Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat led the Palestinian national movement for thirty-five years, made it internationally recognised, and did not achieve a state. Born in 1929, probably in Cairo, to a Palestinian family from Gaza and Jerusalem, he studied engineering at King Fuad University and worked in Kuwait, where he co-founded Fatah in the late 1950s. Fatah's argument was that Palestinians should act independently rather than wait for Arab governments. Its standing rose after the Arab defeat of 1967, and Arafat took over the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1969. The PLO's base in Jordan ended with Black September in 1970, when King Hussein expelled it after hijackings and a challenge to his rule. It moved to Lebanon, contributing to that country's civil war, and was driven out again by the Israeli invasion of 1982 to Tunis. He addressed the UN General Assembly in 1974 carrying, as he put it, a freedom fighter's gun and an olive branch, and the PLO was recognised as the representative of the Palestinian people. Attacks on civilians by factions under the PLO umbrella, including Munich in 1972, defined him for many as a terrorist. He declared Palestinian statehood in 1988 and accepted UN resolutions implying recognition of Israel. The Oslo Accords, signed on the White House lawn in September 1993 with Yitzhak Rabin, brought him back to Gaza to head the Palestinian Authority and won all three the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994. Oslo's final-status talks failed at Camp David in 2000, and the second intifada followed. Israel confined him to his Ramallah compound from 2002 until he fell ill; he died in Paris in November 2004, of causes still disputed.
- Lived: 1929 CE – 2004 CE
- Nationality: Palestinian
- Roles: Chairman of the PLO (1969-2004), President of the Palestinian Authority (1994-2004)
