CAIRO, Oct 28 (AFP) - Once the undisputed champion of the Palestinian struggle, Yasser Arafat had lost some of his aura in the Arab world since the Israeli army confined him to his Ramallah headquarters almost three years ago.
The 75-year-old leader is said to be very ill and doctors were considering whether to transfer him to hospital Thursday after his health abruptly deteriorated.
The symbol of Palestinians' yearning for independence since he founded the Fatah party 45 years ago, Arafat is now the leader of a crippled executive which was supposed to administer the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The 1993 Oslo accords on limited Palestinian autonomy which led Arafat to recognise Israel's right to exist were not welcomed by all Arab states, but the veteran leader managed to rebuild his image across the region seven years later.
In July 2000, he returned from the Camp David negotiations to a hero's welcome in the Arab world after refusing to waive the Palestinian refugees' right of return and sovereignty over the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem.
Two months later, Arab states closed ranks behind the historical Palestinian leader when the second intifada broke out.
Yet the four-year-old uprising has had mixed effects on his standing in the region.
Cameras locked on the image of a frail old man cooped up in his bomb-damaged compound in Ramallah defying the formidable fire power of the Israeli war machine boosted Arafat's stock among Arabs and in the rest of the world.
"They want to arrest me, send me into exile or kill me. But I tell them No. I want to be a martyr, a martyr, a martyr," he said in March 2002, several months after Israel kept him confined to his Ramallah headquarters.
But his isolation by Israel and his boycott as a political partner by the United States also gradually eroded his prestige.
Pictures of an old man with a pale complexion and a quivering lip began to replace that of the indefatigable globetrotting diplomatic lobbyist or of the defiant independence leader.
In his latest interviews, Arafat tended to dwell on past achievements and made little impact on Arab news dominated by Iraq.
Allegations over the corruption of his entourage resurfaced and Arafat was also criticised for caving in to US-Israeli demands.
In May 2002, he agreed to hand over to Israel militants who had been holed up in his Muqataa compound.
As part of the same agreement, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine leader Ahmed Saadat and four other members of his group were jailed in Jericho under international supervision for their implication in the assassination of Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi.
Pictures of the militants and political leaders being handed over to the Israeli army and bused to prison were beamed across the region by television networks and seriously dented Arafat's standing in the Arab world.
Branded a traitor by some, Arafat lost the military prestige of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation to more radical groups such Hamas.
The Palestinian issue has always been a thorn in the side of the Arab world, and as the siege of his compound continued, Arafat received only half-hearted support from his Arab neighbours, who were also under international pressure to sideline him.
Cracks started to emerge in his leadership as senior members of his own party criticised his action. Arafat relinquished his monopoly on Palestinian decision-making and begrudgingly agreed to a power share with the creation of a post of prime minister.
"Revelations of corruption, the lack of transparency in Arafat's finances, reports on his wife Suha's colossal spending as well as the nepotism which has plagued his security services have tarnished his image as the sacred symbol of the Palestinian cause," analyst Emad Gad said.
"Public opinion realised he was nothing more than another autocratic leader in the Arab world and his executive behaved like a lawless junta," said the analyst from the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
The leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Mahdi Akef, also expressed little sympathy for the ailing leader.
"Arafat has become an Arab leader, a dictator like all the others," he told AFP, adding nevertheless that "the occupation is preventing any change of progress in Palestine."
10/28/2004 13:51 GMT - AFP