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Yasser Arafat - Introduction To The Life of a Great Leader For some people, Mohammed Abdel-Raouf Arafat also better known as Yasser Arafat, was a terrorist who should be hanged till death, and at other hand for some people, he was a great leader who was worth following.
Yasser Arafat was born to a Palestinian textile merchant and his wife from an old Palestinian family in Jerusalem on 24 August 1929 in Cairo. Yasser's mother died when he was a child of five years. There onwards Yasser was brought up by his maternal uncle, who lived in Jerusalem. There is very less information available about the childhood of Yasser Arafat and there are many stories also about where Yasser Arafat was born and where he spent his childhood. Some of the stories also depict Yasser Arafat as heir of Husseini clan from Jerusalem, which came from his mother. Further, Yasser attended Cairo University, which was better known as University of King Faud I during that period. Yasser was driven by the Arab-Israel was and he left his college/University to take an active part in the fight against the anti-Arabic forces. From the very young age of around 15 years, Yasser dreamed of having his own part of country for his people. But Yasser was not allowed to take part in the war as he had not received a proper war-training; he was forced to go back to the University. But Yasser never gave up and he participated in many Muslim organizations which were working hard to ignite spark against the anti-Arabic forces in the Muslim youths. Yasser was selected as president of the Muslim Organization when he was 24 year of age. Along with completing his study, Yasser also kept trying to get into army and finally he was selected as lieutenant in the Egyptian Army when he was 27. Yasser further moved to Kuwait where he developed his own business, as he was a civil engineer. As Yasser had been in army and was an active member of various Muslim Organizations during his young age, he also helped Fatah to get established in Kuwait. Fatah was the organization that aimed at fighting for separated land as Palestine. Fatah was recognized as Muslim terrorist organization that tried to target and blow up Israeli army and civil camps, water and food supply chains etc. Slowly, Yasser was coming into picture as one of the moving force of Fatah and other terrorist organizations. He was held for the being with those organizations, but was released soon. After 1964, Yasser's Fatah joined hands with the goals of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which was created by Arab League to achieve its goal of having separate land of Palestine and carry out its anti-Israel operations. Palestine Liberation Organization achieved reputation and an image of one of the biggest terrorist organizations. Fatah further planned some massive terrorist attacks on the Israeli forces, civilians etc. to register its name in the list of anti-Israel forces. Fatah, and PLO slowly started growing and spread their arms, soon the organizations started attracting young Muslims to join them in anti-Israel war. Arafat was elected PLO's chairman around year 1969. Arafat soon started gathering power by bringing all the small or big terrorist organizations under one umbrella of PLO. During next couple of months, Arafat kept trying to become mightier. Soon around 1970, Arafat declared himself Commander of the Palestine Liberation Army (PLA), which was the military arm of the PLO. PLA also invaded Jordan but was defeated by the Jordanian Army. Syria supported Arafat and its organization and provided all possible help. Arafat and its organization soon started undertaking tasks such as assassination of 11 Israeli athletes at Munich Olympic Games, which attracted whole world. During the period of so called war against Israel, Yasser Arafat also kept trying to bring down political pressure on Israel and developed his identity in international political circuit. Yasser started using different tactics to achieve his goals. He made an appearance in the UN summit in November 13, 1974, bearing olive branch and an pistol. Arafat said that, "Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand." Yasser Arafat kept fighting for his sole purpose of having separate Palestinian land of his people, and he tried his best to justify the PLO and its war against Israel. Along with this, Arafat also tried to find out ways to politically put forward the demand of his people, which forced the world to think seriously on the Palestinian struggle for their land. On September 13, 1993, Arafat signed the Declaration of Principles between Israel and Palestine, which ensured Palestinian steps towards peace in Washington, D.C. Arafat was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for his struggle for finding out peaceful solutions for the ongoing problem between Israel and Palestine. He was also awarded with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin. Noble prize could never change Arafat's views and goals. He continued to lead the PLO for 35 straight years with the huge support from Palestinian people till the end of his life. The demands of United States and Israel of replacing their leader and agree to democratic changes were blown away by Arafat's supporters and whole showing that they would rather keep fighting against Israel under their favorite leader Arafat than accepting those demands. Arafat got popular with the age and was the only leader that Palestinian people wanted to follow. He was the leader whom his people trusted the most. Even at old age near 80, Arafat was able to make his presence in international community as a symbol of Palestinian struggle for their own country and separate homeland. The great Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat met his death earlier in the day on 11th November at a French military hospital outside Paris. He suffered illness for more than two weeks. I hope the article provides sound information about the life of Yasser Arafat, although it is never easy to portray the great leader and his entire life in a single article. |
Whatever people think about Yasser Arafat, the dictator/leader of Iraq has died leaving his people/countrymen in a great dilemma of choosing a war for their continued quest for the separate homeland or follow a peaceful path to develop themselves and their country.