RAMALLAH: One morning in November, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat had a problem.

He was due to receive foreign diplomats setting up local representative offices, but he had no honour guard, no red carpet, and only a battered office in which to greet them.

So his bodyguards stepped in to provide the ceremonial welcome. Aides rummaged through the debris of his headquarters and found an old strip of faded red carpet in a storage room.

Inside the sandbagged building, Arafat arranged his black and white chequered keffiya on his head and neck in the shape of historic Palestine and then stood to attention for his guests.

The scene symbolised how the 73-year-old leader, who has gone from guerrilla-in-exile to elected president, clings to the trappings of statehood — even though he has no country to speak of and his movements are heavily restricted by Israel.

Israel considers him irrelevant and the United States has urged the Palestinians to replace him, but Palestinian analysts say that when Arafat runs in presidential elections scheduled for January he will be easily re-elected.

This year Israeli forces have twice occupied Arafat’s West Bank compound in Ramallah following Palestinian suicide bombings and shelled his offices until they were barely standing.

Arafat, who has condemned suicide attacks and the killing of civilians on either side, seemed to thrive in adversity. His aides issued photographs of him signing papers by lamp light.—Reuters