Arafat

Yasser Arafat, Arabic: yāsir ^arafāt, (Cairo, Egypt 1929 - Paris, France 2004), born "Mohammed Al-Husseini al-Qudwa Abdel-Rahman Abdel-Raouf Arafat", was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization and President of the Palestinian National Authority.

Arafat was in Cairo but during his youth he spent his time in Jerusalem and Kuwait.

After fighting armed Arab forces in 1948 during the Arab-Israeli war Arafat entered into the Faud University and got his degree of engineering in 1956. Arafat also served in the Egyptian army during the Suez campaign in 1956. In 1958 he and some friends founded Al-Fatah, an underground network of secret cells. Arafat also served as chairman of the Palestine Student Federation. In 1964 Arafat became a full-time revolutionary, organising Al-Fatah raids into Israel. He traveled from country to country to promote the Palestinian cause. At the 1960's he was an organizer of terrorist attacks into Israel. During the 80s, Arafat received assistance from Iraq and Saudi Arabia. In 1989, Arafat was elected president of State of Palestine by the Central Council of the Palestine National Council.

"... the intifada (shaking) protest movement strengthened Arafat by directing world attention to the difficult plight of the Palestinians. In 1988 came a change of policy. In a speech at a special United Nations session held in Geneva, Switzerland, Arafat declared that the "Palestinian Liberation Organization" renounced terrorism and supported "the right of all parties concerned in the Middle East conflict to live in peace and security, including the state of Palestine, Israel and other neighbours".

Arafat received in 1994 the Nobel Peace Prize together with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin, because of the Oslo Accords of 1993.

In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate. But if the enemy incline toward peace, do thou also incline toward peace, and trust in God. Arafat Nobel Prize Speech

From December 2001 to April 2002 he was under house arrest in Ramallah. This gave Arafat the status of a living martyr for the Palestinian cause. In 2004, Arafat died at the Frech Percy Military Hospital in Clamart, near Paris. The cause of his illness is still unknown.

“I come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter’s gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.”

United Nations General Assembly, 1974.

See also

• Terrorism
• Che Guevara
• Menachem Begin

External links

• Yassir Arafat:1929-2004 'HonestReporting'
• Yassir Arafat Encyclopaedia of the Orient.