FOR more than 30 years, Yassir Arafat has been a symbol of Palestinian resistance. His death for Palestinians, even those angered by mismanagement, corruption and Mr Arafat’s failure to deliver a Palestinian homeland, would see his departure as a devastating blow to the Palestinian movement.

His extraordinary journey from young resistance fighter, organising raids into Israel from Jordan, into the elder statesman of the Palestinian movement has been as turbulent as his own life, and as controversial.

But even those Palestinians who were astonished by what they saw as his betrayal of Palestinian resistance, when he signed the Oslo agreements, have been heartened by his defiance of Israel since the breakdown of peace talks. His refusal to abandon the ruins of his shabby headquarters in Ramallah has turned him, in old age, into a symbol, again, of Palestinian refusal to accept Israeli domination.

His death, though for years a clear objective of many Israelis, and in particular Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, nevertheless would plunge the Israeli authorities into a crisis. So long as Mr Arafat remains a broken prisoner in Ramallah, unable to exercise any real authority, the Israelis believe that the Palestinian Authority that he heads could never achieve any real force as an effective government. The likely uproar throughout Gaza and the West Bank, and probable rioting, if he dies will once again confront Israel with a general chaos on its borders.

Imprisoned in Ramallah, Mr Arafat has been for a while now a lonely figure, largely ignored by world statesmen and written off as an effective leader able to rein in militancy. His death would leave a vacuum that Palestinians would find hard to fill.

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