreams," she said.

Teachers are adapting to the challenging conditions.

"Everyone is mentally exhausted ... after all this war is on all of us," Patrick Sakr, a 38-year-old physics teacher, said.

For Ahmad Ali Hajj Hassan, a displaced 17-year-old from the Bekaa region, the three-day school week presents a challenge, but not a deterrent.

"These are the conditions. We can study despite them," he said.

Abed Rabbo: Arafat Was Mischievous with Gaddafi…Syrian Military Had Inherited Animosity Towards Him