Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat (/ˈærəfæt/, US also /ˈɑːrəfɑːt/;[2] August 1929 – 11 November 2004) was a Palestinian political leader. He was chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 to 2004 and president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) from 1994 to 2004.[3] Ideologically an Arab nationalist and a socialist, Arafat was a founding member of the Fatah political party, which he led from 1959 until 2004.
"Yasir Arafat" redirects here. For other uses, see Yasir Arafat (disambiguation).
Yasser Arafat
Rawhi Fattouh (interim)
4 or 24 August 1929
Cairo, Kingdom of Egypt
11 November 2004 (aged 75)
Clamart, Hauts-de-Seine, France
Palestinian
1
Abu Ammar[1]
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 (PLO) and in 1969 was elected chair of the Palestinian National Council (PNC). 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. While the cause of Arafat's death has remained the subject of speculation, investigations by Russian and French teams determined no foul play was involved.[4][5][6]
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.[7][8][9][10] Palestinian rivals, including Islamists and several PLO radicals, frequently denounced him as corrupt or too submissive in his concessions to the Israeli government.
Name
Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini (Arabic: محمد ياسر عبد الرحمن عبد الرؤوف عرفات القدوة الحسيني, romanized: Muḥammad Yāsir ʿAbd ar-Raḥman ʿAbd ar-Raʾūf ʿArafāt al-Qudwa al-Ḥusaynī; 4[11][12] or 24[13][14]: 269 August 1929 – 11 November 2004) was popularly known as Yasser Arafat (/ˈærəfæt/ ARR-ə-fat, US also /ˈɑːrəfɑːt/ AR-ə-FAHT;[2] Arabic: ياسر عرفات, romanized: Yāsir ʿArafāt, pronounced [ˈjaːsɪrˤ ʕɑrˤɑˈfaːt]) or by his kunya Abu Ammar (Arabic: أبو عمار, romanized: ʾAbū ʿAmmār).
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.[17] In 1957, he applied for a visa to Kuwait (at the time a British protectorate) and was approved, based on his work in civil engineering. There he encountered two Palestinian friends: Salah Khalaf ("Abu Iyad") and Khalil al-Wazir ("Abu Jihad"), 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.[27] After settling in Kuwait, Abu Iyad helped Arafat obtain a temporary job as a schoolteacher.[28]
As Arafat began to develop friendships with Palestinian refugees (some of whom he knew from his Cairo days), 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 (Our Palestine, The Call of Life), which was written and edited by Abu Jihad.[29] FaTaH is a reverse acronym of the Arabic name Harakat al-Tahrir al-Watani al-Filastini which translates into "The Palestinian National Liberation Movement".[28][30] "Fatah" is also a word that was used in early Islamic times to refer to "conquest."[28]
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.[28][31] 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.[32]
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 (where he met Mahmoud Abbas in 1961).[33] These businessmen and oil workers contributed generously to the Fatah organization. Arafat continued this process in other Arab countries, such as Libya and Syria.[28]
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.[28] 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 (PLA), the regular military force of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), 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.[28]
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.[34] The incident brought Assad and Arafat to unpleasant terms, which would surface later when Assad became President of Syria.[28]
Leader of the Palestinians
On 13 November 1966, Israel launched a major raid against the Jordanian administered West Bank town of as-Samu, in response to a Fatah-implemented roadside bomb attack which had killed three members of the Israeli security forces near the southern Green Line border. In the resulting skirmish, scores of Jordanian security forces were killed and 125 homes razed. This raid was one of several factors that led to the 1967 Six-Day War.[35]
The Six-Day war began when Israel launched air strikes against Egypt's air force on 5 June 1967. The war ended in an Arab defeat and Israel's occupation of several Arab territories, including the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Although Nasser and his Arab allies had been defeated, Arafat and Fatah could claim a victory, in that the majority of Palestinians, who had up to that time tended to align and sympathize with individual Arab governments, now began to agree that a 'Palestinian' solution to their dilemma was indispensable.[36] Many primarily Palestinian political parties, including George Habash's Arab Nationalist Movement, Hajj Amin al-Husseini's Arab Higher Committee, the Islamic Liberation Front and several Syrian-backed groups, virtually crumbled after their sponsor governments' defeat. Barely a week after the defeat, Arafat crossed the Jordan River in disguise and entered the West Bank, where he set up recruitment centers in Hebron, the Jerusalem area and Nablus, and began attracting both fighters and financiers for his cause.[36]
At the same time, Nasser contacted Arafat through the former's adviser Mohammed Heikal and Arafat was declared by Nasser to be the "leader of the Palestinians."[37] In December 1967 Ahmad Shukeiri resigned his post as PLO Chairman. Yahya Hammuda took his place and invited Arafat to join the organization. Fatah was allocated 33 of 105 seats of the PLO Executive Committee while 57 seats were left for several other guerrilla factions.[36]
Financial dealings
Under the Oslo Peace Accords, Israel undertook to deposit the VAT tax receipts on goods purchased by Palestinians into the Palestinian treasury. Until 2000, these monies were transferred directly to Arafat's personal accounts at Bank Leumi, in Tel Aviv.
[140]
In August 2002, the Israeli Military Intelligence Chief alleged that Arafat's personal wealth was in the range of US$1.3 billion.[141] In 2003 the International Monetary Fund (IMF) conducted an audit of the PNA and stated that Arafat had diverted $900 million in public funds to a special bank account controlled by himself and the PNA Chief Economic Financial adviser. However, the IMF did not claim that there were any improprieties, and it specifically stated that most of the funds had been used to invest in Palestinian assets, both internally and abroad.[142][143]
However, in 2003, a team of American accountants—hired by Arafat's own finance ministry—began examining Arafat's finances. In its conclusions, the team claimed that part of the Palestinian leader's wealth was in a secret portfolio worth close to $1 billion, with investments in companies like a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Ramallah, a Tunisian cell phone company and venture capital funds in the U.S. and the Cayman Islands. The head of the investigation stated that "although the money for the portfolio came from public funds like Palestinian taxes, virtually none of it was used for the Palestinian people; it was all controlled by Arafat. And none of these dealings were made public."[144] An investigation conducted by the General Accounting Office reported that Arafat and the PLO held over $10 billion in assets even at the time when he was publicly claiming bankruptcy.[145]
Although Arafat lived a modest lifestyle, Dennis Ross, former Middle East negotiator for Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, stated that Arafat's "walking-around money" financed a vast patronage system known as neopatrimonialism. According to Salam Fayyad—a former World Bank official whom Arafat appointed Finance Minister of the PNA in 2002—Arafat's commodity monopolies could accurately be seen as gouging his own people, "especially in Gaza which is poorer, which is something that is totally unacceptable and immoral." Fayyad claims that Arafat used $20 million from public funds to pay the leadership of the PNA security forces (the Preventive Security Service) alone.[144]
Fuad Shubaki, former financial aide to Arafat, told the Israeli security service Shin Bet that Arafat used several million dollars of aid money to buy weapons and support militant groups.[146] During Israel's Operation Defensive Shield, the Israel army recovered counterfeit money and documents from Arafat's Ramallah headquarters. The documents showed that, in 2001, Arafat personally approved payments to Tanzim militants.[147] The Palestinians claimed that the counterfeit money was confiscated from criminal elements.[148]
Illness and death
Unsuccessful Israeli assassination attempts
The Israeli government tried for decades to assassinate Arafat, including attempting to intercept and shoot down private aircraft and commercial airliners on which he was believed to be traveling.[149] The assassination was initially assigned to Caesarea, the Mossad unit in charge of Israel's numerous targeted killings. Shooting down a commercial airliner in international airspace over very deep water was thought to be preferable to make recovery of the wreckage, and hence investigation, more difficult.[149] Following Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Israeli Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon created a special task force code named "Salt Fish" headed by special operations experts Meir Dagan and Rafi Eitan to track Arafat's movements in Lebanon to kill him because Sharon saw Arafat as a "Jew murderer" and an important symbol, symbols being as important as body counts in a war against a terrorist organization. The Salt Fish task force orchestrated the bombing of buildings where Arafat and senior PLO leaders were believed to be staying. Later renamed "Operation Goldfish", Israeli operatives followed Israeli journalist Uri Avnery to a meeting with Arafat in an additional unsuccessful attempt to kill him. In 2001, Sharon as prime minister is believed to have made a commitment to cease attempts to assassinate Arafat. However, following Israel's successful assassination in March 2004 of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a founder of the Hamas movement, Sharon stated in April 2004 that "this commitment of mine no longer exists."[149]
Failing health
The first reports of Arafat's failing health by his doctors for what his spokesman said was influenza came on 25 October 2004, after he vomited during a staff meeting. His condition deteriorated in the following days.[150] Following visits by other doctors, including teams from Tunisia, Jordan, and Egypt—and agreement by Israel to allow him to travel—Arafat was flown from Ramallah to Jordan by a Jordanian military helicopter and from there to France on a French military plane. He was admitted to the Percy military hospital in Clamart, a suburb of Paris.[151][152][153] On 3 November, he had lapsed into a gradually deepening coma.[154]
Arafat was pronounced dead at 03:30 UTC on 11 November 2004 at the age of 75 of what French doctors called a massive hemorrhagic cerebrovascular accident (hemorrhagic stroke).[155][156] Initially, Arafat's medical records were withheld by senior Palestinian officials, and Arafat's wife refused an autopsy believing that it went against Muslim practices.[157] French doctors also said that Arafat suffered from a blood condition known as disseminated intravascular coagulation, although it is inconclusive what brought about the condition.[158][159] When Arafat's death was announced, the Palestinian people went into a state of mourning, with Qur'anic mourning prayers emitted from mosque loudspeakers throughout the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and tires burned in the streets.[160] The Palestinian Authority and refugee camps in Lebanon declared 40 days of mourning.[161][162]
Places named in his honor include: