The death of Yasser Arafat and the lives of the late Palestinian president’s followers were the subject of vigorous and sometimes-heated debate Tuesday afternoon in the ICC.

For “Beyond Arafat: The Palestinian Leadership Crisis,” Michael Hudson, director of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, played host to six expert panelists and approximately 60 audience members, some of whom were resigned to observing via another room’s television screen due to space constraints.

Though there was much disagreement between the six panelists, all agreed on the need to aid the Palestinian Authority.

“I just want to take a moment to [emphasize] the reality of the situation – that we’re talking about people’s everyday lives, and we’re talking about people who are suffering every day in all sorts of ways,” Ziad Abu-Rish (MAAS ’06) said. “It’s really important that we bring in the human element to our discussion.”

Edward Abington , former U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem and political consultant to the Palestinian Authority, said that the Palestinian economy had been devastated in the last four years.

“The Israeli siege on the West Bank and the separation of the West Bank and Gaza have separated the Palestinian Authority from the Palestinian people, and there is a general recognition, I believe, that the Palestinian Authority must be rebuilt,” he said. “There must be a restoration of public order, and there must be a concentration on finding a way out of the violence of the last four years.”

He went on to cite the Palestinian Authority’s 60 percent poverty rate and 40-50 percent unemployment rate.

Khalil Janshan, a Nazarene and director of Pepperdine University’s D.C. internship program, quipped, “If Jesus were in charge, same difficulty.”

Such difficulties will be sure to afflict the tenure of the next Palestinian president, who will be elected in a Jan. 9 vote.

Ben-Zvi attacked Arafat’s role in the failed Camp David peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine in 2000.

“There was no bargaining,” he said. “He was just uninterested.”

Hassan Abdel Rahman, chief Palestinian representative to the U.S., countered that Arafat wanted private negotiations.

“At Camp David, the Israelis did not make any comprehensive offer to the Palestinians,” he said.

The bulk of discussion dealt with the necessity of the Palestinian Authority’s legitimacy in the months following Arafat’s death.

“Arafat was . larger than life, and bigger than all the institutions of the PLO and the Palestinian Authority put together,” Abdel Rahman said. Yet they “functioned normally and smoothly, to the surprise of many people who thought that there would be chaos and disorder.”

Others, however, were doubtful. Many argued that the new government would have to maintain a dialogue with even the most critical of domestic factions, and they spoke of the troublesome balance between the security of the Israeli and Palestinian populaces.

“I have to lean a little bit towards the empty [half of the glass],” Hudson said, adding that he was “more impressed by the difficulties that were described, both on the internal Palestinian level and on the external, larger, diplomatic-strategic level.”

George Salem, chairman of the Arab American Institute, praised the president’s choice for Secretary of State, current National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, and said that he hoped she would move the peace process forward.

“Dr. Rice . is a very tough, brilliant woman who has the president’s ear,” he said. “It’s the opportunity for someone who is closer than anyone else in this administration to engage and to get the president to fulfill his vision for an independent Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel.”