It is pointless to recount his accomplishments. That has been amply done by the media around the globe. What stands out about him is the humanism of this great intellectual. He worked for the uplift of mankind as a whole; but his feet were firmly planted in Palestine of inter-war period. His basic identity was Palestinian; it was not diluted or submerged by his acquisition of American citizenship or being steeped in western culture. His was the finest Arab-Palestinian intellect, living fully in two widely-separated, indeed estranged, worlds: of a Palestinian Arab whose homeland had been snatched and living in an uncaring west, some of which was complicit in the history's biggest fraud that resulted in the Israeli state being set up. He continued to work for the Palestinians getting their Palestine back.

Said too found it hard to see the pre-1948 Palestine coming back again. He was with Arafat in the latter's struggles against the overwhelming odds: massive presence of so many millions of Israelis, in cahoots first with Britain and France and, later they sold their souls to the Americans in a shabby deal in which Israel guarantees western (American) interests in lieu of $ 10-15 billion a year. Defeated, unarmed and stateless Palestinians face a ruthless and crude Colonialism of European Jewry thrown out by Europe. The latter used to have many liberals and socialists. But that was more an image that hid the subterranean power of their religious as well as secular Rightwing. The latter gained ascendancy among Israelis in tandem with Palestinians' increasingly desperate struggle.

Said stood with his people. He remained a loyal supporter of Yasser Arafat through thick and thin -- until the latter fell for the chimera of a two-state solution, first persuasively sold by Henry Kissinger: the prospect of a Mini-Palestine. But that continued to elude him ever since the middle 1970s. Israelis have proved to be world's greatest double-dealers: posing to be anxious for Arab recognition and peace while, after 1967 war, they continued to write "facts on the ground" -- Jewish settlement on the notional Arab state that Palestinians are supposed to get -- constantly nibbling away at it. Tel Aviv has constantly complained against Palestinians' terrorism, using it as an excuse for delaying either their vacation of military occupation of West Bank and Gaza Strip or implementing any of their plighted obligations.

Abu Ammar was hoodwinked by Kissinger to accept the proposed Mini-Palestine which negated his original democratic one-state solution: all of Palestine to become a secular democratic Palestine in which Israelis -- all those who had come in anyhow by a certain cut off date -- and Palestinians would be equal citizens, with all Palestinians returning that had been ethnically cleansed from their homes when the Israeli state was set up -- and no more Jewish immigration was to take place. The idea was based on a historic Jewish-Arab reconciliation that condoned the immigration of Jews until the time of the proposed settlement.

This was a magnificent compromise that Israeli Ultras hated most. Said was not the only western or Asian intellectual who was happy with this one-state solution. It required great magnanimity on the part of a humanist intellectual virtually to condone the Great Deception of history -- the Balfour Declaration and the UN resolution to carve out a new Israeli state out of Palestine -- through which the Jews were allowed in by an alien rule. These Jews in 1948 indulged in massive ethnic cleansing of most of Palestinians inside the proposed new state. In consideration of the terrible oppression suffered by Jews in Europe (and America) liberal opinion everywhere continued to take a lenient view of Jewish immigration -- until the shocking brutality with which Israel has continued to treat the Palestinians, especially after 1967 war, has exhausted their sympathy. No humanist or liberal can now condone a state indulging in premeditated murder of specific individuals.

Said, as a Palestinian, had thrown a symbolic stone at Israelis. He even understood the violent struggle of Palestinians led by Abu Ammar; it was legitimate freedom struggle; Said did not think it as terrorism -- as George Bush has made it fashionable to regard. Despite the evident generosity of the Palestinian stand (of one state solution) with its thoroughly democratic character, the persistent refusal by Israelis of most hues explodes the myth of their faith in democracy and fairplay.

It is important to remember that Edward Said was a great humanist who did not hate Israelis; he only condemned the Israeli ultra Right with its dangerously megalomaniac ideas of Ertze Israel that specify no boundaries for it. Said strongly disapproved the perfidy of the Albion in permitting the establishment of an ambiguously-defined Jewish National Home in Palestine and was outraged by the elaborate deception of Arabs by pretending to be neutral between the immigrating Jews and the Arab sons of the soil. The fact is that the British administrators turned a Nelson's eye toward both how many came in and how much war material they smuggled in to be able to defeat all Arab armies in 1948 even when there was no Israeli state or its armed forces.

A problem stares in the faces of all humanists everywhere few of whom could fail to admire Edward Said who is now no more: how to be usefully involved in the Palestinian's struggle for self-determination for getting back their homeland from the usurpers.

Many pseudo intellectuals -- the kind that loves dealing with international security issues and geopolitics -- would immediately protest that all this is unrealistic. The Palestinians should be content with Bush's Road Map. Bush's power is the supreme reality as is Israel's prowess vis-à-vis the hapless Palestinians. There is no chance of Palestinians getting anything more than what Israel and the US will be generous enough to give them. So let them gratefully accept what is dished out by Israel, even though that is scarcely more than municipal functions of a number of widely separated Bantustans.

Intellectuals and humanists, the genuine stuff, do not worship power; they listen to their consciences and want to go by fairplay, believing as they do in the equality of all men and human freedom being the ultimate measure. Should the world continue to regard might is right by recognising the overriding nature of 'realistic' solutions -- from which only the powerful benefit? One does not know if there are many in the socalled liberal west who would be ready to stand shoulder to shoulder with Edward Said. Although too much water has flown down the bridges and too many Jews have come in to make their home in Israel, would a great historic swindle be accepted by humankind because so many guns, tanks and aircraft are enforcing it? One hopes there are still men and women who are ready to review the history of Arab-Israeli disputes from the angle of human values and fairplay for all. At least this writer cannot regard tanks and aircraft to be the final arbiters of human affairs. This view is my tribute to Edward Said.

MB Naqvi is a leading columist in Pakistan.