A recollection of time spent with Arafat

What was your first impression of him?

He wasn't pompous or officious, but direct, straightforward. I was impressed with his Arab charm; he was very hospitable. He was always impatient with Americans. He said over and over that the Americans should deal with the Mideast in terms of their national interest. Why can't the Americans see it is not in their national interest to treat Israel as their little baby, he felt. This is the term he used - Israel is America's little baby.

What did Arafat think about Israelis?

He often called them "our cousins." His attitudes were of course highly mixed. Like all Palestinians, he resented the creation of Israel "on our Arab lands." He saw Israel as being established by an international Zionist conspiracy supported by the West as a way for Christians to erase their guilt for crimes against the Jews in Europe. But certainly after the war of 1973 he came to terms with the reality that Israeli was here to stay.

His overpowering ambition was to get other nations to pressure Israel to make a "fair" deal for a two-state solution. He felt no Israeli government would make such a deal without strong outside pressure.

Any special remembrances of the man?

[President Jimmy] Carter asked me to see Arafat and persuade him to open official US talks. I got nowhere. Finally I took a daring line in Beirut and said, "Mr. Chairman, you have talked with me for two years about how you are ready for peace. But no one will talk. Why not write a letter to Prime Minister [Menachem] Begin, urgently asking him to meet anytime, anyplace, without any preconditions to settle the quarrels between our two peoples. Full stop. If Begin says no, you publicize the letter. If yes, you have started something." He let me sit in silence for minutes. Finally he slumped over, with a low voice, looking at the floor, he said, "I'm not strong enough." He didn't say I was crazy, or order me out. Just, "I'm not strong enough."

Was Arafat a terrorist?

I think he had blood on his hands. I think he committed terrorist acts in his early field-fighter days. Whether it was on civilians, I doubt.

But let me digress. The man I learned most about the Middle East from is a retired Israeli general, Matti Peled, [who was] given credit for winning the Six Day War. Afterwards, ... he felt with a passion that the madness, as he called it, must stop. "We've got to be decent and just with the Palestinians and make a peace," he'd say. Once I watched him meet some Jewish students and advocate a deal with Arafat. Some students were very angry. How can we negotiate with terrorists they wondered? He said, "You are right. They are terrorists. But I want to tell you something. At age 15 I was a Jewish terrorist. I did things I'm ashamed to think about now. When people are driven to extremes, they do awful things."

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