In 1974, Yasser Arafat,
chairman of the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)

declared before the United Nations that he came...

“bearing an olive branch and a freedom-fighter’s gun.”

Nearly 20 years later, the world still does not know if Arafat is a statesman dedicated to peaceful coexistence with Israel or a resistance leader dedicated to armed struggle. As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict enters a tenuous new phase of peace negotiations, understanding Arafat’s true motives will be essential to fostering a lasting agreement.

Background:
Yasser Arafat was born in 1929 to a successful merchant father and a religiously devout mother. His birth name was Mohammed, but he was quickly nicknamed Yasser, which means "easy." Arafat's mother died when he was 4, and his father sent him to live with a married uncle in Jerusalem.

As a teenager in the 1940s, Arafat became involved in the Palestinian cause. Before the Arabs were defeated by Israel in 1948, Arafat was a leader in the Palestinian effort to smuggle arms into the territory.

After the war, Arafat studied civil engineering at the University of Cairo in Egypt. He headed the Palestinian Students League and, by the time he graduated, was committed to forming a group that would free Palestine from Israeli occupation.

In 1956 he founded Al Fatah, an underground terrorist organization. At first Al Fatah was ignored by larger Arab nations such as Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, which had formed their own group — the Palestine Liberation Organization.

In 1964 he became the leader of the PLO and gained a reputation as a ruthless terrorist.

It wasn't until the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, when the Arabs lost the Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and West Bank, that Arab nations turned to Arafat.

Arafat the Myth:
From his earliest days, Yasser Arafat has indulged in exaggeration and the weaving of myths about his life, insisting, for example, that he was born in Jerusalem even though his birth, in 1929, is clearly recorded in Egypt. He had the audacity to tell a young impressionable Glasgow Herald journalist that he was born just down the road from the Western (Wailing) Wall. He even speaks Arabic with a decidedly Egyptian accent. His parents were NOT "refugees" or "exiles." They had simply moved to Egypt in the 1920s … more than twenty years BEFORE the State of Israel came into existence.

Yasser Arafat's actual name is Abd al-Rahman abd al-Rauf Arafat al-Qud al-Husseini. He adopted the name Yasser meaning 'easy-going' and then adding Abu Amar after a companion of the Prophet Muhammad. He shortened it to obscure his close kinship with the notorious Nazi and ex-Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini.... the Moslem Religious leader who incited the massacres of Jews in the 1920s and 30s and later collaborated with Adolph Hitler.

Observation of Arafat at the
2000 Camp David negotiatons:

"Arafat is not an earthly leader. He sees himself as a mythological figure. He has always represented himself as a kind of modern Salah a-Din. Therefore, even the concrete real-estate issues don't interest him so much. At Camp David, it was clear that he wasn't looking for practical solutions, but was focused on mythological subjects: the right of return, Jerusalem, the Temple Mount. He floats on the heights of the Islamic ethos and the refugee ethos and the Palestinian ethos.

Arafat's discourse is never practical, either. His sentences don't connect and aren't completed. There are words, there are sentences, there are metaphors - there is no clear position. The only things there are, are codes and nothing else. At the end of the process, you suddenly understand that you are not moving ahead in the negotiations because you are in fact negotiating with a myth.

When the end of the game arrives, he finds himself in a terrible plight because for him to conclude the process is to say, "I have stopped being a myth; now I am just the head of a small state." He is a kind of eternal globetrotter who is simply afraid to face up to reality. That's why he is always fleeing from decision-making. I don't know any precedent in history for such severe behavior of fleeing decisions as that of Arafat."

More...

Arafat PLO massacres in Lebanon: Do you not remember Damour Lebanon. Let me remind you. Arafat and the PLO plunged Lebanon into "massacres, rape, mutilation, rampages of looting and killings. Out of a population of 3.2 million, some 40,000 or more people had been killed, 100,000 wounded, 5,000 permanently maimed

PLO Background: The seeds of the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) were first sown in 1956 by an EGYPTIAN, Ahmed Shukairy. He was the guiding light of this terror group and is remembered today as the one who coined the organization's famous slogan about "driving the Jews into the sea."

As if there had never been a war: By Zvi Bar'el.
So, Arafat, Abu Mazen, Sharon and Peres meet in the Muqata. Is this the opening of a new joke? No, it's soon to be reality. After all, they promised, things will be much better after the war on Iraq.

Think Again: Yasir Arafat: By Dennis B. Ross
In 1974, Yasir Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), declared before the United Nations that he came “bearing an olive branch and a freedom-fighter’s gun.” Nearly 20 years later, the world still does not know if Arafat is a statesman dedicated to peaceful coexistence with Israel or a resistance leader dedicated to armed struggle.

Camp David and Arafat: How did a peace process that started with such high hopes end with an intifada? What really happened at Camp David? Former foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami kept a diary there; in a conversation with Ari Shavit, he reveals, for the first time, why the stormy negotiations ended in failure.

The real enemy of the Palestinian people is not the Israeli's but Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Al Aqsa Brigade and Yasser Arafat.

The Quotes of Chairman Arafat

Yasser Arafat's
Ultimate Goal