The life and times of yasser arafat

Early life Birth and childhood Arafat was born in CairoEgypt. Arafat was the second-youngest of seven children and was, along with his younger brother Fathithe only offspring born in Cairo. His mother, Zahwa Abul Saud, was from a Jerusalem -based family. She died from a kidney ailment inwhen Arafat was four years of age.

It was only after the defeat of the Arab states by Israel in the Six-Day War of June that the PLO began to be widely recognized as the representative of the Palestinians and came to promote a distinctively Palestinian agenda.

He claimed to have fought as a volunteer during the first of the Arab-Israeli wars —49 and then again against the British at the Suez Canal in the early s, although these claims—along with other facts and episodes from his early life—have been disputed.

While a student in Egypt, he joined the Union of Palestinian Students and served as its president — He was also associated with the Muslim Brotherhoodand inin the crackdown that followed an assassination attempt on Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser by one of their members, Arafat was jailed for being a Brotherhood sympathizer.

Yasser Arafat | Biography, History, & Facts | initiativeblog.com

After his release he completed his studies, graduating with an engineering degree in July Arafat was subsequently commissioned into the Egyptian army, and in October he served on behalf of Egypt during the Suez Crisis. Creation of Fatah After Suez, Arafat went to Kuwaitwhere he worked as an engineer and set up his own contracting firm.

Central to Fatah doctrine, however, was the firmly held notion that the liberation of Palestine was primarily the business of Palestinians and should not be entrusted to Arab regimes or postponed until the achievement of an elusive Arab unity.

Second in importance for Arafat and Fatah was the concept of armed struggle, for which the group prepared as early asfollowing the model of guerrillas fighting in the Algerian War of Independence. Fatah carried out its first armed operation in Israel in December —Januarybut it was not until afterwith the defeat of the Arab forces by Israel in the Six-Day War June Warthat Fatah and the fedayeen guerillas operating against Israel became the focus of Palestinian mobilization.

In Arafat was named chairman of the executive committee of the PLO, an umbrella organization created in by the Arab League in Jerusalem, which had until then been under the control of the Egyptians. Such interference stemmed largely from the fact that no Arab country was able to consider the Palestinian issue a truly foreign affair.

Indeed, throughout his life Arafat tried to maneuver among these constraints, understanding that the unity of the Palestinians was their best asset. After most of the Fatah forces were based in Jordanwhence they launched attacks against Israel.

Following Black Septemberas the expulsion of the PLO came to be known, in —71 the fedayeen migrated to Lebanonwhich became their main base until In parallel, however, Arafat also began to change course and tried a diplomatic approach, especially after the Yom Kippur War October War of Arafat renounced the idea of liberation of the whole of Palestine and the creation of a democratic state where Muslims, Christians, and Jews would coexist which meant the destruction of Israel as a state and accepted the notion of a state comprising the West Bank and Gaza Stripwith East Jerusalem as its capital.

In Arab summits in —74, the PLO was recognized as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. As a result, the organization was able to open offices in many countries, including in some cities in Europe.

In November Arafat became the first representative of a nongovernmental organization to address a plenary session of the United Nations UN General Assembly.

The life and times of Yasser Arafat

While the United States and Israel considered the group a terrorist organization and refused any official or nonofficial contact with it, a number of European countries soon began political dialogue with the PLO.

The large-scale intervention of the Syrian army in Lebanon in mid in support of the Christian right against the PLO-Muslim-left alliance strained relations between Arafat and Syrian Pres.

As a result, Syria alternated between undermining or confronting the PLO by attacking it directly or indirectly through Palestinian factions and seeking to draw it into its orbit by attempting to establish a sort of protectorate over it. Arafat, however, suspicious of Syria, strove to maintain PLO autonomy.

The Israeli invasion of Lebanon forced Arafat to abandon his Beirut headquarters at the end of August and set up a new headquarters in TunisTunisia. Although Arafat tried to return to Lebanon inhe was besieged by Fatah rebels supported by Syria and was again forced into exile.Early life Birth and childhood.

Yasser Arafat - Wikipedia

Arafat was born in Cairo, Egypt. His father, Abdel Raouf al-Qudwa al-Husseini, was a Palestinian from Gaza City, whose mother, Yasser's paternal grandmother, was initiativeblog.com's father battled in the Egyptian courts for 25 years to claim family land in Egypt as part of his inheritance but was unsuccessful.

He worked as a textile merchant in Cairo's religiously Political party: Fatah. Yasser Arafat: Yasser Arafat, first president of the Palestinian Authority (–), chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), and leader of Fatah. In he led the PLO to a historic peace agreement with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the Israeli government.

Sep 20,  · News about Yasir Arafat, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times. Opinion How a Mossad Plot to Kill Yasser Arafat Nearly Cost Me My Life. According to Ronen Bergman's new book, it's a miracle I'm still alive.

Early life

Here’s my recollection of the fateful day I met the PLO leader in Beirut and lived to tell the tale. Behind the life of Yasser Arafat's wife! She once stated that she 'regrets marrying Arafat and that had asked him for divorce hundreds of times", she also received many marriage offers after.

Yasser Arafat was chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization from until his death in , a tumultuous period in which clashes with neighboring Israel were prevalent. Born in Cairo in Born: Aug 24,