Which was Arafat’s faith?
Uwe Siemon-Netto, December 7, 2004
To Pope John Paul II, Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat was “a charismatic figure,” which is arguably true. But was Arafat a man of faith? If so, a man of which faith? Or did he use religion solely for his political ends?
As in politics, he was in matters of religion a chameleon-like creature. He has repeatedly acknowledged to have been under the influence of the notorious Hajj Amin al-Husayni in his youth. Husayni, the former grand mufti of Jerusalem, won notoriety in World War II for his closeness to the Nazi regime in Germany.
Later, Arafat consorted some of the world’s greatest despisers of religion, men such as Soviet leader Leonid Breshnev, and his Czechoslovak and East German vassals Gustav Husak and Erich Honecker.
When the Soviet empire collapsed in 1991, Arafat presented himself almost as a closet Christian. He told American pastor R.T. Kendall, “Jesus Christ is very, very important to me.” He spoke of a dream in which “a lamb led me to Bethlehem. There I saw the Virgin Mary holding Jesus. I kissed Jesus. When I woke up I was so moved that I ordered a lamb to be slaughtered and taken to the priests at the Church of Nativity for them to have a feast.”
Every Christmas, Arafat attended Christmas Mass in the Nativity Church until Israel stopped him from coming in 2002.
Was this an act of hypocrisy, given that Palestinian policemen under his command looked on as Muslim thugs raped Arab Christian girls right there, where Christ was born? Or was he a tortured man seeking a gracious God in his conversations with Kendall, who tried to convert him but later noted, “Whether I did good on my two visits to this torn, frail but unusual leader, I don’t know.”
Arafat evidently did not object when his wife Suha, though a convert from Catholicism to Islam, continued to worship in church services regularly and had her daughter, Zahawa, baptized.
But clearly under pressure from advisers – and in an attempt to shore up his flagging support among Palestinians – he sent Suha on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 2001, a journey from which she returned to her luxurious apartment on the Champs Elysées in Paris and her elegant suits by Louis Feraud, a French designer.
One thing is clear, though – Arafat was at least indirectly responsible for some of the most ferociously political Friday sermons preached from the pulpits of the most important mosques in the Holy Land. These were sermons that depicted the Jews as kin of pigs and denied their history on Temple Mount where their first and second temples were located until the latter’s destruction by the Romans in 70 A.D.
It was Arafat who named and paid Sheikh Irkrima Sabri, a fiery cleric, as grand mufti of Jerusalem ten yeas ago. Arafat personally supervised the Friday homilies written by Sheikh Sabri and delivered by him or one of his scholars at the Al Aqsa mosque on Temple Mount and other sanctuaries, according to G. Windecker, a German scholar.
Muslim tradition has it that participation in the Al Aqsa prayers counts 50,000 times as much as a prayer spoken at home. Thus the sermons given at Al Aqsa are so important that they are broadcast every week on radio and television. The same is true for sermons spoken at important Sheikh Idjlin Mosque in Gaza.
What do these preachers say? For example this: “The Jewish residents of Jerusalem are only temporary … we will get rid of them” (Sabri). More ominously, they preach not the erection of a Palestine state but the restoration of an Islamic empire with a caliph at its head and Jerusalem as its capital.
“The Islamic Khilafah State (caliphate)… will tread on the heads of Europe, Russia and the United States,” a sermon emanating from the Arafat-controlled grand mufti’s office prognosticated in the year 2000. “You will see wars after wars between Islam between Islam and the unbelievers, wars that will continue until the Day of Doom.”
This does of course not square with the kind of policies that won Arafat the Nobel Peace price. But it does correspond to the goals of Hizb ut-Tahrir (Islamic Party of Liberation), the most sophisticatedly structured Muslim extremist organization, which is based in England but operates worldwide.
Its stated goal, too, is the restoration of the caliphate, and it proclaims itself as the only Muslim sect that will be saved on the Day of Judgment.
So who was Yasser Arafat – a soul-mate of atheists, a closet Christian, a humble and troubled Muslim patriot with an open heart for other faiths, or a promoter of Islamic world rule?
Perhaps here, too, Arafat’s infamous statement in a meeting of top Fatah leaders applies: “Do not pay attention to what I say in the media … or public appearances. Pay attention only to written instructions you receive from me.”
Uwe Siemon-Netto is Religious Affairs Editor for United Press International.