The much too promised land [antikvár]

Introduction:Where did you get those shoes?The chairman will see you now. But the meeting will have to be short. He's not well. I had known Saeb Erekat, the PLO's lead negotiator, for twenty years and had never seen him so agi-tated.As we walked down the corridor of Arafat's Ramallah head-quarters, I thought about the chairman. I had seen him several months earlier, in August 2004. Then he was fiery and combat-ive, reveiing in his role as victim. He had described himself as an embattled but undefeated Arab generál (the only one) besieged by the mighty Israeli army. Arafat's ominously black, compact machine pistol sitting on the conference table had set the tone for our meeting that day.Now it was late October, and Arafat was reportedly very ill. Rumors hung as thick as the stale air in his headquarters. Did he have stomach cancer? Liver disease? Was he being poisoned by the Israelis? Did he have AIDS? I had no idea what to expect.Saeb ushered me into the small windowless space that was serving as Arafat's bedroom, instead of the regular sitting room where Arafat usually greeted his guests. The room was unbear-ably hot. The heat, combined with the sight of his unmade bed, medications strewn about, and a strange-looking contraption that in better days probably dispensed oxygen, made me queasy. I started to sweat.As Arafat entered the room, propped up by Abu Alaa, the Palestinian prime minister, on one side and quickly by Saeb on the other, I was shocked by what I saw. Arafat had lost a great deal of weight. His face, gaunt and white rather than pale, only