Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat, also popularly known by his kunya Abu Ammar, was a Palestinian political leader. He was chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization from 1969 to 2004, President of Palestine from 1989 to 2004 and President of the Palestinian Authority from 1994 to 2004. Ideologically an Arab nationalist and a socialist, Arafat was a founding member of the Fatah political party, which he led from 1959 until 2004.
Arafat was born to Palestinian parents in Cairo, Egypt, where he spent most of his youth. He studied at the University of King Fuad I. While a student, he embraced Arab nationalist and anti-Zionist ideas. Opposed to the 1948 creation of the State of Israel, he fought alongside the Muslim Brotherhood during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Following the defeat of Arab forces, Arafat returned to Cairo and served as president of the General Union of Palestinian Students from 1952 to 1956.
In the latter part of the 1950s, Arafat co-founded Fatah, a paramilitary organization which sought Israel's replacement with a Palestinian state. Fatah operated within several Arab countries, from where it launched attacks on Israeli targets. In the latter part of the 1960s Arafat's profile grew; in 1967 he joined the Palestinian Liberation Organization and in 1969 was elected chair of the Palestinian National Council. Fatah's growing presence in Jordan resulted in military clashes with King Hussein's Jordanian government and in the early 1970s it relocated to Lebanon. There, Fatah assisted the Lebanese National Movement during the Lebanese Civil War and continued its attacks on Israel, resulting in the organization becoming a major target of Israeli invasions during the 1978 South Lebanon conflict and 1982 Lebanon War.
From 1983 to 1993, Arafat based himself in Tunisia, and began to shift his approach from open conflict with the Israelis to negotiation. In 1988, he acknowledged Israel's right to exist and sought a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In 1994, he returned to Palestine, settling in Gaza City and promoting self-governance for the Palestinian territories. He engaged in a series of negotiations with the Israeli government to end the conflict between it and the PLO. These included the Madrid Conference of 1991, the 1993 Oslo Accords and the 2000 Camp David Summit. The success of the negotiations in Oslo led to Arafat being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, alongside Israeli prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, in 1994. At the time, Fatah's support among the Palestinians declined with the growth of Hamas and other militant rivals. In late 2004, after effectively being confined within his Ramallah compound for over two years by the Israeli army, Arafat fell into a coma and died. The cause of Arafat's death remains the subject of speculation. Investigations by Russian and French teams determined no foul play was involved, while a Swiss team determined he was radiologically poisoned.
Arafat remains a controversial figure. Palestinians generally view him as a martyr who symbolized the national aspirations of his people, while many Israelis regarded him as a terrorist. Palestinian rivals, including Islamists and several PLO radicals, frequently denounced him as corrupt or too submissive in his concessions to the Israeli government.
Early life
Birth and childhood
Arafat was born in Cairo, Egypt, on 4 or 24 August 1929. His father, Abdel Raouf al-Qudwa al-Husseini, a distant relative of Amin al-Husseini, the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, was a Palestinian from Gaza City, whose mother, Yasser's paternal grandmother, was Egyptian. Arafat's father battled in the Egyptian courts for 25 years to claim family land in Egypt as part of his inheritance but was unsuccessful. He worked as a textile merchant in Cairo's religiously mixed Sakakini District. Arafat was the second-youngest of seven children and was, along with his younger brother Fathi, the only offspring born in Cairo. Jerusalem was the family home of his mother, Zahwa Abul Saud, who died from a kidney ailment in 1933, when Arafat was four years of age.Arafat's first visit to Jerusalem came when his father, unable to raise seven children alone, sent Yasser and his brother Fathi to their mother's family in the Mughrabi Quarter of the Old City. They lived there with their uncle Salim Abul Saud for four years. In 1937, their father recalled them to be taken care of by their older sister, Inam. Arafat had a deteriorating relationship with his father; when he died in 1952, Arafat did not attend the funeral, nor did he visit his father's grave upon his return to Gaza. Arafat's sister Inam stated in an interview with Arafat's biographer, British historian Alan Hart, that Arafat was heavily beaten by his father for going to the Jewish quarter in Cairo and attending religious services. When she asked Arafat why he would not stop going, he responded by saying that he wanted to study Jewish mentality.
Education
In 1944, Arafat enrolled in the University of King Fuad I and graduated in 1950. At university, he engaged Jews in discussion and read publications by Theodor Herzl and other prominent Zionists. By 1946, he was an Arab nationalist and began procuring weapons to be smuggled into Mandatory Palestine, for use by irregulars in the Arab Higher Committee and the Army of the Holy War militias.During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Arafat left the university and, along with other Arabs, sought to enter Palestine to join Arab forces fighting against Israeli troops and the creation of the state of Israel. During the war, Arafat allegedly acted as a go-between in arms procurement for the Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini’s troops. However, instead of joining the ranks of the Palestinian fedayeen, Arafat fought alongside the Muslim Brotherhood, although he did not join the organization. He took part in combat in the Gaza area. In early 1949, the war was winding down in Israel's favor, and Arafat returned to Cairo due to a lack of logistical support.
After returning to the university, Arafat studied civil engineering and served as president of the General Union of Palestinian Students from 1952 to 1956. During his first year as president of the union, the university was renamed Cairo University after a coup was carried out by the Free Officers Movement overthrowing King Farouk I. By that time, Arafat had graduated with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering and was called to duty to fight with Egyptian forces during the Suez Crisis; however, he never actually fought. Later that year, at a conference in Prague, he donned a solid white keffiyeh–different from the fishnet-patterned one he adopted later in Kuwait, which was to become his emblem.
Personal life
In 1990, Arafat married Suha Tawil, a Palestinian Christian, when he was 61 and Suha, 27. Her mother introduced her to him in France, after which she worked as his secretary in Tunis. Prior to their marriage, Arafat adopted fifty Palestinian war orphans. During their marriage, Suha tried to leave Arafat on many occasions, but he forbade it. Suha said she regrets the marriage, and given the choice again would not repeat it. In mid-1995, Arafat's wife gave birth in a Paris hospital to a daughter, named Zahwa after Arafat's mother.Name
Arafat's full name was Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini. Mohammed Abdel Rahman was his first name, Abdel Raouf was his father's name and Arafat his grandfather's. Al-Qudwa was the name of his tribe and al-Husseini was that of the clan to which the al-Qudwas belonged. The al-Husseini clan was based in Gaza and is not related to the well-known al-Husayni clan of Jerusalem, other notable family members include Amin al-Husseini.Since Arafat was raised in Cairo, the tradition of dropping the Mohammed or Ahmad portion of one's first name was common; notable Egyptians such as Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak did so. However, Arafat dropped Abdel Rahman and Abdel Raouf from his name as well. During the early 1950s, Arafat adopted the name Yasser, and in the early years of Arafat's guerrilla career, he assumed the nom de guerre of Abu Ammar. Both names are related to Ammar ibn Yasir, one of Muhammad's early companions. Although he dropped most of his inherited names, he retained Arafat due to its significance in Islam.
Rise of Fatah
Founding of Fatah
Following the Suez Crisis in 1956, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser agreed to allow the United Nations Emergency Force to establish itself in the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip, precipitating the expulsion of all guerrilla or "fedayeen" forces there—including Arafat. Arafat originally attempted to obtain a visa to Canada and later Saudi Arabia, but was unsuccessful in both attempts. In 1957, he applied for a visa to Kuwait and was approved, based on his work in civil engineering. There he encountered two Palestinian friends: Salah Khalaf and Khalil al-Wazir, both official members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Arafat had met Abu Iyad while attending Cairo University and Abu Jihad in Gaza. Both would later become Arafat's top aides. Abu Iyad traveled with Arafat to Kuwait in late 1960; Abu Jihad, also working as a teacher, had already been living there since 1959. After settling in Kuwait, Abu Iyad helped Arafat obtain a temporary job as a schoolteacher.As Arafat began to develop friendships with Palestinian refugees, he and the others gradually founded the group that became known as Fatah. The exact date for the establishment of Fatah is unknown. In 1959, the group's existence was attested to in the pages of a Palestinian nationalist magazine, Filastununa Nida al-Hayat, which was written and edited by Abu Jihad. FaTaH is a reverse acronym of the Arabic name Harakat al-Tahrir al-Watani al-Filastini which translates into "The Palestinian National Liberation Movement". "Fatah" is also a word that was used in early Islamic times to refer to "conquest."
Fatah dedicated itself to the liberation of Palestine by an armed struggle carried out by Palestinians themselves. This differed from other Palestinian political and guerrilla organizations, most of which firmly believed in a united Arab response. Arafat's organization never embraced the ideologies of the major Arab governments of the time, in contrast to other Palestinian factions, which often became satellites of nations such as Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria and others.
In accordance with his ideology, Arafat generally refused to accept donations to his organization from major Arab governments, in order to act independently of them. He did not want to alienate them, and sought their undivided support by avoiding ideological alliances. However, to establish the groundwork for Fatah's future financial support, he enlisted contributions from the many wealthy Palestinians working in Kuwait and other Arab states of the Persian Gulf, such as Qatar. These businessmen and oil workers contributed generously to the Fatah organization. Arafat continued this process in other Arab countries, such as Libya and Syria.
In 1962, Arafat and his closest companions migrated to Syria—a country sharing a border with Israel—which had recently seceded from its union with Egypt. Fatah had approximately three hundred members by this time, but none were fighters. In Syria, he managed to recruit members by offering them higher incomes to enable his armed attacks against Israel. Fatah's manpower was incremented further after Arafat decided to offer new recruits much higher salaries than members of the Palestine Liberation Army, the regular military force of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which was created by the Arab League in 1964. On 31 December, a squad from al-Assifa, Fatah's armed wing, attempted to infiltrate Israel, but they were intercepted and detained by Lebanese security forces. Several other raids with Fatah's poorly trained and badly equipped fighters followed this incident. Some were successful, others failed in their missions. Arafat often led these incursions personally.
Arafat was detained in Syria's Mezzeh Prison when a Palestinian Syrian Army officer, Yusef Urabi, was killed. Urabi had been chairing a meeting to ease tensions between Arafat and Palestinian Liberation Front leader Ahmed Jibril, but neither Arafat nor Jibril attended, delegating representatives to attend on their behalf. Urabi was killed during or after the meeting amid disputed circumstances. On the orders of Defense Minister Hafez al-Assad, a close friend of Urabi, Arafat was subsequently arrested, found guilty by a three-man jury and sentenced to death. However, he and his colleagues were pardoned by President Salah Jadid shortly after the verdict. The incident brought Assad and Arafat to unpleasant terms, which would surface later when Assad became President of Syria.