Yasser Arafat
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(24th August 1929- 11th November 2004)
Perhaps ironically, the man most often associated in recent times with the Palestinian cause was born not in the Holy Land, but in Cairo. Yasser Arafat was born on 24th August 1929. He studied civil engineering at university, but it is his life on the political world stage that he is most remembered for.
Arafat became chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 1969. His own faction, Fatah, was one of the best-known in the organisation. The PLO achieved infamy for its charter and a series of terrorist attacks on Western civilians in the 1970s and 1980s. These characteristically involved plane hijackings, though in 1985 an Italian ship was also seized.
Towards the end of the 1980s, the PLO moved towards a more diplomatic approach. Arafat recognised Israel’s right to exist in 1988; even so, the Madrid peace process began without him in 1991. Two years later, to the world’s surprise, the Oslo peace accords were unveiled, with Arafat now seen by both America and Israel as the leader of the Palestinian people. Two years later still, he was allowed to return to Palestine where he was based in Ramallah.
However by 2000 his good relationship with the West had gone sour. His refusal to reach agreement with the peace terms offered by Clinton and then-Israeli PM Ehud Barak at Camp David effectively ended America’s willingness to negotiate with him. Meanwhile the second Intifada continued to escalate in the background. In April 2002, with no end in sight to Intifada, Israeli tanks surrounded Arafat’s compound during military operations in the West Bank. He wasn’t allowed to leave until November 2004, when – days before his death – he sought medical treatment in France. He died on 11th November 2004.
World figures had mixed views on Arafat. Nelson Mandela called him the last great freedom fighter of the 20th Century, while Australian PM John Howard said that history would judge him harshly for rejecting the terms of the Camp David peace offer in 2000. In spite of all the controversy he had caused around the world, he was given, he was given a French military funeral before being flown back to the Middle East. His coffin passed through his birthplace of Cairo before finally being buried in Ramallah.
Words by Salem Hanna