NewsHour Extra: Who Will Replace Arafat? -- November 8, 2004

Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra feature stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write a 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: Who Will Replace Yasser Arafat?, 11/08/04
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec04/arafat_11-08.html

Initiating Questions:

1. Who is Yasser Arafat?

2. What is his role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

3. What will happen when Arafat dies?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. How do Arabs and Israelis view Yasser Arafat?

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has been a controversial figure in the Middle East conflict for more than three decades. While most Israelis consider him a terrorist, Palestinians and their Arab neighbors consider him the father of the Palestinian liberation movement, which has sought to end Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories since 1967.
In recent years, Arafat has been ostracized as an ineffective leader and his organization, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), has fallen into disorganization and corruption.

2. Why are so many people worried about what will happen if Arafat dies?

What happens next will dictate whether the region descends even further into chaos and violence, or whether other Palestinians can restart the peace process, which Arab and most European governments say is the most important issue facing the world community.
"The need to revitalize the Middle East peace process is the single most pressing political challenge in our world today," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said in a statement congratulating President Bush on winning a second term.

3. Could there be a positive outcome to Arafat's passing?

But, some experts say Arafat's absence may present an opportunity for the Palestinian people to reorganize their institutions and resume peace negotiations with Israel.
"Arafat's absence would probably create an opportunity for the Palestinian people to activate effectively their institutions," Khalil Jahshan, a former president of the National Association of Arab-Americans, said. "Now the Palestinians have a chance to have an effective prime minister, an effective president of the [Palestinian Authority], an effective chairman of the executive committee of the PLO and to see if they can implement the reforms that 90 percent of the Palestinian people have been asking for."

4. Why has Arafat often been criticized for his leadership?

Throughout his leadership, Arafat has been criticized for claiming to want peace, but failing to condemn factions of the PLO that have carried out terrorist attacks in the group's name.
Arafat came to the United States several times during the 1990s to meet with Israeli leaders and President Clinton, who made an Israeli-Palestinian solution a priority. However, talks broke down in September 2000, when Arafat rejected a sweeping peace plan.
In 2003, President Bush refused to recognize the leader as a legitimate partner in negotiations.

5. Which two men are in line to succeed Arafat?

Two men have been named as possible successors if elections were to be held. The first, Mahmoud Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, is the secretary-general of the PLO. Abbas is considered a moderate and has called for an end to violence against Israelis.
Another possibility is Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei, the second in command at the Palestinian Authority, the administrative arm of the PLO. Known popularly as Abu Allah, Qurei is also considered a moderate and has locked heads with Arafat over his failure to reign in militant Islamic groups like Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.

6. What, according to some experts, has to happen in order for the Palestinian people to accept a new leader?

"None of the Palestinian leaders today have a popular mandate to pursue peace the way that President Arafat did or still does," he said. "The only way that they're going to be able to develop that popular mandate is through elections."

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. Describe what could happen in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if a new, more moderate, leader were to succeed Yasser Arafat. What challenges would such a leader face from the Israelis and from his own people?

2. Given what you've read about Yasser Arafat in the above story and after reading Arafat's bio at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/conflict/keyplayers_4.html what do you think Arafat's strengths and weaknesses are? Is he an effective leader or is he a terrorist?

Write a 300-500 word essay on either of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra (extra@newshour.org). Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.