Yasir Arafat's serious illness threatens to remove the man who has dominated even created the Palestinian cause, shaped the Arab-Israeli conflict, and blocked the achievement of its peaceful resolution for almost a half-century.  His passing would have an enormous effect on Middle Eastern and even global politics.

     Arafat's politics and tactics have been inextricably linked. Since he entered political life in 1948, his goal has been to destroy Israel and create a Palestinian Arab state in its place. Basically, he has never fundamentally wavered in this goal, though for a time in the 1990s Arafat seemed ready to postpone it a bit.

     His consistent use of terrorism, a tactic he pioneered beginning in the early 1960s and continues down to this day, arose out of a belief that such violence would cause Israel to collapse, mobilize support among his own people, and not sabotage his effort to win international backing.

     Arafat was successful in building his movement. Hopping from one Arab capital to another, he maintained enough sponsorship to survive. Equally, he held together a loose coalition of Palestinian groups by being the symbol of all but never trying to impose real control on his smaller rivals.

     The result was a remarkable mix. On one hand, Arafat had spectacular success in creating the PLO and keeping it going. He sustained the longest-running terrorist campaign in modern history. In 1993, by signing the Oslo agreement, he even persuaded many that he was ready for a compromise peace. And he returned to his homeland to become the head of a Palestinian Authority that seemed poised to achieve a state.

     Yet on the other hand, Arafat is a miserable failure. He deepened and extended his people's suffering, while missing one political opportunity after another. As ruler over two million Palestinians he created a chaotic situation. And in 2000 he rejected, at Camp David and in the Clinton plan, two chances to obtain a state and end the Israeli occupation. Instead, Arafat returned to war, still believing that violence would achieve his goals. The result has been four years of bloodshed and the totally unnecessary deaths of several thousand people.

     While many in Europe and elsewhere continued to be swayed by Arafat's unique skill in public relations and his revolutionary image, he once again hit bottom. Israel and the United States refused to talk with him, both disillusioned by their dealings with him and his refusal to implement promises or keep commitments. Even in Europe, criticisms of Arafat have eached an all-time high. As for the Arab world, while public complaint is more muted, I have never talked to a political or intellectual figure there who had a good word to say about him in private. Among Palestinians, too, his popularity was at a low point, though they also had a consensus that there was no other choice for leader.

     What, then, is Arafat's legacy? Having refused to create viable institutions or to name a successor for so long, the result may be chaos.

Ironically, his most serious illness has come at a time when the pending
Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip offers him still another opportunity to show his seriousness at governing well, stopping the violence, and making peace. Every sign has been that he was well on the way to fumbling that chance as well.

The Palestinian movement remains a cluster of disparate, often rival leaders and organizations. Its whole structure is a formula for ragmentation. Aside from nationalist and Islamist groups, other lines of cleavage potentially divide Palestinians inside and outside the West Bank/Gaza Strip area as well as those two pieces of territory themselves.

     Arafat holds every key office and would have to be replaced in each one, though not necessarily by a single person. As head of the PLO he leads Palestinians everywhere; as chief of the Palestinian Authority he supposedly governs territory; as leader of the largest group, Fatah, he runs a revolutionary organization.

     The main question, then, is not who but what will replace Arafat. The paradox here is that while Arafat was the man who refused to make peace the vacuum left by his passing may not make that task easier. Whatever nominal arrangements are made to fill his shoes, it will be a long time before anyone exercises real power as the Palestinian leader.

     With no one clearly in charge--and rivals trying to outbid each other by proving their legitimacy through militancy--a major decision to seek peace will be postponed.  Equally, there will be no one whose authority or actions is going to convince Israelis to make concessions or take risks, especially given the outcome of such efforts in the 1990s.

     Moreover, since there are so many local warlords each with his own
militia, there is unlikely to be much discipline or coordination. This does not mean there will be a civil war--Palestinian groups are reluctant to fight each other on any large scale--but ensures there will also be a minimum of civil order. In this context, the radical Islamist group Hamas is unlikely to take over. Yet since nationalist groups will ally with Hamas to gain more power, the Islamists could gain a veto power which would make moderation even harder to achieve.

     To make matters worse, Iran and different Arab states would be free to back the leader of their choice in a bid to increase their own influence, adding to the disorganization and disunity. Already, the Lebanese Hizballah group, backed by Iran and Syria, has been gaining control over more terrorist cells.

     Here, then, is the greatest irony of Arafat's career. He brought his people to the verge of achieving a state, then prevented them from getting one. The question now is whether his long shadow will continue to do so after his death or incapacitation.

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Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and co-author of Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography (Oxford University Press).