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Yasser Arafat (1929-2004)Palestinian leader. Born on 24 August 1929, either in Jerusalem or Cairo, he was orphaned at the age of four. He fought against Israeli independence in 1948-9 as a gun-runner. Then, while studying electrical engineering in Cairo, he founded the General Union of Palestinian Students in 1951. Arafat fought in the Egyptian army during the Suez crisis of 1956, and then worked as an engineer in Kuwait until 1965. There, he co-founded and led the Al-Fatah movement, which became the leading force inside the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, founded in 1964. In February 1969, Arafat became president of the PLO, and his khaki uniform and keffiyeh scarf became symbols of the Palestinian cause. But his career has been marked by a series of political and military miscalculations. Under his leadership, the PLO was expelled from Jordan in 1970, Beirut in 1982, Damascus and Tripoli in 1983, and south Lebanon in 1988. Such setbacks led to fractures in the movement and undermined Arafat's authority. In 1990, his support for Saddam Hussein led to international isolation. Despite this, Arafat was the only Palestinian leader able to negotiate with Israel, and in 1994 he shared a Nobel peace prize for his role in the Oslo Accords, the basis for a Middle East peace settlement. Having renounced violence in 1988, Arafat nevertheless remained in touch with grassroots Palestinian opinion and, despite his poor ability as a public speaker, continued to be an iconic figure for many Arabs. His election as president of the Palestinian Authority in 1996 confirmed his status as leader, and he survived numerous Israeli attempts to remove – and even kill – him. However, in 2003, as his influence on the world stage was waning, the Palestinian legislature established the post of prime minister in a largely unsuccessful attempt to reduce his power. Arafat died on 11 November 2004, probably from complications arising from a blood disorder. Almost immediately Al-Fatah began to lose its grip. In January 2006, beset by charges of incompetence and corruption, it was voted out as the government of Palestine and replaced by the fundamentalist group Hamas. |
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