7 Ya ̄sir ‘Arafa ̄t 7invasion of Lebanon forced ‘Arafāt to abandon his Beirut
headquarters at the end of August 1982 and set up a base in
Tunisia and later in Baghdad, Iraq. ‘Arafāt was subsequently
able to reaffirm his leadership as the split in the PLO’s
ranks healed.
On April 2, 1989, ‘Arafāt was elected by the Central
Council of the Palestine National Council (the governing
body of the PLO) to be the president of a hypothetical
Palestinian state. In 1993 he took a further step toward
peace when, as head of the PLO, he formally recognized
Israel’s right to exist and helped negotiate the Israel-PLO
accord, which envisaged the gradual implementation of
Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over
a five-year period. ‘Arafāt began directing Palestinian
self-rule in 1994, and in 1996 he was elected president of
the Palestinian Authority, which governed Palestinian-
controlled areas of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
In mid-1996 Israeli-Palestinian relations became
acrimonious with the election of Israeli prime minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, who favoured a slower transition to
self-rule. Growing distrust between ‘Arafāt and Netanyahu
resulted in a 19 -month-long deadlock. In 1998 U.S. presi-
dent Bill Clinton intervened, arranging a summit meeting
with the two leaders at Wye Mills, Maryland. The result-
ing Wye Memorandum detailed the steps to be taken by
Israel and Palestine to complete the peace process. ‘Arafāt
pledged to continue the process with Netanyahu’s succes-
sor, Ehud Barak.
In 2000, in talks mediated by Clinton at Camp David,
where the historic Camp David Accords between Israel
and Egypt were negotiated in 1978, ‘Arafāt rejected an offer
by Barak that would have created an independent
Palestinian state because it did not grant the Palestinians
full control over East Jerusalem or adequately guarantee,