Arafat's Envoy

Perhaps Yasser Arafat can't move in Ramallah, but Nabil Shaath, the embattled Palestinian leader's ambassador to the outside world, can't keep still in Cairo. First he's making a cell-phone call to the State Department. Then he's at the Arab League headquarters. Then it's off to a television studio. In a hotel suite overlooking the Nile, he's finishing up a TIME interview and is about to do another with the Tel Aviv daily Yedioth Ahronoth. His mission is not only to win safeguards for Arafat's life. "We have to proceed back to the peace process," he says.

The optimistic remark is in character for the former business-school professor who for more than 30 years has been one of Arafat's closest advisers. Since his student days in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of business, Shaath, 63, has made it a point to reach out to Israelis in search of coexistence. For years, he dreamed of eliminating the Jewish state in favor of a single, secular nation of Muslims, Christians and Jews. In 1974, he wrote the "gun or the olive branch" speech that Arafat delivered to the United Nations General Assembly.

Shaath, who was nine when his family fled the Palestinian port of Jaffa for the Egyptian city of Alexandria, believes that Israel and the Palestinians came closer than ever to a historic agreement on a separate Palestinian state during talks at Camp David just before Ariel Sharon came to power in 2001. But, Shaath insists, Israel did not offer Arafat a viable state. If the ensuing Palestinian uprising violated the Oslo accord, he says, then so does Israel's continuing occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The way out now, he says, is for the U.S. to "intervene, politically, militarily and economically."

Every half-hour, Shaath receives a call from Arafat, who is using cell phones to maintain contact with the outside. Arafat gives him instructions for marshaling international support, then checks on the progress. Shaath says Arafat has two rooms, a hallway, one toilet, dried food and no fresh water for himself, 15 bodyguards and staffers and about 20 peace activists. Despite the conditions, Shaath says, "Arafat has high morale."

Keeping Shaath's own spirits up these days are frequent phone calls from Israeli friends, including dovish former Justice Minister Yossi Beilin. "We are exchanging frustrations," Shaath says. "We want to overcome them and build a better future. Even in the worst of times, we never stopped talking." It seems that as long as Shaath's cell phone is ringing, there is no reason for Israelis and Palestinians to give up all hope.

Q&A
TIME: How can the Palestinians do their part?
SHAATH: If America, with Europe and Arab countries, is present on the political, security and economic fronts, it should give Arafat all that he needs to persuade everyone in his country to stick to a cease-fire.

TIME: Why does he prefer to be a "martyr?"
SHAATH: I kept saying, "I am worried." He would say, "Don't worry about me. I'm willing to meet my God. I am serene." He prefers martyrdom to being imprisoned or deported. He would rather fight and die fighting.

TIME: What would happen if Arafat is killed?
SHAATH: Would it be possible to return to a Palestinian leadership that wants to pursue peace?

TIME: Doesn't the intifadeh hurt your cause?.
SHAATH: Violence against the Israeli army and set-tlers is justified when you are under occupation. We condemned suicide bombings and still condemn them. The sight of Israeli civilians killed in a café is horrible for me. Arafat lost control. If there is a real agreement, all violence will stop.

TIME: Israelis say Arafat rejected a generous offer at Camp David.
SHAATH: The Israelis did not offer Palestine on a silver platter. There was no sovereignty over the air, over the sea, over the borders. Nothing for the Palestinian refugees. It was a bum deal.