JERUSALEM – Today Palestinians all over the world will be commemorating the passing away of their long-time President Yasser Arafat, who died last year in a Paris hospital, after the abrupt departure from his Ramallah compound.

A year later, the political and economic situation in Palestine has only improved minimally. Even in light of the internationally acclaimed Unilateral Disengagement from Gaza, and the positive rhetoric used by world leaders, Palestinians are as far away from freedom, statehood and independence as they were under the leadership of President Arafat. The lack of genuine progress in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations stand as a testimony to the fact that President Arafat was wrongfully made irrelevant, vilified and incarcerated by Israel.

On the one-year anniversary of Presidet Arafat’s death, MIFTAH calls on the international community to pressure Israel to halt its continued illegal practices that violate Palestinian human rights, and secondly, to pressure Israel to return to the negotiating table, and thirdly to open up an international investigation to uncover his mysterious death.

At this critical juncture in our history, our struggle for liberation must be sustained. While Abu Ammar’s passing was a tragic loss to the entire Palestinian nation, his legacy and his mission live on in the hearts, minds, and voices of all Palestinians who seek a just solution to the Palestinian-Zionist conflict.

The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy, MIFTAH, is a non-governmental, non-partisan Jerusalem-based institution dedicated to fostering democracy and good governance within Palestinian society through promoting public accountability, transparency, the free flow of information and ideas and the challenging of stereotyping at home and abroad.