Yasser Arafat: Man Under Fire

Bullets fly across his presidential compound in Ramallah, Israeli tanks smash into his private office building and soldiers hold him under house arrest, preventing him from attending the Arab League Summit. Yet Yassir Arafat does not give up. He continues to fight defiantly for the cause he’s believed in all his life: freedom and independence for a Palestinian state.

Arafat is ruthless. He’ll use whatever means are necessary to achieve his goal, the goal of his people. From terrorism to diplomacy, Arafat has tried everything in his long life as Palestinian freedom fighter.

From terrorist to Nobel Peace Prize winner

In 1972 Yasser Arafat came before the United Nations General Assembly wielding a gun and an olive branch. It was a juxtaposition of peace and violence that has defined Arafat’s entire political life.

Arafat was born in 1929 to a merchant father and a religiously devout Palestinian mother. As a teenager in the 1940s, he became involved in the Palestinian cause. When he was 17, he smuggled arms to Palestine to be used against British rule, and then later during the Arab-Israeli war in 1948 he led a group of Palestinians fighting the Jews in the Gaza area.

In 1956 he founded Al-Fatah, an underground terrorist organization dedicated to the armed struggle against Israel. At first Al-Fatah was ignored by Arab states such as Egypt, Syria and Jordan, who had formed their own group – the Palestinian Liberation Organization. The PLO, which was endorsed by the Arab League, favored a more conciliatory policy than Fatah, but after the Arabs were defeated by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War, Fatah emerged as the most powerful and best organized of the Palestinian activist groups.

In 1968 Arafat became the chairman of the PLO. At that point the group ceased acting as a puppet of the Arab states, and became an independent nationalist organization. For nearly two decades the PLO launched attacks against Israel, and Arafat gained a reputation as a terrorist. Western diplomats avoided contact with the PLO and relegated Arafat to the level of a guerilla leader without a state.

The 1987 uprising or Intifada protest movement against Israeli occupation strengthened Arafat’s position by directing world attention to the difficult plight of the Palestinians. The PLO/ terrorist leader with the signature ghutra headscarf and scruffy beard became known around the world and was elevated to the status of freedom fighter.

By 1988 Arafat had undergone a change of policy. In a speech at a special UN session in Geneva, he declared that the PLO renounced terrorism and supported "the right of all parties concerned in the Middle East conflict to live in peace and security, including the state of Palestine, Israel and other neighbors."

Then in 1993, the unthinkable happened. The terrorist leader met with his avowed enemies. In a series of secret peace talks in Oslo, Norway, Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin came to an agreement granting limited Palestinian self rule for the occupied territories. The Intifada ended and Israeli troops withdrew from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In 1994 Arafat, Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres received the Nobel Peace Prize.

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International profile

Arafat's international profile has changed significantly during the last 30 years.

In the 1960s he was seen as a terrorist who resorted to violence to liberate the Palestinian people from Israeli occupation. In the 70s and early 80s, thanks to his appearances at the UN, the international community came to regard him as a politician without a country, but still connected to the violent activities performed in the 60s.

He was still widely shunned by diplomatic circles and accused of inciting violence in Israel. Few international leaders would meet with him. Not even the United Nations recognized the PLO as a sovereign entity.

By the mid 80s, Arafat started to gain more support in the West, partially because PLO activities had drawn attention to the Palestinian problem, but also because Europe, especially France, was beginning to look more critically upon Israeli policies in the region. The PLO became the recognized authority for the Palestinian people and was included at peace talks in the region.

In the 90s Arafat’s change in policy and a public renouncement of terrorism led him to be considered a pragmatic moderate. After the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords, he was heralded as a peace maker, a reliable statesman who would work to bring Israel and Palestine closer together.

Today, few question Arafat's role in the peace process, but many worry that the aging leader may no longer be in a position to stop the escalating violence. Over the last few months, Europe has stood behind the Palestinian leader as the legitimate negotiator for the occupied territories. Germany’s Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and other EU leaders have openly insisted that Israel recognize Arafat as the sole representative for the Palestinian people.

But Israel refuses to negotiate with Arafat, referring to him as the "enemy of the Israeli people". Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has placed him under house arrest and has surrounded Arafat’s presidential compound with a ring of tanks and armed soldiers. The violence escalates by the hour. Bombs fly and people are dying on both sides.

Arafat is backed into a corner, and the only way out seems to be defeat or attack. And Yassir Arafat has never been known to accept defeat.