Ignored Arafat casts a long shadow as the bogeyman everyone still loves to hate

As Israelis prepare to go to the polls on Tuesday, the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, continues to cast a dark shadow. Professor Yaron Ezrahi, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, said: "Arafat is very relevant, if only for the fact that the argument over whether he is relevant or not relevant is a campaign issue."

Surveys show a majority in favour of the left's agenda – a Palestinian state, withdrawal from most of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, evacuation of many settlements – but a reluctance to vote for Labour's Amram Mitzna, who wants to resume peace talks immediately.

Most Israelis no longer believe it is possible to make a deal while Mr Arafat remains in office. His call earlier this month for a halt to attacks on Israeli civilians, blatantly presented as a way to help the left, was too transparent.

Tamar Hermann, director of Tel Aviv University's monthly peace survey, said: "In the mid-Nineties, after the Oslo accords, Israelis began to see him as a statesman rather than a terrorist. Now he is back to pure terrorist. People see him as completely untrustworthy."

The public, she explained, was separating short-term and long-term preferences. "Israelis are strongly in favour of harsh military measures in the short run, but if terrorism will decline for a few months and there are indications that Israel could get guarantees for its security, they would be willing to make considerable concessions."

Professor Ezrahi argued that it suited Mr Sharon to keep Mr Arafat in play. "He is a necessary condition for the policy of the government not to negotiate," he said. "He's a kind of alibi. Sharon needs an impotent Arafat, or an Arafat who has been demonised and humiliated. Arafat is better for Sharon than any alternative leader who could force him to the table."

Mr Mitzna's problem, Professor Ezrahi suggests, is that Mr Arafat is all that the right-wingers say he is. "Because Arafat is genuinely a corrupt and unreliable leader, it traps Mitzna. He is unable to push his programme very vigorously because the Palestinian side doesn't seem to be ready for it under Arafat's leadership."

For all his 73 years, Mr Arafat is in no rush to move on. He has postponed the promised Palestinian elections indefinitely. His jet-setting days are over. He is barely able to leave his battered office building, let alone the West Bank city of Ramallah. His control has been weakened, but commentators acknowledge that he remains a national symbol.

Mr Arafat marginalised two rebellious younger leaders, Jibril Rajoub and Mohammed Dahlan, the security chiefs in the West Bank and Gaza respectively. Leaders in their sixties, such as Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) and Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala), lack the appeal or stature to mount a challenge.

Professor Mahdi Abdul-Hadi, a Palestinian political scientist who runs an East Jerusalem think-tank, said: "Arafat is still the glue which keeps everyone together, but a weak glue. He is still the address for the national pride of resistance." But people are more relaxed about criticising Mr Arafat, he said. "They call for elections, they need reforms. People are living a catastrophe. They are not talking about healing, they're talking about the need to stop the bleeding." Arafat will continue to be a master of tactics and survival. As a survivor he will go for anything now. If there is a change of heart in Israel, he will go for it."

Perhaps so, but it may be too late for Amram Mitzna – and too late for Yasser Arafat.