Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's legacy still looms over path to peace
Ten years after his death, the long-time Palestinian leader still seems like the only man who could have forged a deal with Israel
When he died, Yasser Arafat, arguably still the most recognisable face of the Palestinian cause, had been largely dismissed by the United States as an obstacle to peace after walking away from a deal with Israel.
Yet 10 years on and despite an intensive US-brokered diplomatic drive, an end to the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict is as elusive as ever.
"The reality with Arafat, you couldn't do the deal with him and obviously you couldn't do the deal without him. And that is the key paradox," said Aaron David Miller, a former adviser to six US secretaries of state.
In death as in life, the wily former guerilla in his trademark keffiyeh scarf has loomed large over the Palestinian people and their long search for a homeland.
Analysts highlight that it was Arafat who first agreed to a two-state solution under which a Palestinian state would live side by side with Israel. And it was Arafat, throwing political caution to the wind, who in 1993 shook hands with then Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn, watched by a smiling US president Bill Clinton.
"He cannot be simply put into this category as an obstacle or problem because without him we would not have had any agreement at all, no negotiations," insisted Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow with the American Task Force on Palestine.
In the years after that handshake, talks limped along and the violence continued until the fateful 2000 Camp David summit.