November 11th marks the anniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat, the former President of the Palestinian National Authority who fought for his people all his life and who in the 1990s was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Yasser Arafatborn in 1929 and died in 2004 and also known as Abu Ammarwas a Palestinian political figure, founder of the party Fatahpresident ofPalestine Liberation Organization and of thePalestinian National Authority. In the 60s and 70s he was the main architect of “Palestinian rebirth”that is, the consolidation of national identity and the development of the war against Israel.
For many years, Arafat led the armed struggle for Palestine from his headquarters, located first in Jordan, then in Lebanon and finally in Tunisia. In the 90s he undertook the peace process with Israel and for this he was awarded the Nobel together with two Israeli political leaders. The peace process, however, failedand in the early 2000s Arafat suffered a siege by Israeli forces in his residence in Ramallah.
Today the memory of Arafat is very popular in Palestine and, despite some controversies, it is also alive in the rest of the world, while it is judged negatively by the majority of Israel’s supporters. His successor is Mahmoud Abbas, known to the world as Abu Mazenwho succeeded him as president of the Palestinian Authority.
The birth of Yasser Arafat and the beginning of the struggle for Palestine
Yasser Arafat was born on August 24, 1929 in Cairo (other sources indicate Jerusalem, as claimed by Arafat himself, or Gaza). What is certain is that it belonged to one Palestinian family.
From a young age Arafat developed a nationalist ideology and began to fight for his land. In 1948 he took part in the first Arab-Israeli warfighting near Gaza. Returning to Cairo after the war, he enrolled in the faculty of civil engineering and was elected president of the General Union of Palestinian Students, holding the position from 1952 to 1956.
The founding of Fatah
As the years passed, Arafat, despite having obtained a degree in engineering, became increasingly involved in political commitment in support of the Palestinian cause.
However, until the end of the 1960s, the war against Israel was waged especially from the Arab stateswhile the Palestinian population had a secondary role. Arafat, however, was convinced that the liberation of Palestine had to be the work of the Palestinians themselves.
At the end of the 1950s he gathered a group of followers around him, forming ties with numerous Palestinian refugees and with two people destined to remain close to him for many years: Salah Khalaf “Abu Iyad” and Khalil al-Wazir “Abu Jihad“. Together with them he founded al-Fataha reverse acronym for Palestinian National Liberation Movement, an organization determined to lead the fight for Palestine autonomously from the Arab countries.
The Palestinian rebirth and the PLO
In 1967, as is known, the six day war: Israel defeated the armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, occupying East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula (the latter returned to Egypt in the 1980s).
The defeat of the Arab states began “Palestinian rebirth”: Palestinians, residing in the West Bank, Gaza and other countries, developed a greater awareness of their identity and began to lead the fight against the Israeli occupation firsthand. Precisely in those times the Palestinian flag spread on a large scale.
Arafat was one central figure of the Palestinian renaissance and soon assumed a role as leader of his people. His image, with his head covered by the black and white keffiyehbecame popular all over the world.
In 1969 he was elected president ofPalestine Liberation Organization (PLO)founded in 1964, which has since become the political representative of the Palestinian people.
Arafat’s leadership it was not unchallenged: in addition to Fatah, other parties were part of the PLO; Furthermore, there were extremist Palestinian factions, which did not recognize Arafat’s leadership and used terrorist means.
The fight against Israel, recognition and the Intifada
Arafat established his headquarters in Jordanfrom where he organized militia infiltration and sabotage operations in the territory of Israel.
In September 1970, the “Black September”the Jordanian monarchy ordered a military offensive against the Palestinian organizations operating in the country, because they had become too powerful, killing thousands of militants.
A few months after Arafat moved the headquarters in Lebanonfrom where the fight continued. Operations against Israel included infiltrations and attacks against Israeli targets, both military and civilian.
As the years went by, Arafat made money international recognition as a representative of the Palestinian people, he tightened relations with numerous governments – becoming popular especially in socialist and Third World countries – and in 1974 he held a important speech at the UN.
From 1975, however, the PLO was involved in the Lebanese civil warand seven years later Arafat was forced to move his headquarters again: in fact, when Israel invaded Lebanon and besieged Beirut, the PLO had to transfer command to Tunis.
Over the years, both Fatah and the PLO have suffered numerous victims attacks by Israel and, in some cases, even by Palestinian terrorist groups. Arafat was too several times in the sights, as in the case of the Israeli bombing of the PLO headquarters in Tunisia in 1985, but he always managed to survive.
In 1987, violence broke out in Gaza and the West Bank.Intifadaa vast uprising of the Palestinian people against the occupation. Arafat, who was following events from Tunis, made a move in 1988 very important step: proclaimed the birth of the State of Palestine on the territories of the West Bank and Gaza, in fact recognizing the State of Israel within the borders it had before the Six Day War. In this way, a concrete possibility of peace opened up.
Three years later, however, the Palestinian leader made a serious mistake: When the Gulf War broke out, he did not condemn the invasion of Kuwait and maintained a position favorable to Saddam Husseinthus alienating many sympathies in the West.
The Oslo Accords and the Second Intifada
In the early 1990s, thanks to the end of the Cold War and the Intifada, the peace process between Israel and the PLO.
In 1993 the two parties signed the Oslo Accordswhich envisaged the gradual establishment of a Palestinian political entity in the territories of the West Bank and Gaza, but left unresolved however the main issues are unresolvedsuch as the definition of borders, the status of refugees and the question of Jerusalem.
Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Itzhak Rabin they shook hands in a famous ceremony on the White House lawn.
After the agreements, thePalestinian National Authoritycharged with administering the territories of which Israel had ceded direct control.
Furthermore, in 1994, Arafat was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize together with Rabin and Shimon Peres. Later, he was elected president of the ANP and was able to return to Palestine after a 27-year exile, settling first in Gaza and then in Ramallahin the West Bank, where he established his headquarters.
The peace process, however, foundered: both among the Palestinians and among the Israelis there were factions hostile to the compromise, who used terrorist actions to sabotage the peace process.
In the years 2000-2001 Arafat met the new Israeli prime minister several times Ehud Barakbut, despite American mediation, the two did not find a solution.
There is no agreement on who between the two was more responsible for the failure of the negotiations: the fact is that the tension increased, and at the end of 2000, following a provocation by the general and future Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the second Palestinian Intifadaand the situation worsened.
From 2002 onwards, Arafat remained in his headquarters in Ramallahsurrounded by Israeli armed forces.
The death of Arafat
In 2004 Arafat he became seriously ill for complications of flu.
On October 29, he left Ramallah and was transported in Clamartin France, to be hospitalized. The treatments, however, were useless: theNovember 11 Arafat died. An immense crowd attended the funeral, celebrated in Ramallah.
In some circles it was advanced the suspicion that he had been poisoned by the Israeli secret servicesbut the circumstance has never been proven.
Today the figure of Arafat has a central role in Palestinian national memory and in the rest of the world it is popular in circles sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. In Israel, however, a negative opinion prevails and a substantial part of public opinion associates it with the armed struggle waged by the Palestinians.
