IT is an irony that Fatah and Hamas should fail to display unity even when the 10th anniversary of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s death was being observed in the occupied territories.

The Palestinian freedom movement has always been faction-ridden, and Arafat himself headed one of the groups — Fatah. But through his political brilliance and undying devotion to his people’s cause, Arafat kept them united under the umbrella organisation, the Palestine Liberation Organisation, till his dying day.

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His greatest achievement was to revive the Palestinian issue, which by the 1960s had been reduced to the question of Palestinian refugees. Arafat’s military and diplomatic efforts brought the Palestinian issue to the fore. The battle of Karameh in the aftermath of the 1967 war was the PLO’s first major military victory and helped consolidate Arafat’s image as the undisputed champion of the Palestinian people.

He committed many mistakes, fell out with Jordan’s King Hussein and Syria’s Hafez al-Assad, and made a huge error of judgement by aligning himself with Saddam Hussein during the Kuwait invasion and appeared politically finished when the Israeli invasion made him and his soldiers leave Lebanon. But they were back within months, and Arafat — with his headquarters shifted to faraway Tunis — made an extraordinary comeback.

His diplomatic triumph came in September 1993 when those who had branded him a terrorist shook hands with him on the lawns of the White House and initialled an agreement that provided for the emergence of a sovereign Palestinian state.

The Israeli leader who signed it, Yitzhak Rabin, was murdered, subsequent Israeli governments reneged on the agreement, and the hard-line Ariel Sharon reoccupied Palestinian territories vacated earlier as his tanks destroyed Arafat’s headquarters brick by brick. But Arafat refused to be cowed. His boundless courage was admired even by his enemies.

He escaped minutes before the Israelis raided his hideout on the West Bank when he had begun organising resistance, and at Camp David 2000 he refused to sign on the dotted line to write off Jerusalem.

The split between Fatah and Hamas came after Arafat’s death and serves to highlight his role as the sole leader of his people.

With Israel coming under increasing pressure even from its traditional bankrollers and supporters, it is time Fatah and Hamas honoured Arafat’s legacy and realised that it is only through emulating the unity and selflessness shown by their late leader that they can end Israeli occupation and found a sovereign Palestine.

Published in Dawn, November 13th, 2014