Abu Ammar: Yasser Arafat

posted on: Aug 13, 2021

By: Ahmed Abu Sultan/Arab America Contributing Writer  Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat, otherwise known as Yasser Arafat, was a Palestinian leader. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization from 1969 to 2004 and President of the Palestinian National Authority from 1994 to 2004. Ideologically, he was an Arab nationalist and was a founding member of the Fatah political party. A party he led from 1959 until 2004. The majority of the Palestinian people view him as a heroic freedom fighter and martyr who symbolized the national aspirations of his people, while Palestinian rivals, including Islamists and several leftists, often denounced him for being corrupt or too submissive in his concessions to the Israeli government.

Journey 

Arafat was born in Cairo, Egypt. Abdel Raouf al-Qudwa al-Husseini, Arafat’s father, a Palestinian from Gaza City. In contrast, his grandmother was Egyptian from his father’s side. Arafat’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 mixed Sakakini District. His mother, Zahwa Abul Saud, was from a Jerusalem-based family. She died from a kidney ailment in 1933, when Arafat was four years of age.

Arafat had a deteriorating relationship with his father. Arafat did not attend the funeral. However, he did visit his father’s grave upon his return to Gaza. Arafat’s sister Inam stated in an interview with Arafat’s biographer, British historian Alan Hart, that Arafat was abused physically by his father for going to the Jewish quarter in Cairo and attending religious services. When asked about the motive of such actions, he responded by saying that he wanted to study the Jewish mentality. In 1944, Arafat enrolled in the University of King Fuad and graduated in 1950. At university, he engaged Jews in discussion and read publications by Theodor Herzl and other prominent Zionists. By 1946 he was an Arab nationalist and began procuring weapons to be smuggled into the former British Mandate of Palestine, for use by irregular militias in the Arab Higher Committee and the Army of the Holy War militias.

1948 Catastrophe

During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Arafat left the University and, along with other Arabs, sought to enter Palestine to join Arab forces fighting against Israeli troops and the creation of the state of Israel. He did not join the ranks of the fedayeen. Nonetheless, Arafat fought alongside the Muslim Brotherhood, although he did not join the organization. He took part in combat in the Gaza Strip area, which was a concentrated area of conflict. In early 1949, the war was winding down in Israel’s favor, and Arafat returned to Cairo from a lack of support.

Fatah

In 1956, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser agreed to allow the United Nations Emergency Force to establish itself in the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip, following the purpose of the expulsion of all guerrilla or forces there. Arafat, in 1957, applied for a visa to Kuwait and was approved. There he encountered two Palestinian friends: Salah Khalaf and Khalil al-Wazir. Both of them were official members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood at the time. Arafat had met Abu Iyad while attending Cairo University and Abu Jihad in Gaza. Both would later become Arafat’s companions. Abu Iyad traveled with Arafat to Kuwait in late 1960; Abu Jihad, also working as a teacher, had already been living there since 1959. After settling in Kuwait, Abu Iyad helped Arafat obtain a part-time job as a teacher.

As Arafat began to develop friendships with Palestinian refugees, he and his companions gradually founded the group that became known as Fatah. The exact date for the establishment of Fatah is a mystery. In 1959, the group’s existence was attested to in the pages of a Palestinian nationalist magazine. Fatah dedicated itself to the liberation of the Holy Land through armed struggle carried out by the Palestinians themselves. This differed from other Palestinian political and guerrilla organizations, many of which firmly believed in a united Arab response. Arafat’s organization never embraced the ideologies of the major Arab governments of the time, in contrast to other Palestinian factions, which often became satellites of nations such as Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and others. In accordance with his ideology, Arafat generally refused to accept donations to his organization from major Arab governments, to act independently of them. In the most basic sense, he did not want Palestine to be a satellite state to another corrupt nation.

Palestinian Authority

In the early 1990s, Arafat and leading Fatah officials engaged the Israeli government in a series of covert talks and negotiations that led to the 1993 Oslo Accords. The agreement called for the implementation of Palestinian independent rule in portions of the West Bank and Gaza Strip over five years, in addition to an immediate halt to and gradual removal of Israeli settlements in those areas. The accords called for a Palestinian police force to be formed from local recruits and Palestinians abroad, to patrol areas of self-rule. Authority over the various fields of rule, including education and culture, social welfare, direct taxation, and tourism, would be transferred to the Palestinian interim government. Both parties agreed also on forming a committee that would establish cooperation and coordination dealing with specific economic sectors, including utilities, industry, trade, and communication.

Unfortunately, that was not the case. Even with the establishment of a formal government that is autonomous from the Israeli government, much of the Palestinian needs come from outside of Palestine. Today, the city of Gaza is besieged by both land and sea, and the Palestinians from Gaza cannot interact with those in the West Bank without permission from the Israeli government. It was a notable attempt to provide his people with autonomy. However, he was foiled by the politics of the world and the lack of support from his Arab brethren. Arafat was pronounced dead at 3:30 UTC on 11 November 2004 at the age of 75 of what French doctors called a massive hemorrhagic cerebrovascular accident. The entire Palestinian population entered a state of mourning for forty days after his passing. With his death, does all the stability that held Palestinians together and they fell into a state of chaos and ignorance.

Check out Arab America’s blog here!

Arab America contributor, Ahmed Abu Sultan, relays one of the immortalized characters that represent the modern Palestinian struggle. Yasser Arafat has always been a memorable character that dedicated his life to the Palestinian cause. Throughout his life, he made many bold decisions that ended with the formation of a Palestinian Authority that is independent of its Israeli counterpart. In the end, his life was recapped by the many orphaned children he adopted and the families he supported.