Yasser Arafat
August 24, 1929 – November 11, 2004
Yasser Arafat (c. 1929–2004) was a Palestinian political leader who served as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization from 1969 to 2004, as President of Palestine from 1989 to 2004, and as President of the Palestinian Authority from 1994 to 2004. He was a founding member of the Fatah political party, which he led from 1959 until his death.
Biography
Yasser Arafat was born in Cairo to Palestinian parents and co-founded the Fatah movement in the late 1950s. Fatah became the main faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which he chaired from 1969.
The PLO was driven from Jordan in 1970-71 and from Lebanon after the Israeli invasion of 1982, moving its headquarters to Tunis. In 1988 Arafat accepted UN resolutions implying recognition of Israel. Secret talks led to the Oslo Accords of 1993, and he shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres.
He returned to the Palestinian territories in 1994 and was elected president of the Palestinian Authority in 1996. The Camp David summit of 2000 failed, and the Second Intifada followed. Israeli forces confined him to his compound in Ramallah from 2002. He died in a French hospital in 2004.
Affiliations
Education
- Jan 1, 1944 – Jan 1, 1950 Cairo University
