Yasser Arafat

Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini (محمد عبد الرحمن عبد الرؤوف عرفات القدوة الحسيني‎) (August 24, 1929 – November 11, 2004), popularly known as Yasser Arafat, was a Palestinian leader. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, President of the Palestinian National Authority,^[2] and leader of the secular Fatah political party, which he founded 1959.^[3] Arafat spent much of his life fighting against Israel in the name of Palestinian self-determination. Originally opposed to Israel's existence, he modified his position in 1988 when he accepted UN Security Council Resolution 242.

Arafat and his movement operated from several Arab countries. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Fatah faced off with Jordan in a brief civil war. Forced out of Jordan and into Lebanon, Arafat and Fatah were major targets of Israel's 1978 and 1982 invasions of that country. The majority of the Palestinian people — regardless of political ideology or faction — viewed him as a freedom fighter and martyr who symbolized their national aspirations, many Israelis described him as a terrorist for the many attacks his faction led against civilians.^[4]

Later in his career, Arafat engaged in a series of negotiations with the government of Israel to end the decades-long conflict between that country and the PLO. These included the Madrid Conference of 1991, the 1993 Oslo Accords and the 2000 Camp David Summit. His political rivals, including Islamists and several PLO leftists, often denounced him for being corrupt or too submissive in his concessions to the Israeli government. In 1994, Arafat received the Nobel Peace Prize, together with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, for the negotiations at Oslo. During this time, Hamas and other militant organizations rose to power and shook the foundations of the authority Fatah under Arafat had established in the Palestinian Occupied Territories.