ALTHOUGH only four fifths of it is in his hands, a beaming Mr Yasser Arafat yesterday declared Hebron liberated from occupation, and assured the few hundred settlers who have prevented him from taking over the entire city that he aspired to peace, not confrontation, with them.
In the mid 1960s, Mr Arafat's business in Hebron was that of an underground leader organising Palestinian cells to target the Israelis. Yesterday, arriving to seal the handover of power in most of Hebron, Mr Arafat was praised by the Israelis for the moderate, conciliatory tone of his remarks.
The 120,000 or so Palestinians of Hebron enjoyed a day off work, and most of them, it seemed, had congregated at the former Israeli military headquarters to cheer and greet Mr Arafat's helicopter.
Chanting their willingness to sacrifice blood and soul on his behalf, they waved Palestinian flags and portraits of Mr Arafat as he addressed them from a top floor balcony of what is now his security headquarters.
On Saturday, Mr Jibril Rajoub, the West Bank security chief, had described the hardcore settlers of Hebron as "big stones on our chest" that would have to be removed. Those remarks generated an official protest from the Israelis and a reported private ticking off from Mr Arafat.
And yesterday, the Palestinian Authority President took pains to assure the settlers, who have called this redeployment deal "despicable", that "we're not interested in conflict. . . We want a just peace.
Those comments were welcomed by a spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, as a "welcome contrast" to Mr Rajoub's "incendiary, inflammatory" remarks.
Mr Arafat also ran through a list of those who had helped cement the deal - and cited the Europeans, whom, it now emerges, provided their own letter of guarantee to the Palestinians about the implementation of the accord.
As with the letter of guarantee to Mr Arafat from the outgoing US Secretary of State, Mr Warren Christopher, the European Union letter has not been published. Unlike the Christopher letter, however, there was no parallel message to the Israelis.
A European source said last night that the EU letter was brief, that it would be up to the Palestinians to decide whether they wished to publish it, that it had been drafted with the knowledge of the Israelis, and that it represented a further "confidence building measure" for the Palestinians.
In no way, stressed the source, did it elevate the European role in the peace process, marginal thus far, to a more central position.
Mr Arafat appeared delighted by the large and enthusiastic turnout in a city known as a stronghold of his Hamas opposition. He told the crowd that the Palestinians were now en route to independent statehood, with a capital in Jerusalem. And, indeed, such talk appears increasingly realistic.
Although adamant that there could be no compromising Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem, Mr Netanyahu himself indicated in a French newspaper interview at the weekend that Palestinian statehood was conceivable, provided the "new model" he had in mind did not undermine Israeli interests and security.
While Mr Arafat spoke of his pleasure that he and Mr Netanyahu were now "friends and partners", his enthusiasm for the deal is not matched in what remains the Israeli fifth of Hebron, where Palestinian flags and Arafat portraits are still relatively few and far between.
The 20,000 or so Palestinian residents who share this still occupied zone of newly divided Hebron with the settlers complain that, for them, nothing has changed indeed, their position is all the more frustrating given the proximity of territory now freed from Israeli rule.