412 • 20 THE GULF WAR AND THE PEACE PROCESS
Yasir Arafat
S
ources disagree on where Yasir Arafat (1929-2004) was born. Some say
Jerusalem; others claim Cairo. His family was definitely Palestinian and, by
the time he was four, was living in Jerusalem. When he was eight, the family
relocated to Cairo. Arafat was educated mainly in Egypt, eventually attending
Cairo University. There he became politically active and by 1946 was smug¬
gling weapons from Egypt into Palestine.
Because of his political activities, which often distracted him from his stud¬
ies, it was only in 1956 that Arafat graduated with a degree in civil engineering.
After serving in the Egyptian army during the 1956 Suez War, he left for
Kuwait, where he founded Fatah in 1959. Arafat was convinced that Palestini¬
ans must fight to liberate their homeland and not wait for the Arab states to do
it for them. By 1965 Fatah was carrying out military operations within Israel.
While the Israelis have always called those who resist them "terrorists," the
Palestinians came to view Arafat and his companions as heroes. Their efforts
inspired the formation of other resistance movements, which Arafat managed
to unite within an umbrella organization, the Palestine Liberation Organiza¬
tion (PLO).
Yasir Arafat proved to be one of history's survivors. Even though his PLO
fighters were not strong enough to defeat Israel, nor were the Arab states, which
found their presence dangerous and embarrassing, Arafat kept the fidaiyin to¬
gether and operating at a level that demanded the world's attention. He argued
always that "all options are open, including the armed struggle if necessary."
Arafat strove to make sure that the violence and "terror" of Fatah and the other
resistance groups matched Israel's violence and destruction against Palestinian
society as a whole. Nonetheless, because the Zionists have controlled how the
story of this struggle was told, Arafat and the Palestinians have been consistently
misrepresented and their actions rendered without any meaningful context.
This situation obscured his positive achievements and prevented any proper
response, particularly by the US government, to his initiatives. For instance, in
1988 Arafat convinced the PLO to accept UN Resolution 242, recognizing
Israel's right to exist within its 1967 borders, and renounced "terrorism." In
1991 he supported convening the Madrid Conference, and in 1993 he accepted
the Oslo Accords and shook hands with Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin on the
White House lawn. Despite all this, he was constantly called the man who
"failed to grasp peace."
In January 1996, in the only free and fair election ever held in Palestine,
Arafat was chosen president by an overwhelming 87 percent majority. Though
he later proved an inadequate administrator of an occupied territory under al¬
most constant attack from Israel, most Palestinians loved and respected Arafat,
even as they became increasingly critical of his authoritarian presidential style.