Yasser Arafat

Arafat's full name was Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini, and accounts differ over his birthplace.[1] His registered birth certificate and several biographical sources identify Cairo and give August 24, 1929, as his birth date, while Arafat maintained that he was born in Jerusalem.[1][4] He was the fifth of seven children of a Palestinian textile merchant.[1]

His mother died when he was five, after which he lived with an uncle in Jerusalem for four years before returning to Egypt.[1] He entered the University of King Fuad I, later Cairo University, in 1947 and studied engineering. He joined the Muslim Brotherhood, and another account says he received military training from Brotherhood members on campus; he later sought to minimize those ties because they complicated relations with Arab governments opposed to the organization.[1][5]

Arafat served as president of the Union of Palestinian Students from 1952 to 1956 and graduated that year with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering. He then served as a second lieutenant in the Egyptian Army during the Suez Crisis.[1] After the war, he moved to Kuwait, worked as an engineer for the Department of Public Works, and established a private contracting firm.[1][5]

Accounts differ over Fatah's founding chronology. The Jewish Virtual Library says Arafat helped found it in 1957, while CAMERA dates a formal founding meeting with approximately fifteen other Palestinian students and workers to October 10, 1959, in Kuwait.[1][5] The movement's formal name was Harakat al-Tahrir al-Filastiniyya, or Palestinian Liberation Movement; its acronym was reversed to form "Fatah," meaning "conquest."[5] It sought an independent Palestinian state in place of Israel and Jordan, defined by its adherents as historic Palestine.[1]

Fatah conducted armed operations under the name al-'Asifa, or "the Storm," allowing the movement to claim successful attacks while distancing itself from failures.[4] Its first raid, an attempt to blow up an Israeli water pump on December 31, 1964, failed, but its armed wing carried out at least thirty-five attacks against Israel in 1965.[5] Arafat described the campaign as fulfilling "a duty of Jihad (holy war)."[5]

The Arab League created the PLO in 1964 and initially placed Ahmad al-Shuqayri in charge.[5] Fatah regarded it as inept and inauthentic. After the Arab defeat in the June 1967 war, the PLO concluded that it could not depend on Arab states to achieve its objectives, and the Palestinian National Council revised the PLO Charter in 1968 to adopt Fatah's commitment to armed struggle.[1]

Arafat's profile rose after the March 21, 1968, Battle of Karameh. The Israeli raid followed a March 18 Fatah mine attack on a school bus that killed two people and wounded twenty-eight.[1] Accounts of the battle's casualties differed sharply; Israel reported 28 killed and 90 wounded, while Jordanian and Palestinian accounts claimed much higher Israeli losses.[1] Jordanian regular forces performed most of the resistance, but Arafat presented the battle as a Palestinian victory and had a damaged Israeli tank dragged through Amman, helping stimulate recruitment to the PLO.[1][5]

On February 4, 1969, the Palestinian National Council elected Arafat chairman of the PLO.[1][5] He held the position until his death and consolidated power by bringing most Palestinian terrorist factions under the PLO umbrella, although the organization remained internally divided.[1]

Under Arafat's leadership, the PLO and affiliated groups carried out terrorist attacks that drew worldwide attention. Black September, a Fatah-linked terrorist organization named after the 1970 conflict in Jordan, murdered eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games.[1][2] On March 2, 1973, PLO members murdered U.S. Ambassador Cleo Noel and chargé d'affaires George Moore in Sudan. The captured perpetrators admitted receiving orders from the PLO, and U.S. intelligence officials were believed to possess evidence linking Arafat to the killings, although that evidence was allegedly suppressed.[1]

By 1970, armed Palestinian groups had created what amounted to a state within a state in Jordan. After Palestinian terrorists hijacked and destroyed three aircraft there, King Hussein declared martial law, and Jordanian forces defeated the Palestinian forces in September.[1] Arafat and other leaders fled through Syria to Lebanon, where the PLO established new bases, contributed to Lebanese instability, and continued attacks on Israel from the south.[1][5]

Following the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Arafat added a diplomatic campaign without formally abandoning armed struggle.[1] Arab leaders meeting in Rabat in 1974 recognized the PLO as the "sole legitimate representative" of the Palestinian people. On November 13, Arafat addressed the UN General Assembly in military uniform and an empty holster, having been required to leave his pistol outside the chamber.[1] He concluded: "I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand."[2] The UN subsequently affirmed Palestinian "inalienable rights" and granted the PLO observer status the following year.[2]

The PLO operated from Lebanon until Israel launched a full-scale assault in June 1982. Under a U.S.-brokered cease-fire that September, Arafat and the PLO leadership relocated to Tunisia, which became his operational base for approximately a decade.[1]

During the First Intifada, the PLO National Council declared a "state of Palestine" in Algiers on November 15, 1988, claiming Jerusalem as its capital without defining borders; approximately seventy countries recognized the proclaimed state.[2][6] On March 30, 1989, the PLO Central Council elected Arafat its president and Faruk Qaddumi foreign minister.[6]

On December 13, 1988, Arafat accepted UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, promised future recognition of Israel, and renounced "terrorism in all its forms, including state terrorism."[1][7] The statement satisfied the conditions for formal U.S.–PLO dialogue. Its sincerity remained disputed, but it formed part of the PLO's stated transition from armed struggle toward diplomacy.[1][7] The 1991 Madrid Conference marked the first open negotiations between Israel and the PLO, although it produced no agreement.[1]

Secret negotiations in Oslo produced a breakthrough. Before the Declaration of Principles was signed, Arafat sent Rabin a letter recognizing Israel's right to exist, renouncing terrorism, and pledging to remove clauses in the PLO covenant calling for Israel's destruction; Israel recognized the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people.[7][8] The Declaration was signed in Washington on September 13, 1993, at a ceremony culminating in the handshake between Rabin and Arafat in the presence of U.S. President Bill Clinton.[9]

The Oslo Accords created an interim Palestinian self-government and provided for the Palestinian Authority to assume responsibilities in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — and Gaza during a five-year period.[8] Jerusalem, refugees, borders, and Israeli settlements were deferred to final-status negotiations.[9] Arafat subsequently made twelve visits to the Oval Office during Clinton's presidency.[4]

Arafat received the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Rabin and Shimon Peres.[10] He entered Gaza on July 1, 1994, to lead the Palestinian Authority.[1][11] On January 20, 1996, he was elected its president with 87 percent of the vote against Samiha Khalil.[6] He simultaneously held four positions: Palestinian Authority president, PLO chairman, recognized head of Fatah, and president of the proclaimed State of Palestine.[6] No later presidential election was held during his tenure.[1]

The Oslo process suffered major setbacks, including Rabin's assassination in November 1995, and no final-status agreement was reached.[10]

From July 11 to 25, 2000, President Clinton convened a summit at Camp David with Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.[11] The parties remained divided over borders, Jerusalem, and Palestinian refugees, and the summit ended without a settlement. Clinton later blamed Arafat for its failure.[8] Another account records Clinton as telling Arafat, "You are leading your people and the region to a catastrophe."[12]

On September 28, 2000, riots erupted following Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount and escalated into the Second Intifada, also called the al-Aqsa Intifada.[8] Israeli officials accused Arafat of fueling the violence rather than trying to halt it, while his role in initiating or directing the attacks remains contested.[4] More than one hundred Israelis had been killed and one thousand injured in terrorist attacks during the 1990s, with substantially greater losses after 2000.[1]

On December 22, 2001, Israeli forces entered Arafat's Ramallah headquarters and confined him to the compound. Israel said he would remain isolated until those responsible for murdering Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi were arrested and extradited.[1] He remained under virtual house arrest from 2002 until October 2004.[6]

In early January 2002, Israeli forces intercepted the Karine-A, which carried approximately fifty tons of weapons from Iran bound for the Palestinian Authority.[1] The Jewish Virtual Library states that U.S. intelligence confirmed Israeli claims that a senior Arafat aide arranged payment and that Arafat was behind the operation; Arafat denied involvement.[1]

Disputes also arose over his response to Palestinian terrorism. He periodically condemned attacks and arrested low-level terrorists under U.S. pressure, but some detainees were released and returned to terrorism.[1] Accountants examining his finances in 2003 reported a secret investment portfolio worth nearly $1 billion, including a Ramallah bottling plant, a Tunisian mobile-phone company, and venture-capital funds. An IMF audit separately found that approximately $900 million in public funds had been diverted to an account controlled by Arafat and the Palestinian Authority's chief financial adviser.[1]

Arafat's health deteriorated in October 2004. Israel allowed him to travel to France on October 29, and he was transported to the Percy de Clamart military hospital near Paris.[1] He lapsed into a coma on November 4 and died on November 11 at age seventy-five.[6] His remains were flown to Cairo for a military funeral and then to Ramallah, where he was buried near his headquarters on November 12.[1][6]

He was survived by his wife, Suha Tawil, whom he married in 1990, and their daughter Zawha, born in July 1995.[1]

The underlying medical cause of his death was not publicly resolved. Doctors described a massive hemorrhagic cerebrovascular accident accompanied by an unexplained digestive syndrome, blood disease, jaundice, and neurological collapse, while acknowledging uncertainty about the overarching condition.[13] In 2012, investigators opened his tomb and collected approximately sixty samples.[14] Swiss testing found abnormal polonium-210 levels that moderately supported a poisoning theory, while French experts maintained that the detected polonium-210 and lead-210 were environmental.[1][14] The French investigation closed in September 2015 without naming a defendant, and the European Court of Human Rights rejected the family's appeal in July 2021 as manifestly ill-founded.[1]

After Arafat's death, President George W. Bush called it "a significant moment in Palestinian history" and expressed hope for an independent, democratic Palestine at peace with its neighbors.[15] Secretary of State Colin Powell described Arafat as a significant figure who, in the eyes of Palestinians, embodied their hopes for statehood.[16] Mahmoud Abbas succeeded him as PLO chairman and was later elected president of the Palestinian Authority.[7]

Arafat made Palestinian nationalism internationally visible and brought the PLO from guerrilla warfare and diplomatic isolation into direct negotiations with Israel and the United States.[3] He remained its dominant leader from 1969 until his death, surviving expulsion from Jordan and Lebanon, military defeats, the Oslo breakthrough, and the collapse of the peace process.[1]

His 1974 UN address symbolized the PLO's growing international recognition.[1][2] Under his leadership, the organization later accepted UN Security Council resolutions associated with a two-state framework, recognized Israel, and entered the Oslo process.[1][8] He nevertheless failed to achieve Palestinian statehood, the central goal of his political career.[3]

The Camp David summit ended without a settlement, and renewed Israeli-Palestinian violence followed as the Oslo process ran aground.[8] His governance also drew criticism after investigators reported the investment portfolio he controlled and the diversion of approximately $900 million in public funds to an account controlled jointly with a senior financial adviser.[1]

For Israelis, Arafat's record remained defined by terrorism. Black September murdered eleven Israeli athletes during his PLO chairmanship, while evidence allegedly connecting him to the 1973 Khartoum murders was never tested in court.[1][2] The Karine-A interception further reinforced Israeli skepticism about whether his renunciation of terrorism represented a lasting change.[1]

Arafat's birthplace remains disputed. His registered birth certificate and several biographies identify Cairo, while he consistently claimed Jerusalem; biographers have interpreted the latter claim as part of his political self-presentation.[1][4]

Sources also differ over when he became PLO chairman. The Jewish Virtual Library dates his election to February 4, 1969, while My Jewish Learning gives 1968, although both agree that he led the organization from the late 1960s until his death.[1][2]

His responsibility for particular terrorist operations, including the 1973 Khartoum murders, rests partly on intelligence assessments that were allegedly suppressed rather than tested judicially.[1] The sincerity of his 1988 renunciation of terrorism was likewise disputed, particularly after PLO-linked terrorism continued.[7]

Accounts differ over the failure of the 2000 Camp David summit. The State Department's historical account says Clinton blamed Arafat, while another source records Palestinian claims that inadequate preparation and Barak's unwillingness to compromise caused the failure.[8][12] Arafat's degree of responsibility for the Second Intifada also remains historically and politically contested.[4]

The cause of his death remains unresolved. Swiss findings moderately supported a poisoning theory, while French and Russian experts rejected that conclusion, and the French criminal investigation ended without a defendant being named.[1][14]