Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa (/ˈærəˌfæt, ˈɑːrəˌfɑːt/;[2] Arabic: محمد ياسر عبد الرحمن عبد الرؤوف عرفات‎‎; 24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004), popularly known as Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat (Arabic: ياسر عرفات‎ , Yāsir `Arafāt) or by his kunya Abu Ammar (Arabic: أبو عمار‎ , 'Abū `Ammār), was a Palestinian political leader. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 to 2004 and President of the Palestinian National Authority
Palestinian National Authority (PNA) from 1994 to 2004.[3] Ideologically an Arab
Arab nationalist, he was a founding member of the Fatah
Fatah political party, which he led from 1959 until 2004. Arafat was born to Palestinian parents in Cairo, Egypt, where he spent most of his youth and studied at the University of King Fuad I. While a student, he embraced Arab
Arab nationalist and anti-Zionist ideas. Opposed to the 1948 creation of the State of Israel, he fought alongside the Muslim Brotherhood
Muslim Brotherhood during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Returning to Cairo, he served as president of the General Union of Palestinian Students from 1952 to 1956. In the latter part of the 1950s he co-founded Fatah, a paramilitary organisation seeking the disestablishment of Israel
Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian state. Fatah
Fatah operated within several Arab
Arab countries, from where it launched attacks on Israeli targets. In the latter part of the 1960s Arafat's profile grew; in 1967 he joined the PLO and in 1969 was elected chair of the Palestinian National Council (PNC). Fatah's growing presence in Jordan
Jordan resulted in military clashes with King Hussein's Jordanian government and in the early 1970s it relocated to Lebanon. There, Fatah
Fatah assisted the Lebanese National Movement during the Lebanese Civil War
Lebanese Civil War and continued its attacks on Israel, resulting in it becoming a major target of Israel's 1978 and 1982 invasions. From 1983 to 1993, Arafat based himself in Tunisia, and began to shift his approach from open conflict with the Israelis to negotiation. In 1988, he acknowledged Israel's right to exist and sought a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In 1994 he returned to Palestine, settling in Gaza City
Gaza City and promoting self-governance for the Palestinian territories. He engaged in a series of negotiations with the Israeli government to end the conflict between it and the PLO. These included the Madrid Conference of 1991, the 1993 Oslo Accords and the 2000 Camp David Summit. In 1994 Arafat received the Nobel Peace Prize, together with Yitzhak Rabin
Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, for the negotiations at Oslo. At the time, Fatah's support among the Palestinians
Palestinians declined with the growth of Hamas
Hamas and other militant rivals. In late 2004, after effectively being confined within his Ramallah
Ramallah compound for over two years by the Israeli army, Arafat fell into a coma and died. While the cause of Arafat's death has remained the subject of speculation, investigations by Russian and French teams determined no foul play was involved.[4][5][6] Arafat remains a controversial figure. The majority of the Palestinian people view him as a heroic freedom fighter and martyr who symbolized the national aspirations of his people. Conversely, most Israelis[7][8] came to regard him as an unrepentant terrorist,[9][10] while Palestinian rivals, including Islamists and several PLO leftists, often denounced him for being corrupt or too submissive in his concessions to the Israeli government.

Contents

1 Early life

1.1 Birth and childhood 1.2 Education 1.3 Marriage 1.4 Name

2 Rise of Fatah

2.1 Founding of Fatah 2.2 Leader of the Palestinians 2.3 Battle of Karameh

3 Confrontation with Jordan 4 Headquarters in Lebanon

4.1 Official recognition 4.2 Fatah
Fatah involvement in Lebanese Civil War

5 Headquarters in Tunisia

5.1 First Intifada 5.2 Change in direction

6 Palestinian Authority and peace negotiations

6.1 Oslo Accords 6.2 Establishing authority in the territories 6.3 Other peace agreements

7 Political survival

7.1 Relations with Hamas
Hamas and other militant groups 7.2 Attempts to marginalize

8 Financial dealings 9 Illness and death

9.1 Unsuccessful Israeli attempts to assassinate 9.2 Failing health 9.3 Funeral 9.4 Theories about the cause of death

10 See also 11 Notes and references 12 Further reading 13 External links

Early life Birth and childhood Arafat was born in Cairo, Egypt.[11] His father, Abdel Raouf al-Qudwa al-Husseini, was a Palestinian from Gaza City, whose mother, Yasser's paternal grandmother, was Egyptian. Arafat's father battled in the Egyptian courts for 25 years to claim family land in Egypt
Egypt as part of his inheritance but was unsuccessful.[12] He worked as a textile merchant in Cairo's religiously mixed Sakakini District. Arafat was the second-youngest of seven children and was, along with his younger brother Fathi, the only offspring born in Cairo. 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.[13] Arafat's first visit to Jerusalem
Jerusalem came when his father, unable to raise seven children alone, sent him and his brother Fathi to their mother's family in the Moroccan Quarter
Moroccan Quarter of the Old City. They lived there with their uncle Salim Abul Saud for four years. In 1937, their father recalled them to be taken care of by their older sister, Inam. Arafat had a deteriorating relationship with his father; when he died in 1952, Arafat did not attend the funeral, nor did he 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 heavily beaten by his father for going to the Jewish quarter in Cairo
Cairo and attending religious services. When she asked Arafat why he would not stop going, he responded by saying that he wanted to study Jewish mentality.[13] Education In 1944, Arafat enrolled in the University of King Fuad I and graduated in 1950.[13] At university, he engaged Jews in discussion and read publications by Theodor Herzl
Theodor Herzl and other prominent Zionists.[14] By 1946 he was an Arab
Arab nationalist and began procuring weapons to be smuggled into the former British Mandate of Palestine, for use by irregulars in the Arab Higher Committee
Arab Higher Committee and the Army of the Holy War militias.[15] During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Arafat left the University and, along with other Arabs, sought to enter Palestine to join Arab
Arab forces fighting against Israeli troops and the creation of the state of Israel. However, instead of joining the ranks of the Palestinian fedayeen, Arafat fought alongside the Muslim Brotherhood, although he did not join the organization. He took part in combat in the Gaza area (which was the main battleground of Egyptian forces during the conflict). In early 1949, the war was winding down in Israel's favor, and Arafat returned to Cairo
Cairo from a lack of logistical support.[13] After returning to the University, Arafat studied civil engineering and served as president of the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) from 1952 to 1956. During his first year as president of the union, the University was renamed Cairo
Cairo University after a coup was carried out by the Free Officers Movement overthrowing King Farouk I. By that time, Arafat had graduated with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering and was called to duty to fight with Egyptian forces during the Suez Crisis; however, he never actually fought.[13] Later that year, at a conference in Prague, he donned a solid white keffiyeh–different from the fishnet-patterned one he adopted later in Kuwait, which was to become his emblem.[16] Marriage In 1990, Arafat married Suha Tawil, a Palestinian Christian
Palestinian Christian when he was 61 and Suha, 27. Before their marriage, she was working as a secretary for Arafat in Tunis
Tunis after her mother introduced her to him in France.[17][18] Prior to Arafat's marriage, he adopted fifty Palestinian war orphans.[19] During her marriage, Suha tried to leave Arafat on many occasions, but was not permitted to by her husband.[20] She views her marriage to Arafat as a mistake.[20] Suha said she regrets the marriage and given the choice again, would not have wed him.[21] On 24 July 1995, Arafat's wife Suha gave birth to a daughter in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France.[22] She was named Zahwa after Arafat's deceased mother.[18] Name Arafat's full name was Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa. Mohammed Abdel Rahman was his first name, Abdel Raouf was his father's name and Arafat his grandfather's. Al- Qudwa was the name of his tribe and al-Husseini was that of the clan to which the al-Qudwas belonged. The al-Husseini clan was based in Gaza and is not related to the well-known al-Husayni clan of Jerusalem.[13] Since Arafat was raised in Cairo, the tradition of dropping the Mohammed or Ahmad portion of one's first name was common; notable Egyptians such as Anwar Sadat
Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak
Hosni Mubarak did so. However, Arafat dropped Abdel Rahman and Abdel Raouf from his name as well. During the early 1950s, Arafat adopted the name Yasser, and in the early years of Arafat's guerrilla career, he assumed the nom de guerre of Abu Ammar. Both names are related to Ammar ibn Yasir, one of Muhammad's early companions. Although he dropped most of his inherited names, he retained Arafat due to its significance in Islam.[13] Rise of Fatah Founding of Fatah Following the Suez Crisis
Suez Crisis in 1956, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser agreed to allow the United Nations Emergency Force
United Nations Emergency Force to establish itself in the Sinai Peninsula
Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip, precipitating the expulsion of all guerrilla or "fedayeen" forces there—including Arafat. Arafat originally attempted to obtain a visa to Canada and later Saudi Arabia, but was unsuccessful in both attempts.[13] In 1957, he applied for a visa to Kuwait
Kuwait (at the time a British protectorate) and was approved, based on his work in civil engineering. There he encountered two Palestinian friends: Salah Khalaf ("Abu Iyad") and Khalil al-Wazir
Khalil al-Wazir ("Abu Jihad"), both official members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Arafat had met Abu Iyad while attending Cairo
Cairo University and Abu Jihad
Abu Jihad in Gaza. Both would later become Arafat's top aides. Abu Iyad traveled with Arafat to Kuwait
Kuwait in late 1960; Abu Jihad, also working as a teacher, had already been living there since 1959.[23] After settling in Kuwait, Abu Iyad helped Arafat obtain a temporary job as a schoolteacher.[24] As Arafat began to develop friendships with Palestinian refugees (some of whom he knew from his Cairo
Cairo days), he and the others gradually founded the group that became known as Fatah. The exact date for the establishment of Fatah
Fatah is unknown. In 1959, the group's existence was attested to in the pages of a Palestinian nationalist magazine, Filastununa Nida al-Hayat (Our Palestine, The Call of Life), which was written and edited by Abu Jihad.[25] FaTaH is a reverse acronym of the Arabic name Harakat al-Tahrir al-Watani al-Filastini which translates into "The Palestinian National Liberation Movement".[24][26] "Fatah" is also a word that was used in early Islamic times to refer to "conquest."[24] Fatah
Fatah dedicated itself to the liberation of Palestine by an armed struggle carried out by Palestinians
Palestinians themselves. This differed from other Palestinian political and guerrilla organizations, most of which firmly believed in a united Arab
Arab response.[24][27] 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
Syria and others.[28] In accordance with his ideology, Arafat generally refused to accept donations to his organization from major Arab
Arab governments, in order to act independently of them. He did not want to alienate them, and sought their undivided support by avoiding ideological alliances. However, to establish the groundwork for Fatah's future financial support, he enlisted contributions from the many wealthy Palestinians working in Kuwait
Kuwait and other Arab
Arab states of the Persian Gulf, such as Qatar
Qatar (where he met Mahmoud Abbas
Mahmoud Abbas in 1961).[29] These businessmen and oil workers contributed generously to the Fatah
Fatah organization. Arafat continued this process in other Arab
Arab countries, such as Libya
Libya and Syria.[24] In 1962, Arafat and his closest companions migrated to Syria—a country sharing a border with Israel—which had recently seceded from its union with Egypt. Fatah
Fatah had approximately three hundred members by this time, but none were fighters.[24] In Syria, he managed to recruit members by offering them higher incomes to enable his armed attacks against Israel. Fatah's manpower was incremented further after Arafat decided to offer new recruits much higher salaries than members of the Palestine Liberation Army
Palestine Liberation Army (PLA), the regular military force of the Palestine Liberation Organization
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which was created by the Arab League in 1964. On 31 December, a squad from al-Assifa, Fatah's armed wing, attempted to infiltrate Israel, but they were intercepted and detained by Lebanese security forces. Several other raids with Fatah's poorly trained and badly-equipped fighters followed this incident. Some were successful, others failed in their missions. Arafat often led these incursions personally.[24] Arafat was detained in Syria's Mezzeh Prison when a Palestinian Syrian Army officer, Yusef Urabi, was killed. Urabi had been chairing a meeting to ease tensions between Arafat and Palestinian Liberation Front leader Ahmed Jibril, but neither Arafat nor Jibril attended, delegating representatives to attend on their behalf. Urabi was killed during or after the meeting amid disputed circumstances. On the orders of Defense Minister Hafez al-Assad, a close friend of Urabi, Arafat was subsequently arrested, found guilty by a three-man jury and sentenced to death. However, he and his colleagues were pardoned by President Salah Jadid
Salah Jadid shortly after the verdict.[30] The incident brought Assad and Arafat to unpleasant terms, which would surface later when Assad became President of Syria.[24] Leader of the Palestinians On 13 November 1966, Israel
Israel launched a major raid against the Jordanian administered West Bank
West Bank town of as-Samu, in response to a Fatah-implemented roadside bomb attack which had killed three members of the Israeli security forces near the southern Green Line border. In the resulting skirmish, scores of Jordanian security forces were killed and 125 homes razed. This raid was one of several factors that led to the 1967 Six-Day War.[31] The Six-Day war began when Israel
Israel launched air strikes against Egypt's air force on 5 June 1967. The war ended in an Arab
Arab defeat and Israel's occupation of several Arab
Arab territories, including the West Bank
West Bank and Gaza Strip. Although Nasser and his Arab
Arab allies had been defeated, Arafat and Fatah
Fatah could claim a victory, in that the majority of Palestinians, who had up to that time tended to align and sympathize with individual Arab
Arab governments, now began to agree that a 'Palestinian' solution to their dilemma was indispensable.[32] Many primarily Palestinian political parties, including George Habash's Arab
Arab Nationalist Movement, Hajj Amin al-Husseini's Arab
Arab Higher Committee, the Islamic Liberation Front and several Syrian-backed groups, virtually crumbled after their sponsor governments' defeat. Barely a week after the defeat, Arafat crossed the Jordan
Jordan River in disguise and entered the West Bank, where he set up recruitment centers in Hebron, the Jerusalem
Jerusalem area and Nablus, and began attracting both fighters and financiers for his cause.[32] At the same time, Nasser contacted Arafat through the former's adviser Mohammed Heikal and Arafat was declared by Nasser to be the "leader of the Palestinians."[33] In December 1967 Ahmad Shukeiri
Ahmad Shukeiri resigned his post as PLO Chairman. Yahya Hammuda took his place and invited Arafat to join the organization. Fatah
Fatah was allocated 33 of 105 seats of the PLO Executive Committee
PLO Executive Committee while 57 seats were left for several other guerrilla factions.[32] Battle of Karameh Main article: Battle of Karameh Throughout 1968, Fatah
Fatah and other Palestinian armed groups were the target of a major Israeli army operation in the Jordanian village of Karameh, where the Fatah
Fatah headquarters—as well as a mid-sized Palestinian refugee
Palestinian refugee camp—were located. The town's name is the Arabic word for 'dignity', which elevated its symbolism in the eyes of the Arab
Arab people, especially after the collective Arab
Arab defeat in 1967. The operation was in response to attacks, including rockets strikes from Fatah
Fatah and other Palestinian militias, within the Israeli-occupied West Bank. According to Said Aburish, the government of Jordan
Jordan and a number of Fatah
Fatah commandos informed Arafat that large-scale Israeli military preparations for an attack on the town were underway, prompting fedayeen groups, such as George Habash's newly formed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Nayef Hawatmeh's breakaway organization the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), to withdraw their forces from the town. Though advised by a sympathetic Jordanian Army divisional commander to withdraw his men and headquarters to the nearby hills, Arafat refused,[32] stating, "We want to convince the world that there are those in the Arab
Arab world who will not withdraw or flee."[34] Aburish writes that it was on Arafat's orders that Fatah
Fatah remained, and that the Jordanian Army agreed to back them if heavy fighting ensued.[32] In response to persistent PLO raids against Israeli civilian targets, Israel
Israel attacked the town of Karameh, Jordan, the site of a major PLO camp. The goal of the invasion was to destroy Karameh
Karameh camp and capture Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat in reprisal for the attacks by the PLO against Israeli civilians, which culminated in an Israeli school bus hitting a mine in the Negev, killing two children.[35] However, plans for the two operations were prepared in 1967, one year before the bus attack.[36] When Jordan
Jordan saw the size of the raiding forces entering the battle it was led to the assumption that Israel
Israel had another goal of capturing Balqa Governorate
Balqa Governorate to create a Golan Heights
Golan Heights similar situation.[37][38] Israel
Israel assumed that the Jordanian Army would ignore the invasion, but the latter fought alongside the Palestinians
Palestinians and opened heavy fire that inflicted losses upon the Israeli forces.[39] This engagement marked the first known deployment of suicide bombers by Palestinian forces.[40] The Israelis were repelled at the end of a day's battle, having destroyed most of the Karameh
Karameh camp and taken around 141 PLO prisoners.[41] Both sides declared victory. On a tactical level, the battle went in Israel's favor[42] and the destruction of the Karameh camp was achieved.[43] However, the relatively high casualties were a considerable surprise for the Israel
Israel Defense Forces and was stunning to the Israelis.[44] Although the Palestinians
Palestinians were not victorious on their own, King Hussein let the Palestinians
Palestinians take credit.[44][45][46] Some have alleged that Arafat himself was on the battlefield, but the details of his involvement are unclear. However, his allies–as well as Israeli intelligence–confirm that he urged his men throughout the battle to hold their ground and continue fighting.[47] The battle was covered in detail by Time, and Arafat's face appeared on the cover of the 13 December 1968 issue, bringing his image to the world for the first time.[48] Amid the post-war environment, the profiles of Arafat and Fatah
Fatah were raised by this important turning point, and he came to be regarded as a national hero who dared to confront Israel. With mass applause from the Arab
Arab world, financial donations increased significantly, and Fatah's weaponry and equipment improved. The group's numbers swelled as many young Arabs, including thousands of non-Palestinians, joined the ranks of Fatah.[49] When the Palestinian National Council (PNC) convened in Cairo
Cairo on 3 February 1969, Yahya Hammuda stepped down from his chairmanship of the PLO. Arafat was elected chairman on 4 February.[50][51] He became Commander-in-Chief
Commander-in-Chief of the Palestinian Revolutionary Forces two years later, and in 1973, became the head of the PLO's political department.[32] Confrontation with Jordan See also: Black September

Arafat with Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine leader, Nayef Hawatmeh
Nayef Hawatmeh and Palestinian writer Kamal Nasser
Kamal Nasser at press conference in Amman, 1970

In the late 1960s, tensions between Palestinians
Palestinians and the Jordanian government increased greatly; heavily armed Palestinian elements had created a virtual "state within a state" in Jordan, eventually controlling several strategic positions in that country. After their proclaimed victory in the Battle of Karameh, Fatah
Fatah and other Palestinian militias began taking control of civil life in Jordan. They set up roadblocks, publicly humiliated Jordanian police forces, molested women and levied illegal taxes—all of which Arafat either condoned or ignored.[34] King Hussein considered this a growing threat to his kingdom's sovereignty and security, and attempted to disarm the militias. However, in order to avoid a military confrontation with opposition forces, Hussein dismissed several of his anti-PLO cabinet officials, including some of his own family members, and invited Arafat to become Prime Minister of Jordan. Arafat refused, citing his belief in the need for a Palestinian state
Palestinian state with Palestinian leadership.[52] Despite Hussein's intervention, militant actions in Jordan
Jordan continued. On 15 September 1970, the PFLP hijacked five planes and landed three of them at Dawson's Field, located 30 miles (48 km) east of Amman. After the passengers were moved to other locations, three of the planes were blown up. This tarnished Arafat's image in many western nations, including the United States, who held him responsible for controlling Palestinian factions that belonged to the PLO. Arafat, bowing to pressure from Arab
Arab governments, publicly condemned the hijackings and suspended the PFLP from any guerrilla actions for a few weeks. He had taken the same action after the PFLP attacked Athens Airport. The Jordanian government moved to regain control over its territory, and the next day, King Hussein declared martial law.[52] On the same day, Arafat became supreme commander of the PLA.[53]

Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser (center) mediating an agreement between Arafat and Jordanian King Hussein to end to the Black September conflict, during the emergency Arab League
Arab League summit, September 1970

As the conflict raged, other Arab
Arab governments attempted to negotiate a peaceful resolution. As part of this effort, Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser led the first emergency Arab League
Arab League summit in Cairo
Cairo on 21 September. Arafat's speech drew sympathy from attending Arab
Arab leaders. Other heads of state took sides against Hussein, among them Muammar Gaddafi, who mocked him and his schizophrenic father King Talal. A ceasefire was agreed upon between the two sides, but Nasser died of a massive heart attack hours after the summit, and the conflict resumed shortly afterward.[52] By 25 September, the Jordanian army achieved dominance, and two days later Arafat and Hussein agreed to a ceasefire in Amman. The Jordanian army inflicted heavy casualties on the Palestinians—including civilians—who suffered approximately 3,500 fatalities.[53] After repeated violations of the ceasefire from both the PLO and the Jordanian Army, Arafat called for King Hussein to be toppled. Responding to the threat, in June 1971, Hussein ordered his forces to oust all remaining Palestinian fighters in northern Jordan, which they accomplished. Arafat and a number of his forces, including two high-ranking commanders, Abu Iyad and Abu Jihad, were forced into the northern corner of Jordan. They relocated near the town of Jerash, near the border with Syria. With the help of Munib Masri, a pro-Palestinian Jordanian cabinet member, and Fahd al-Khomeimi, the Saudi ambassador to Jordan, Arafat managed to enter Syria
Syria with nearly two thousand of his fighters. However, due to the hostility of relations between Arafat and Syrian President Hafez al-Assad
Hafez al-Assad (who had since ousted President Salah Jadid), the Palestinian fighters crossed the border into Lebanon
Lebanon to join PLO forces in that country, where they set up their new headquarters.[54] Headquarters in Lebanon Official recognition

Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat visits East Germany in 1971; background: Brandenburg Gate

Because of Lebanon's weak central government, the PLO was able to operate virtually as an independent state. During this time in the 1970s, numerous leftist PLO groups took up arms against Israel, carrying out attacks against civilians as well as military targets within Israel
Israel and outside of it. Two major incidents occurred in 1972. The Fatah
Fatah subgroup Black September hijacked Sabena Flight 572
Sabena Flight 572 en route to Vienna
Vienna and forced it to land at the Ben Gurion International Airport
Ben Gurion International Airport in Lod, Israel.[55] The PFLP and the Japanese Red Army
Japanese Red Army carried out a shooting rampage at the same airport, killing twenty-four civilians.[55][56] Israel
Israel later claimed that the assassination of PFLP spokesman Ghassan Kanafani
Ghassan Kanafani was a response to the PFLP's involvement in masterminding the latter attack. Two days later, various PLO factions retaliated by bombing a bus station, killing eleven civilians.[55] At the Munich Olympic Games, Black September
Black September kidnapped and killed eleven Israeli athletes.[57] A number of sources, including Mohammed Oudeh (Abu Daoud), one of the masterminds of the Munich massacre, and Benny Morris, a prominent Israeli historian, have stated that Black September was an armed branch of Fatah
Fatah used for paramilitary operations. According to Abu Daoud's 1999 book, "Arafat was briefed on plans for the Munich hostage-taking."[58] The killings were internationally condemned. In 1973–74, Arafat closed Black September down, ordering the PLO to withdraw from acts of violence outside Israel, the West Bank
West Bank and Gaza Strip.[59] In 1974, the PNC approved the Ten Point Program (drawn up by Arafat and his advisers), and proposed a compromise with the Israelis. It called for a Palestinian national authority over every part of "liberated" Palestinian territory,[60] which refers to areas captured by Arab
Arab forces in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
1948 Arab-Israeli War (present-day West Bank, East Jerusalem
Jerusalem and Gaza Strip). This caused discontent among several of the PLO factions; the PFLP, DFLP and other parties formed a breakaway organization, the Rejectionist Front.[61] Israel
Israel and the US have alleged also that Arafat was involved in the 1973 Khartoum diplomatic assassinations, in which five diplomats and five others were killed. A 1973 United States
United States Department of State document, declassified in 2006, concluded "The Khartoum operation was planned and carried out with the full knowledge and personal approval of Yasser Arafat."[62][63] Arafat denied any involvement in the operation and insisted it was carried out independently by the Black September group. Israel
Israel claimed that Arafat was in ultimate control over these organizations and therefore had not abandoned terrorism.[64] In addition, some circles within the US State Department viewed Arafat as an able diplomat and negotiator who could get support from many Arab
Arab governments at once. An example of that, we find in March 1973 that Arafat tried to arrange for a meeting between the President of Iraq
Iraq and the Emir of Kuwait
Kuwait in order to resolve their disputes.[65] Also in 1974, the PLO was declared the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people" and admitted to full membership of the Arab League at the Rabat Summit.[61] Arafat became the first representative of a non-governmental organization to address a plenary session of the UN General Assembly. In his United Nations
United Nations address, Arafat condemned Zionism, but said, "Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand."[66] He wore a holster throughout his speech, although it did not contain a gun.[67][68] His speech increased international sympathy for the Palestinian cause.[61] Following recognition, Arafat established relationships with a variety of world leaders, including Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein and Idi Amin. Arafat was Amin's best man at his wedding in Uganda
Uganda in 1975.[69][70] Fatah
Fatah involvement in Lebanese Civil War See also: Lebanese Civil War

Arafat in a Palestinian refugee
Palestinian refugee camp in Southern Lebanon, 1978

Although hesitant at first to take sides in the conflict, Arafat and Fatah
Fatah played an important role in the Lebanese Civil War. Succumbing to pressure from PLO sub-groups such as the PFLP, DFLP and the Palestine Liberation Front
Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), Arafat aligned the PLO with the Communist and Nasserist Lebanese National Movement (LNM). The LNM was led by Kamal Jumblatt, who had a friendly relationship with Arafat and other PLO leaders. Although originally aligned with Fatah, Syrian President Hafez al-Assad
Hafez al-Assad feared a loss of influence in Lebanon
Lebanon and switched sides. He sent his army, along with the Syrian-backed Palestinian factions of as-Sa'iqa and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) led by Ahmad Jibril to fight alongside right-wing Christian forces against the PLO and the LNM. The primary components of the Christian front were the Phalangists loyal to Bachir Gemayel
Bachir Gemayel and the Tigers Militia led by Dany Chamoun, a son of former President Camille Chamoun.[71]

Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat with Gaddafi in 1977

In February 1975, a pro-Palestinian Lebanese MP, Maarouf Saad, was shot and killed, reportedly by the Lebanese Army.[72] His death, from his wounds, the following month, and the massacre in April of that year of 27 Palestinians
Palestinians and Lebanese travelling on a bus from Sabra and Shatila to the Tel al-Zaatar refugee camp by Phalangist forces, precipitated the Lebanese Civil War.[73] Arafat was reluctant to respond with force, but many other Fatah
Fatah and PLO members felt otherwise.[34] For example, the DFLP carried out several attacks against the Lebanese Army. In 1976, an alliance of Christian militias with the backing of the Lebanese and Syrian armies besieged Tel al-Zaatar camp in east Beirut.[74][75] The PLO and LNM retaliated by attacking the town of Damour, a Phalangist stronghold where they massacred 684 people and wounded many more.[74][76] The Tel al-Zaatar camp fell to the Christians after a six-month siege in which thousands of Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed.[77] Arafat and Abu Jihad blamed themselves for not successfully organizing a rescue effort.[71] PLO cross-border raids against Israel
Israel grew during the late 1970s. One of the most severe—known as the Coastal Road massacre—occurred on 11 March 1978. A force of nearly a dozen Fatah
Fatah fighters landed their boats near a major coastal road connecting the city of Haifa
Haifa with Tel Aviv-Yafo. There they hijacked a bus and sprayed gunfire inside and at passing vehicles, killing thirty-seven civilians.[78] In response, the IDF launched Operation Litani three days later, with the goal of taking control of Southern Lebanon
Lebanon up to the Litani River. The IDF achieved this goal, and Arafat withdrew PLO forces north into Beirut.[79]

Arafat with Iranian Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan, days after Iranian Revolution

Arafat with Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish
Mahmoud Darwish (center) and PFLP leader George Habash
George Habash (right) in Syria, 1980

After Israel
Israel withdrew from Lebanon, cross-border hostilities between PLO forces and Israel
Israel continued, though from August 1981 to May 1982, the PLO adopted an official policy of refraining from responding to provocations.[80] On 6 June 1982, Israel
Israel launched an invasion of Lebanon
Lebanon to expel the PLO from southern Lebanon. Beirut
Beirut was soon besieged and bombarded by the IDF;[71] Arafat declared the city to be the " Hanoi
Hanoi and Stalingrad
Stalingrad of the Israeli army."[71] The Civil War's first phase ended and Arafat—who was commanding Fatah
Fatah forces at Tel al-Zaatar—narrowly escaped with assistance from Saudi and Kuwaiti diplomats.[81] Towards the end of the siege, the US and European governments brokered an agreement guaranteeing safe passage for Arafat and the PLO—guarded by a multinational force of eight hundred US Marines supported by the US Navy—to exile in Tunis.[71] Arafat returned to Lebanon
Lebanon a year after his eviction from Beirut, this time establishing himself in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli. This time Arafat was expelled by a fellow Palestinian working under Hafez al-Assad. Arafat did not return to Lebanon
Lebanon after his second expulsion, though many Fatah
Fatah fighters did.[71] Headquarters in Tunisia Arafat and Fatah's center for operations was based in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, until 1993. In 1985 Arafat narrowly survived an Israeli assassination attempt when Israeli Air Force
Israeli Air Force F-15s bombed his Tunis
Tunis headquarters as part of Operation Wooden Leg, leaving 73 people dead; Arafat had gone out jogging that morning.[82] First Intifada During the 1980s, Arafat received financial assistance from Libya, Iraq
Iraq and Saudi Arabia, which allowed him to reconstruct the badly damaged PLO. This was particularly useful during the First Intifada
First Intifada in December 1987, which began as an uprising of Palestinians
Palestinians against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank
West Bank and Gaza Strip. The word Intifada in Arabic is literally translated as "tremor", however, it is generally defined as an uprising or revolt.[83] The first stage of the Intifada began following an incident at the Erez checkpoint where four Palestinian residents of the Jabalya refugee camp were killed in a traffic accident involving an Israeli driver. Rumors spread that the deaths were a deliberate act of revenge for an Israeli shopper that was stabbed to death by a Palestinian in Gaza four days earlier. Mass rioting broke out and within weeks and partly upon consistent requests by Abu Jihad, Arafat attempted to direct the uprising, which lasted until 1992–93. Abu Jihad
Abu Jihad had previously been assigned the responsibility of the Palestinian territories within the PLO command and according to biographer Said Aburish, had "impressive knowledge of local conditions" in the Israeli-occupied territories. On 16 April 1988, as the Intifada was raging, Abu Jihad
Abu Jihad was assassinated in his Tunis
Tunis household by an Israeli hit squad. Arafat had considered Abu Jihad
Abu Jihad as a PLO counterweight to local Palestinian leadership in the territories, and led a funeral procession for him in Damascus.[83] The most common tactic used by Palestinians
Palestinians during the Intifada was throwing stones, molotov cocktails, and burning tires.[84] The local leadership in some West Bank
West Bank towns commenced non-violent protests against Israeli occupation by engaging in tax resistance and other boycotts. Israel
Israel responded by confiscating large sums of money in house-to-house raids.[83][85] As the Intifada came to a close, new armed Palestinian groups—in particular Hamas
Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)—began targeting Israeli civilians with the new tactic of suicide bombings, and internal fighting amongst the Palestinians
Palestinians increased dramatically.[83] Change in direction In 1970, Arafat declared: "Our basic aim is to liberate the land from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan
Jordan River. We are not concerned with what took place in June 1967 or in eliminating the consequences of the June war. The Palestinian revolution's basic concern is the uprooting of the Zionist entity from our land and liberating it."[86] However, in early 1976, at a meeting with US Senator Adlai Stevenson III, Arafat suggested that if Israel
Israel withdrew a "few kilometers" from parts of the West Bank
West Bank and the Gaza Strip
Gaza Strip and transferred responsibility to the UN, Arafat could give "something to show his people before he could acknowledge Israel's right to exist".[87] On 15 November 1988, the PLO proclaimed the independent State of Palestine. Though he had frequently been accused of and associated with terrorism,[88][89][90] in speeches on 13 and 14 December Arafat repudiated 'terrorism in all its forms, including state terrorism'. He accepted UN Security Council Resolution 242
UN Security Council Resolution 242 and Israel's right "to exist in peace and security" and[91][92] Arafat's statements were greeted with approval by the US administration, which had long insisted on these statements as a necessary starting point for official discussions between the US and the PLO. These remarks from Arafat indicated a shift away from one of the PLO's primary aims—the destruction of Israel
Israel (as entailed in the Palestinian National Covenant)–and toward the establishment of two separate entities: an Israeli state within the 1949 armistice lines, and an Arab
Arab state in the West Bank
West Bank and the Gaza Strip. On 2 April 1989, Arafat was elected by the Central Council of the Palestine National Council, the governing body of the PLO, to be the president of the proclaimed State of Palestine.[83] Prior to the Gulf War
Gulf War in 1990–91, when the Intifada's intensity began to wear down, Arafat supported Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait
Kuwait and opposed the US-led coalition attack on Iraq. He made this decision without the consent of other leading members of Fatah
Fatah and the PLO. Arafat's top aide Abu Iyad vowed to stay neutral and opposed an alliance with Saddam; On 17 January 1991, Abu Iyad was assassinated by the Abu Nidal
Abu Nidal Organization. Arafat's decision also severed relations with Egypt
Egypt and many of the oil-producing Arab
Arab states that supported the US-led coalition. Many in the US also used Arafat's position as a reason to disregard his claims to being a partner for peace. After the end of hostilities, many Arab
Arab states that backed the coalition cut off funds to the PLO and began providing financial support for the organization's rival Hamas
Hamas and other Islamist groups.[83] Arafat narrowly escaped death again on 7 April 1992, when an Air Bissau aircraft he was a passenger on crash-landed in the Libyan Desert during a sandstorm. Two pilots and an engineer were killed; Arafat was bruised and shaken.[93] Palestinian Authority and peace negotiations Further information: Palestinian views on the peace process §  Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat and the PLO Oslo Accords

Yitzhak Rabin, Bill Clinton, and Arafat during the Oslo Accords
Oslo Accords on 13 September 1993

Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres
Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat receiving the Nobel Peace Prize following the Oslo Accords

In the early 1990s, Arafat and leading Fatah
Fatah officials engaged the Israeli government in a series of secret talks and negotiations that led to the 1993 Oslo Accords.[64][94] The agreement called for the implementation of Palestinian self-rule in portions of the West Bank and Gaza Strip
Gaza Strip over a five-year period, along with 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
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.[95] Prior to signing the accords, Arafat—as Chairman of the PLO and its official representative—signed two letters renouncing violence and officially recognizing Israel. In return, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, on behalf of Israel, officially recognized the PLO.[96] The following year, Arafat and Rabin were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, along with Shimon Peres.[97] The Palestinian reaction was mixed. The Rejectionist Front of the PLO allied itself with Islamists in a common opposition against the agreements. It was rejected also by Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan
Jordan as well as by many Palestinian intellectuals and the local leadership of the Palestinian territories. However, the inhabitants of the territories generally accepted the agreements and Arafat's promise for peace and economic well-being.[98] Establishing authority in the territories In accordance with the terms of the Oslo agreement, Arafat was required to implement PLO authority in the West Bank
West Bank and Gaza Strip. He insisted that financial support was imperative to establishing this authority and needed it to secure the acceptance of the agreements by the Palestinians
Palestinians living in those areas. However, Arab
Arab states of the Persian Gulf—Arafat's usual source for financial backing—still refused to provide him and the PLO with any major donations for siding with Iraq
Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War.[98] Ahmed Qurei—a key Fatah negotiator during the negotiations in Oslo—publicly announced that the PLO was bankrupt.[99] In 1994, Arafat moved to Gaza City, which was controlled by the Palestinian National Authority
Palestinian National Authority (PNA)—the provisional entity created by the Oslo Accords.[97] Arafat became the President and Prime Minister of the PNA, the Commander of the PLA and the Speaker of the PLC. In July, after the PNA was declared the official government of the Palestinians, the Basic Laws of the Palestinian National Authority was published,[100] in three different versions by the PLO. Arafat proceeded with creating a structure for the PNA. He established an executive committee or cabinet composed of twenty members. Arafat also replaced and assigned mayors and city councils for major cities such as Gaza and Nablus. He began subordinating non-governmental organizations that worked in education, health, and social affairs under his authority by replacing their elected leaders and directors with PNA officials loyal to him. He then appointed himself chairman of the Palestinian financial organization that was created by the World Bank to control most aid money towards helping the new Palestinian entity.[98] Arafat established a Palestinian police force, named the Preventive Security Service (PSS), that became active on 13 May. It was mainly composed of PLA soldiers and foreign Palestinian volunteers. Arafat assigned Mohammed Dahlan and Jibril Rajoub
Jibril Rajoub to head the PSS.[98] Amnesty International
Amnesty International accused Arafat and the PNA leadership for failing to adequately investigate abuses by the PSS (including torture and unlawful killings) of political opponents and dissidents as well as the arrests of human rights activists.[101] Throughout November and December 1995, Arafat toured dozens of Palestinian cities and towns that were evacuated by Israeli forces including Jenin, Ramallah, al-Bireh, Nablus, Qalqilyah
Qalqilyah and Tulkarm, declaring them "liberated". The PNA also gained control of the West Bank's postal service during this period.[102] On 20 January 1996, Arafat was elected president of the PNA, with an overwhelming 88.2 percent majority (the other candidate was charity organizer Samiha Khalil). However, because Hamas, the DFLP and other popular opposition movements chose to boycott the presidential elections, the choices were limited. Arafat's landslide victory guaranteed Fatah
Fatah 51 of the 88 seats in the PLC. After Arafat was elected to the post of President of the PNA, he was often referred to as the Ra'is, (literally president in Arabic), although he spoke of himself as "the general".[103] In 1997, the PLC accused the executive branch of the PNA of financial mismanagement causing the resignation of four members of Arafat's cabinet. Arafat refused to resign his post.[104] Other peace agreements

Arafat with PNA cabinet members Yasser Abed Rabbo
Yasser Abed Rabbo (left) and Nabil Shaath (right) at a meeting in Copenhagen, 1999

In mid-1996, Benjamin Netanyahu
Benjamin Netanyahu was elected Prime Minister of Israel. Palestinian-Israeli relations grew even more hostile as a result of continued conflict.[105] Despite the Israel-PLO accord, Netanyahu opposed the idea of Palestinian statehood.[106] In 1998, US President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton persuaded the two leaders to meet. The resulting Wye River Memorandum detailed the steps to be taken by the Israeli government and PNA to complete the peace process.[107]

Arafat with Ehud Barak
Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton at Camp David Summit, 2000

Arafat continued negotiations with Netanyahu's successor, Ehud Barak, at the Camp David 2000 Summit
Camp David 2000 Summit in July 2000. Due partly to his own politics (Barak was from the leftist Labor Party, whereas Netanyahu was from the rightist Likud
Likud Party) and partly due to insistence for compromise by President Clinton, Barak offered Arafat a Palestinian state in 73 percent of the West Bank
West Bank and all of the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian percentage of sovereignty would extend to 90 percent over a ten- to twenty-five-year period. Also included in the offer was the return of a small number of refugees and compensation for those not allowed to return. Palestinians
Palestinians would also have "custodianship" over the Temple Mount, sovereignty on all Islamic and Christian holy sites, and three of Jerusalem's four Old City quarters. Arafat rejected Barak's offer and refused to make an immediate counter-offer.[94] He told President Clinton that, "the Arab
Arab leader who would surrender Jerusalem
Jerusalem is not born yet."[108] After the September 2000 outbreak of the Second Intifada, negotiations continued at the Taba summit
Taba summit in January 2001; this time, Ehud Barak pulled out of the talks to campaign in the Israeli elections. In October and December 2001, suicide bombings by Palestinian militant groups increased and Israeli counter strikes intensified. Following the election of Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon in February, the peace process took a steep downfall. Palestinian elections scheduled for January 2002 were postponed—the stated reason was an inability to campaign due to the emergency conditions imposed by the Intifada, as well as IDF incursions and restrictions on freedom of movement in the Palestinian territories. In the same month, Sharon ordered Arafat to be confined to his Mukata'a headquarters in Ramallah, following an attack in the Israeli city of Hadera;[108] US President George W. Bush
George W. Bush supported Sharon's action, claiming that Arafat was "an obstacle to the peace."[109] Political survival

Play media

Footage of Arafat speaking and meeting international leaders

Arafat's long personal and political survival was taken by most Western commentators as a sign of his mastery of asymmetric warfare and his skill as a tactician, given the extremely dangerous nature of politics of the Middle East and the frequency of assassinations.[110] Some commentators believe his survival was largely due to Israel's fear that he could become a martyr for the Palestinian cause if he were assassinated or even arrested by Israel.[111] Others believe that Israel
Israel refrained from taking action against Arafat because it feared Arafat less than Hamas
Hamas and the other Islamist movements gaining support over Fatah. The complex and fragile web of relations between the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab
Arab states contributed also to Arafat's longevity as the leader of the Palestinians.[110] Israel
Israel attempted to assassinate Arafat on a number of occasions, but has never used its own agents, preferring instead to "turn" Palestinians
Palestinians close to the intended target, usually using blackmail.[112] According to Alan Hart, the Mossad's specialty is poison.[112] According to Abu Iyad, two attempts were made on Arafat's life by the Israeli Mossad
Mossad and the Military Directorate in 1970.[113] In 1976, Abu Sa'ed, a Palestinian agent working for the Mossad, was enlisted in a plot to put poison pellets that looked like grains of rice in Arafat's food. Abu Iyad explains that Abu Sa'ed confessed after he received the order to go ahead, explaining that he was unable to go through with the plot because, "He was first of all a Palestinian and his conscience wouldn't let him do it."[114] Arafat claimed in a 1988 interview with Time that because of his fear of assassination by the Israelis, he never slept in the same place two nights in a row.[115] Relations with Hamas
Hamas and other militant groups Arafat's ability to adapt to new tactical and political situations was perhaps tested by the rise of the Hamas
Hamas and PIJ organizations, Islamist groups espousing rejectionist policies with Israel. These groups often bombed non-military targets, such as malls and movie theaters, to increase the psychological damage and civilian casualties. In the 1990s, these groups seemed to threaten Arafat's capacity to hold together a unified nationalist organization with a goal of statehood.[110] An attack carried out by Hamas
Hamas militants killed 29 Israeli civilians celebrating Passover, including many senior citizens.[116] In response, Israel
Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield, a major military offensive into major West Bank
West Bank cities. Mahmoud al-Zahar, a Hamas leader in Gaza, stated in September 2010 that Arafat had instructed Hamas
Hamas to launch what he termed "military operations" against Israel
Israel in 2000 when Arafat felt that negotiations with Israel
Israel would not succeed.[117] Some Israeli government officials opined in 2002 that the armed Fatah sub-group al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades commenced attacks towards Israel in order to compete with Hamas.[118] On 6 May 2002, the Israeli government released a report, based in part on documents, allegedly captured during the Israeli raid of Arafat's Ramallah
Ramallah headquarters, which allegedly included copies of papers signed by Arafat authorizing funding for al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades' activities. The report implicated Arafat in the "planning and execution of terror attacks".[119] Attempts to marginalize Persistent attempts by the Israeli government to identify another Palestinian leader to represent the Palestinian people
Palestinian people failed. Arafat was enjoying the support of groups that, given his own history, would normally have been quite wary of dealing with or supporting him. Marwan Barghouti
Marwan Barghouti (a leader of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades) emerged as a possible replacement during the Second Intifada, but Israel
Israel had him arrested for allegedly being involved in the killing of twenty-six civilians, and he was sentenced to five life terms.[120] Arafat was finally allowed to leave his compound on 2 May 2002 after intense negotiations led to a settlement: six PFLP militants, including the organization's secretary-general Ahmad Sa'adat, wanted by Israel, who had been holed up with Arafat in his compound, would be transferred to international custody in Jericho. After the wanted men were handed over the siege was lifted.[121] With that, and a promise that he would issue a call to the Palestinians
Palestinians to halt attacks on Israelis, Arafat was released. He issued such a call on 8 May. On 19 September 2002, the IDF largely demolished the compound with armored bulldozers in order to isolate Arafat.[122][123][124] In March 2003, Arafat ceded his post as Prime Minister to Mahmoud Abbas
Mahmoud Abbas amid pressures by the US.[125] After the Israeli security Cabinet on 11 September 2003 had decided that " Israel
Israel will act to remove this obstacle [Arafat] in the manner, at the time, and in the ways that will be decided on separately",[126] Israeli Cabinet members and officials had hinted on Arafat's death[127][128][129] and the Israeli military had begun making preparations for Arafat's possible expulsion in the near future,[130][131] many feared for his life. Israeli peace activists of Gush Shalom, Knesset members and others went into the Presidential Compound, prepared to serve as a human shield.[132][133] The compound remained under siege until Arafat's transfer to a French hospital, shortly before his death. In 1995 the Palestinian leader was summoned and ousted from New York City's Lincoln Center by staffers of Mayor Rudy Giuliani
Rudy Giuliani during a concert to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations.[134] In 2004, President Bush dismissed Arafat as a negotiating partner, saying he had "failed as a leader" and accused him of undercutting Abbas when he was prime minister (Abbas resigned the same year he was given the position).[135] Arafat had a mixed relationship with the leaders of other Arab
Arab nations. His support from Arab
Arab leaders tended to increase whenever he was pressured by Israel; for example, when Israel declared in 2003 it had made the decision, in principle, to remove him from the Israeli-controlled West Bank.[108] In an interview with the Arabic news network Al Jazeera, Arafat responded to Ariel Sharon's suggestion that he be exiled from the Palestinian territories permanently, by stating, "Is it his [Sharon's] homeland or ours? We were planted here before the Prophet Abraham came, but it looks like they [Israelis] don't understand history or geography."[108] Financial dealings Under the Oslo Peace Accords, Israel
Israel undertook to deposit the VAT tax receipts on goods purchased by Palestinians
Palestinians into the Palestinian treasury. Until 2000, these monies were transferred directly to Arafat's personal accounts at Bank Leumi, in Tel Aviv. [136] In August 2002, the Israeli Military Intelligence Chief alleged that Arafat's personal wealth was in the range of US$1.3 billion.[137] In 2003 the International Monetary Fund
International Monetary Fund (IMF) conducted an audit of the PNA and stated that Arafat diverted $900 million in public funds to a special bank account controlled by Arafat and the PNA Chief Economic Financial adviser. However, the IMF did not claim that there were any improprieties, and it specifically stated that most of the funds had been used to invest in Palestinian assets, both internally and abroad.[138][139] However, in 2003, a team of American accountants—hired by Arafat's own finance ministry—began examining Arafat's finances. In its conclusions, the team claimed that part of the Palestinian leader's wealth was in a secret portfolio worth close to $1 billion, with investments in companies like a Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola bottling plant in Ramallah, a Tunisian cell phone company and venture capital funds in the US and the Cayman Islands. The head of the investigation stated that "although the money for the portfolio came from public funds like Palestinian taxes, virtually none of it was used for the Palestinian people; it was all controlled by Arafat. And none of these dealings were made public."[140] An investigation conducted by the General Accounting Office reported that Arafat and the PLO held over $10 billion in assets even at the time when he was publicly claiming bankruptcy.[141] Although Arafat lived a modest lifestyle, Dennis Ross, former Middle East negotiator for Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, stated that Arafat's "walking-around money" financed a vast patronage system known as neopatrimonialism. According to Salam Fayyad—a former World Bank
World Bank official whom Arafat appointed Finance Minister of the PNA in 2002—Arafat's commodity monopolies could accurately be seen as gouging his own people, "especially in Gaza which is poorer, which is something that is totally unacceptable and immoral." Fayyad claims that Arafat used $20 million from public funds to pay the leadership of the PNA security forces (the Preventive Security Service) alone.[140] Fuad Shubaki, former financial aide to Arafat, told the Israeli security service Shin Bet
Shin Bet that Arafat used several million dollars of aid money to buy weapons and support militant groups.[142] During Israel's Operation Defensive Shield, the Israel
Israel army recovered counterfeit money and documents from Arafat's Ramallah
Ramallah headquarters. The documents showed that, in 2001, Arafat personally approved payments to Tanzim militants.[143] The Palestinians
Palestinians claimed that the counterfeit money was confiscated from criminal elements.[144] Illness and death

Arafat mausoleum

Unsuccessful Israeli attempts to assassinate The Israeli government had tried for decades to assassinate Arafat, including attempting to intercept and to shoot down private aircraft and commercial airliners on which he was believed to be traveling.[145] The assassination was initially assigned to Caesarea, the Mossad
Mossad unit in charge of Israel's numerous targeted killings. Shooting down a commercial airliner in international airspace over very deep water was thought to be preferable to make recovery of the wreckage, and hence tracing Israel's fingerprints, more difficult. Following Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Israeli Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon created a special task force code named "Salt Fish" headed by special ops experts Meir Dagan
Meir Dagan and Rafi Eitan to track Arafat's movements in Lebanon
Lebanon to kill him because Sharon saw Arafat as a "Jew murderer" and an important symbol, symbols being as important as body counts in a war against a terrorist organization. The Salt Fish task force orchestrated the bombing of buildings where Arafat and senior PLO leaders were believed to be staying. Later renamed "Operation Goldfish," Israeli operatives followed Israeli journalist Uri Avnery
Uri Avnery to a meeting with Arafat in an additional unsuccessful attempt to kill him. In 2001, Sharon as prime minister is believed to have made a commitment to cease attempts to assassinate Arafat. However following Israel's successful assassination in March 2004 of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a founder of the Hamas
Hamas movement, Prime Minister Sharon in April 2004 stated that “this commitment of mine no longer exists.”[146] Failing health The first reports of Arafat's failing health by his doctors for what his spokesman said was the flu came on 25 October 2004, after he vomited during a staff meeting. His condition deteriorated in the following days.[147] Following visits by other doctors, including teams from Tunisia, Jordan, and Egypt—and agreement by Israel
Israel to allow him to travel—Arafat was taken to France
France on a French government jet, and was admitted to the Percy military hospital in Clamart, a suburb of Paris.[148][149] On 3 November, he had lapsed into a gradually deepening coma.[150] Arafat was pronounced dead at 03:30  UTC
UTC on 11 November 2004 at the age of 75 of what French doctors called a massive hemorrhagic cerebrovascular accident (hemorrhagic stroke).[151][152] Initially, Arafat's medical records were withheld by senior Palestinian officials, and Arafat's wife refused an autopsy.[153] French doctors also said that Arafat suffered from a blood condition known as disseminated intravascular coagulation, although it is inconclusive what brought about the condition.[154][155] When Arafat's death was announced, the Palestinian people
Palestinian people went into a state of mourning, with Qur'anic mourning prayers emitted from mosque loudspeakers throughout the West Bank
West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and tires burned in the streets.[156] The Palestinian Authority and refugee camps in Lebanon declared 40 days of mourning.[157][158] Funeral

Arafat's "temporary" tomb in Ramallah, 2004

On 11 November 2004, a French Army
French Army Guard of honour
Guard of honour held a brief ceremony for Arafat, with his coffin draped in a Palestinian flag. A military band played the French and Palestinian national anthems, and a Chopin funeral march.[159] French President Jacques Chirac
Jacques Chirac stood alone beside Arafat's coffin for about ten minutes in a last show of respect for Arafat, whom he hailed as "a man of courage".[160] The next day, Arafat's body was flown from Paris aboard a French Air Force transport plane to Cairo, Egypt
Egypt for a brief military funeral there, attended by several heads of states, prime ministers and foreign ministers.[161] Egypt's top Muslim cleric Sayed Tantawi led mourning prayers preceding the funeral procession.[148]

Honour guard at attention over Yasser Arafat's tombstone in mausoleum, opened 10 November 2007 at the PNA Presidential headquarters in Ramallah

Israel
Israel refused Arafat's wish to be buried near the Al-Aqsa Mosque
Al-Aqsa Mosque or anywhere in Jerusalem, citing security concerns.[162] Israel
Israel also feared that his burial would strengthen Palestinian claims to East Jerusalem.[163] Following the Cairo
Cairo procession, Arafat was "temporarily" buried within the Mukataa
Mukataa in Ramallah; tens of thousands of Palestinians
Palestinians attended the ceremony.[148] Arafat was buried in a stone, rather than wooden, coffin, and Palestinian spokesman Saeb Erekat said that Arafat would be reburied in East Jerusalem
Jerusalem following the establishment of a Palestinian state. After Sheikh Taissir Tamimi discovered that Arafat was buried improperly and in a coffin—which is not in accordance with Islamic law—Arafat was reburied on the morning of 13 November at around 3:00 am.[164] On 10 November 2007, prior to the third anniversary of Arafat's death, President Mahmoud Abbas
Mahmoud Abbas unveiled a mausoleum for Arafat near his tomb in commemoration of him.[165] Theories about the cause of death Main article: Cause of Yasser Arafat's death Numerous theories have appeared regarding Arafat's death, with the most prominent being poisoning[166][167][168][169] (possibly by polonium) and [170] AIDS-related illnesses,[171][172][173] as well as liver disease[174] or a platelet disorder.[175] In September 2005, an Israeli-declared AIDS expert claimed that Arafat bore all the symptoms of AIDS based on obtained medical records.[171] But others, including Patrice Mangin of the University of Lausanne
University of Lausanne and The New York Times
The New York Times disagreed with this claim, insisting that Arafat's record indicated that it was highly unlikely that the cause of his death was AIDS.[176][177] Arafat's personal doctor Ashraf al-Kurdi and aide Bassam Abu Sharif
Bassam Abu Sharif maintained that Arafat was poisoned,[166][167] possibly by thallium.[168] A senior Israeli physician concluded that Arafat died from food poisoning. Both those claims were rejected by Haaretz
Haaretz and The New York Times.[171][178][not in citation given] Then- Palestinian foreign minister
Palestinian foreign minister Nabil Shaath
Nabil Shaath had also ruled out poisoning after talks with Arafat's French doctors.[178] On 4 July 2012, Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera published the results of a nine-month investigation, which revealed that none of the causes of Arafat’s death suggested in several rumors could be true. Tests carried out by a Swiss scientific experts found traces of polonium in quantities much higher than could occur naturally on Arafat's personal belongings.[176][179] On 12 October 2013, the British medical journal The Lancet
The Lancet published a peer-reviewed article by the Swiss experts about the analysis of the 38 samples of Arafat's clothes and belongings and 37 reference samples which were known to be polonium-free, suggesting that Arafat could have died of polonium poisoning.[180][181] On 27 November 2012, three teams of international investigators, a French, a Swiss, and a Russian team, collected samples from Arafat's body and the surrounding soil in the mausoleum in Ramallah, to carry out an investigation independently from each other.[182][183][184] On 6 November 2013, Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera reported that the Swiss forensic team had found levels of polonium in Arafat's ribs and pelvis 18 to 36 times the average. According to the Swiss expert team (including notably experts in radio-chemistry, radio-physics and legal medicine), on a probability scale ranging from one to six, death by polonium poisoning is around five.[181] While Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera reported that the scientist were "confident up to an 83 percent level" that polonium poisoning occurred, but Francois Bochud (the head of the Swiss team) clarified to Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera that this is not the case and that the scale does not allow a simple division like this; he stated only that the poisoning hypothesis by polonium is "reasonably supported".[185][186][187][181] Forensic Biologist Nathan Lents of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the report's results are consistent with a possible polonium poisoning, but "There's certainly not a smoking gun here." Derek Hill, a professor in radiological science at University College London who was not involved in the investigation, said "I would say it's clearly not overwhelming proof, and there is a risk of contamination (of the samples), but it is a pretty strong signal. ... It seems likely what they're doing is putting a very cautious interpretation of strong data."[188] On 26 December 2013, a team of Russian scientists released a report saying they had found no trace of radioactive poisoning—a finding that comes after the French report found traces of the radioactive isotope polonium. Vladimir Uiba, the head of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency, said that Arafat died of natural causes (without explaining which)[not in citation given] and the agency had no plans to conduct further tests.[189] Unlike the Swiss report, the French and Russian reports were not made public, at the time.[181] The Swiss experts read the French and Russian reports and argued that the radiologic data measured by the other teams support their conclusions of a probable death by polonium poisoning.[181] In March 2015 a French prosecutor closed a 2012 French inquiry, stating that French experts had determined Arafat's death was of natural causes, and that the polonium and lead traces found were environmental.[190] In 2018, Ronen Bergman
Ronen Bergman suggested that Israel
Israel used radiation poisoning to kill Yasser Arafat, but stepped back from flatly asserting what happened, stating that Israeli military censorship prevents him from revealing what, or whether, he knows.[191][192] See also

List of Fatah
Fatah members Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize controversies Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat International Airport

Notes and references

^ "Yasser Arafat". www.nndb.com.  ^ "Arafat". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. ^ Some sources use the term Chairman, rather than President; the Arabic word for both titles is the same. See President of the Palestinian National Authority
Palestinian National Authority for further information. ^ "Yasser Arafat: French rule out foul play in former Palestinian leader's death". The Guardian. 16 March 2015.  ^ " France
France drops investigation into Arafat's death". Jerusalem
Jerusalem Post. 2 September 2015.  ^ " Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat investigation: Russian probe finds death not caused by radiation". CBS News. 26 December 2013.  ^ Major Richard D. Creed Jr., Eighteen Years In Lebanon
Lebanon And Two Intifadas: The Israeli Defense Force And The U.S. Army Operational Environment, Pickle Partners Publishing, 2014 p.53. ^ As'ad Ghanem Palestinian Politics after Arafat: A Failed National Movement:Palestinian Politics after Arafat, Indiana University Press, 2010 p.259. ^ Kershner, Isabel (4 July 2012). " Palestinians
Palestinians May Exhume Arafat After Report of Poisoning". The New York Times. Retrieved 5 August 2012.  ^ Hockstader, Lee (11 November 2004). "A Dreamer Who Forced His Cause Onto World Stage". The Washington Post. Retrieved 31 October 2007.  ^ Not certain; Disputed; Most sources including Tony Walker, Andrew Gowers, Alan Hart and Said K. Aburish indicate Cairo
Cairo as Arafat's place of birth, but others list his birthplace as Jerusalem
Jerusalem as well as Gaza. See here [1] and here [2] for more information. Some believe also that the Jerusalem
Jerusalem birthplace might have been a little known rumor created by the KGB [3]. ^ Bernadette Brexel (2003). Yasser Arafat. Rosen Publishing Group. p. 12.  ^ a b c d e f g h Aburish, Said K. (1998). From Defender to Dictator. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 7–32. ISBN 978-1-58234-049-4.  ^ "Yasser Arafat: Homeland a dream for Palestinian Authority Chief". CNN News. Cable News Network. Retrieved 5 July 2012.  ^ Rubenstein, Dany (1995). The Mystery of Arafat. New York: Steerforth Press. p. 38. ISBN 978-1-883642-10-5.  ^ Aburish, Said K. (1998). From Defender to Dictator. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 46. ISBN 978-1-58234-049-4.  ^ Aburish, Said K. (1998). From Defender to Dictator. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 246–247. ISBN 978-1-58234-049-4.  ^ a b "Profile: Suha Arafat-Blonde, convent-educated and with a rumored penchant for designer suits, Suha Arafat made an unlikely wife for the leader of the Palestinian resistance". BBC News. 17 November 2005. Retrieved 21 July 2007.  ^ "Milestones". Time. 19 December 1994.  ^ a b "Arafat's widow tried to leave Palestinian leader 'hundreds of times'". 9 February 2013.  ^ "Suha Arafat: I wish I'd never married him".  ^ "Suha Arafat". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org.  ^ Mattar, Phillip (12 November 2000). "Biography of Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad)". Encyclopedia of the Palestinians. Facts on File; 1st edition. Retrieved 17 July 2007.  ^ a b c d e f g h Aburish, Said K. (1998). From Defender to Dictator. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 33–67. ISBN 978-1-58234-049-4.  ^ Aburish, Said K. (1998). From Defender to Dictator. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 33–67. ISBN 978-1-58234-049-4.  Aburish says the date of Fatah's founding is unclear but claims in 1959 it was exposed by its magazine. Zeev Schiff, Raphael Rothstein (1972). Fedayeen; Guerillas Against Israel. McKay, p.58; Schiff and Rothstein claim Fatah
Fatah was founded in 1959. Salah Khalaf and Khalil al-Wazir
Khalil al-Wazir state Fatah's first formal meeting was in October 1959. See Anat N. Kurz (2005) Fatah
Fatah and the Politics of Violence: The Institutionalization of a Popular Struggle. Brighton, Portland: Sussex Academic Press (Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies), pp. 29–30 ^ Hussein, Hassan Khalil. Abu Iyad, Unknown Pages of his Life. p. 64.  ^ Cooley, John K. (1973). Green March, Black September. Frank Crass & Co. p. 100. ISBN 978-0-7146-2987-2.  ^ Abu Sharif, Bassam; Uzi Mahmaini (1996). Tried by Fire. Time Warner Paperbacks. p. 33. ISBN 978-0-7515-1636-4.  ^ Gowers, Andrew; Tony Walker (1991). Behind the Myth: Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Revolution. Interlink Pub Group Inc. p. 65. ISBN 978-0-940793-86-6.  ^ Hart, Alan (1994). Arafat. Sidgwick and Jackson. pp. 204–205. ISBN 978-0-283-06220-9.  ^ Oren, Michael (2003). Six Days of War, June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East. New York: The Random House Publishing Group. pp. 33–36. ISBN 978-0-345-46192-6.  ^ a b c d e f Aburish, Said K. (1998). From Defender to Dictator. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 69–98. ISBN 978-1-58234-049-4.  ^ Aburish, Said K. (2004). Nasser, The Last Arab. New York: Thomas Dunne Books. ISBN 978-0-312-28683-5. OCLC 52766217.  ^ a b c Sayigh, Yezid (1997). Armed Struggle and the Search for State, the Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-829643-0.  ^ Cath Senker (2004). The Arab-Israeli Conflict. Black Rabbit Books. Retrieved 2015-10-25.  ^ "Debacle in the desert". Haaretz. 1968-03-29. Retrieved 2011-05-13.  ^ Patrick Tyler (2012-09-18). Fortress Israel: The Inside Story of the Military Elite Who Run the Country—and Why They Can't Make Peace. Macmillan. Retrieved 2015-10-25.  ^ "الذكرى الثالثة والأربعون لمعركة الكرامة الخالدة". Petra News Agency (in Arabic). Ammon News. 2011-03-20. Retrieved 2015-10-25.  ^ "1968: Karameh
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Munib Younan & Frederick M. Strickert Fortress Press, 2003, p. 111 ^ The West's last chance, Tony Blankley, Regnery Publishing, 2005, p. 77 ^ "Yasser Arafat, Speech at UN General Assembly Geneva, General Assembly 13 December 1988". Le Monde diplomatique. 13 December 1988.  ^ "Arafat Clarifies Statement to Satisfy U.S. Conditions for Dialogue". Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved 18 July 2007.  ^ "Timeline: Yasser Arafat". Fox News Network. Associated Press. 8 February 2005. Retrieved 27 July 2007.  ^ a b Carter, James (2006). Palestine Peace Not Apartheid. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc. pp. 147–150. ISBN 978-0-7432-8502-5.  ^ "Agreement on the Gaza Strip
Gaza Strip and the Jericho
Jericho Area". The American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. 2007. Retrieved 24 August 2007.  ^ "Israel-PLO Recognition: Exchange of Letters Between PM Rabin and Chairman Arafat". U.S State Department Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. 3 September 1993. Archived from the original on 15 August 2007. Retrieved 24 August 2007.  ^ a b "1994: Israelis and Arafat share peace prize". BBC News. 3 September 1993. Retrieved 24 August 2007.  ^ a b c d Aburish, Said K. (1998). From Defender to Dictator. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 262–292. ISBN 978-1-58234-049-4.  ^ Heikal, Mohammed (1996). Secret Channels. HarperCollins Publishing. p. 479. ISBN 978-0-00-638337-6.  ^ Constitution of Palestine
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Wikisource 2006-07-26. Accessed on 7 November 2007 ^ Forgione, Fabio (October 2004). "The Chaos of Corruption, Challenges for the improvement of the Palestinian Society: VI. PA security service, 1. Abuses, torture and infringements of the law". The Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group (PHRMG). Archived from the original on 2008-01-11. Retrieved 4 November 2007.  ^ "Palestine Facts: 1994–1995". Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs (PASSIA). Archived from the original on 19 August 2013. Retrieved 15 March 2008.  ^ Miller, Judith (10 November 2004). "Obituary: Yasir Arafat, Palestinian Leader, Dies at 75". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 November 2007.  ^ Aburish, Said K. (1998). From Defender to Dictator. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 293–320. ISBN 978-1-58234-049-4.  ^ "Profile: Binyamin Netanyahu". BBC News. 20 December 2005.  ^ "Hardliners Gain Around Likud
Likud Vote". BBC News. 9 December 2002. Retrieved 21 July 2007.  ^ "The Wye River Memorandum". The State of Israel
Israel (Translated from Hebrew). 1998. Archived from the original on 2001-07-15. Retrieved 24 August 2007.  ^ a b c d " Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat (1929–2004)" (PDF). PASSIA. 11 December 2004. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 February 2012.  ^ "Mid-East press reflects on Arafat legacy: Israeli newspaper Maariv". BBC News. 5 November 2004. Retrieved 17 September 2007.  ^ a b c Aburish, Said K. (1998). From Defender to Dictator. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 321–325. ISBN 978-1-58234-049-4.  ^ Beyer, Lisa (12 November 2004). "A Life in Retrospect: Yasser Arafat". Time. p. 2. Retrieved 24 August 2007.  ^ a b Hart, Alan (1989). Arafat, a political biography (Illustrated ed.). Indiana University Press. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-253-32711-6.  ^ Hart, Alan (1989). Arafat: A Political Biography (Illustrated ed.). Indiana University Press. p. 320. ISBN 978-0-253-32711-6.  ^ Hart, Alan (1989). Arafat, a political biography (Illustrated ed.). Indiana University Press. pp. 429–430. ISBN 978-0-253-32711-6.  ^ Karsten Prager, Murray J. Gart, & Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat (7 November 1988). "Interview: with Yasser Arafat: Knowing the Enemy". Time. Retrieved 30 January 2010.  ^ "Al-Aqsa Intifada timeline: 2002". BBC News. 29 September 2004. Retrieved 11 September 2007.  ^ Khaled Abu Toameh, "Arafat ordered Hamas
Hamas attacks against Israel
Israel in 2000", Jerusalem
Jerusalem post, 29 September 2010 "This was the first time that a senior Hamas
Hamas official disclosed that some of the Hamas
Hamas suicide bombings during the second intifada, which erupted 10 years ago, were ordered by Arafat. Until now it was widely believed that Arafat had only ordered his Fatah
Fatah militiamen to carry out terror attacks on Israel." ^ Bowen, Jeremy (7 November 2003). "Palestinian Authority funds go to militants". BBC News. Retrieved 26 August 2007.  ^ Naveh, Dani (6 May 2002). "The Involvement of Arafat, PA Senior Officials and Apparatuses in Terrorism against Israel- Corruption and Crime". Ministry of Foreign Affairs – The State of Israel. Retrieved 5 July 2012.  ^ "Profile: Marwan Barghouti". BBC News. 13 December 2004. Retrieved 11 September 2007.  ^ Telegraph Arafat siege to end as handover agreed 1 May 2002 ^ Taylor & Francis Group, Taylor & Francis Group (2004) Europa World Year Book
Book 2: Kazakhstan-Zimbabwe Published by Taylor & Francis, ISBN 1-85743-255-X p 3314 ^ Schmemann, Serge (22 September 2002). "Arafat Remains Defiant Amid Rubble of His Mukataa". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 February 2006.  ^ "Israeli siege of Arafat 'is killing peace hope'". Archived from the original on 1 June 2004. Retrieved 2013-10-16. CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link) . Justin Huggler, The Independent, 28 September 2002 ^ Arafat vs Abbas. Al-Ahram Weekly, 17–23 July 2003, Issue No. 647 ^ Excerpts: Israeli security cabinet statement. BBC, 11 September 2003 ^ New Palestinian Cabinet OK'd. Ellen Crean, Associated Press, 29 September 2003 ^ Israel
Israel and Palestine : The real obstacle to peace is Sharon, not Arafat. Avi Shlaim, New York Times, 24 September 2003 ^ 'Killing Arafat An Option'. Ellen Crean, CBS/Associated Press, 15 September 2003 ^ Mid-East ′On Edge Of Abyss′: Arafat Aide Archived 8 December 2015 at the Wayback Machine.. Sky News, 11 September 2003 ^ Israel's SAS prepares to snatch Arafat. Sunday Times, 14 September 2003 ^ Arafat To Israel: Let's Talk
Talk Peace. Ellen Crean, CBS/Associated Press, 14 September 2003 ^ Gush Shalom activist Uri Avnery
Uri Avnery to act as human shield for Arafat. EI, 14 September 2003 ^ Firestone, David. (October 25, 1995). "THE U.N. AT 50: ARAFAT; White House Condemns Giuliani for Ejecting Arafat From Concert" NY Times website Retrieved January 17, 2017. ^ Hillman, G. Robert (19 September 2003). "Bush dismisses Arafat as Partner, Pushes for New Leader". The Dallas Morning News. Archived from the original on 13 October 2007. Retrieved 21 July 2007.  ^ Tricia McDermott, 'Arafat's Billions:One Man's Quest To Track Down Unaccounted-For Public Funds,'CBS News, 7 November 2003. ^ Alon, Gideon; Amira Hass
Amira Hass (14 August 2002). "MI chief: terror groups trying hard to pull off mega-attack". Haaretz. Archived from the original on 2007-10-01. Retrieved 21 July 2007.  ^ "Arafat Diverted $900 Million to Private Account, IMF Says". Bloomberg News. Bloomberg L.P. 20 September 2003. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 8 September 2013.  ^ For a general overview of the crucial importance of foreign funding in the peace process, and the PNA's use of such aid, see Rex Brynen, A Very Political Economy: Peacebuilding and Foreign Aid in the West Bank and Gaza, United States
United States Institute of Peace Press, 2000 ^ a b Stahl, Lesley (9 November 2003). "Arafat's Billions, One Man's Quest To Track Down Unaccounted-For Public Funds". CBS News. Retrieved 21 July 2007.  ^ Backgrounder: Corruption in the PLO's Financial Empire, www.cdn-friends-icej.co/medigest/jul98/backgrnd.html. ^ Katz, Yaakov (17 May 2006). "Arafat used aid to buy weapons". The Jerusalem
Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 21 July 2007.  ^ "Documents seized during Operation Defensive Shield
Operation Defensive Shield linking Arafat to Terrorism – 15 April 2002".  ^ " Israel
Israel Claims Finding Evidence Against Arafat - 2002-04-03".  ^ New York Times, 23 January 2018, "How Arafat Eluded Israel’s Assassination Machine," https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/magazine/how-arafat-eluded-israels-assassination-machine.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news ^ New York Times, 23 January 2018, "How Arafat Eluded Israel’s Assassination Machine," https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/magazine/how-arafat-eluded-israels-assassination-machine.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news ^ "Ending of Yasser's Life". Palestine: The Mystery Country. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007.  ^ a b c Biles, Peter (12 November 2004). "Arafat's funeral held in Cairo: Mystery illness". BBC News. Retrieved 2 November 2007.  ^ Yossi Melman (July 14, 2011). "What killed Yasser Arafat?". Haaretz.  ^ Lindgren, Jim (4 November 2004). "Arafat: If he is "brain-dead," he is dead". The Volokh Conspiracy. France-Presse.  ^ "Hospitalization Report" (PDF). 18 November 2004. Retrieved 22 November 2015.  ^ " Palestinians
Palestinians may exhume Yasser Arafat's body for tests". CBS News.  ^ Steven Erlanger; Lawrence K. Altman (8 September 2005). "Medical records say Arafat died from a stroke". The New York Times. Retrieved 12 July 2012.  ^ " Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat medical records show health was blamed on gastroenteritis". The Daily Telegraph. 12 July 2012. Retrieved 15 July 2012.  ^ Laub, Karin (12 July 2012). "New Arafat medical file released in death probe". Associated Press. Retrieved 15 July 2012.  ^ Barzak, Ibrahim (11 November 2004). " Palestinians
Palestinians Mourn Death of Arafat". Chicago Tribune. Associated Press. Retrieved 21 December 2017.  ^ "Arafat's funeral held in Cairo". BBC News. 12 November 2004. Retrieved 15 July 2012.  ^ Bennet, James (13 November 2004). "The Death of Arafat: An Emotion-Driven Flock Storms the Burial Ceremony". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 July 2012.  ^ Left, Sarah (11 November 2004). "Arafat begins final journey". The Guardian. London: Guardian News and Media Limited. Retrieved 4 December 2007.  ^ Bennet, James; Erlanger, Steven (11 November 2004). "Arafat's Body Arrives in Cairo
Cairo Ahead of Ceremony on Friday". The New York Times. Retrieved 6 December 2007.  ^ "Arafat's funeral: Who was there". BBC News. 12 November 2004. Retrieved 2 November 2007.  ^ " Israel
Israel Plans for Arafat Burial in Gaza". Associated Press. 7 November 2004. Retrieved 21 July 2007.  ^ Chabin, Michele (8 November 2004). "Grave site for Arafat is another point of contention". USA Today. Retrieved 5 July 2012.  ^ "No way to die". The Guardian. London: Guardian News and Media Limited. 16 December 2004. Retrieved 28 March 2010.  ^ "Arafat mausoleum opened by Abbas". BBC News. 10 November 2007. Retrieved 10 November 2007.  ^ a b Rubenstein, Danny (8 September 2005). "Arafat's doctor: There was HIV in his blood, but poison killed him". Haaretz.  ^ a b Kapeliouk, Amnon (2 November 2005). " Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat a-t-il été assassiné? ("Was Arafat murdered?")". Le Monde diplomatique
Le Monde diplomatique (in French). Retrieved 21 July 2007.  ^ a b "Israeli Mossad
Mossad poisoned Arafat through his medications". Al Jazeerah. 22 July 2009.  ^ Arafat's aide: New information on president's death, Ma'an News Agency, 10 January 2011. ^ Israel
Israel Radio English news, 17 January 2011, 0430 UTC. ^ a b c "Cause of Arafat death 'unknown' Medical records of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat appear to show that doctors could not determine the underlying cause of his death". BBC News. 8 September 2005.  ^ McDermott, Rose (2008). Presidential leadership, illness, and decision making. Cambridge University Press. p. 244. ISBN 978-0-521-88272-9.  ^ "Arafat's Widow Alleges 'Criminal Scheme' over Death". CBN.com. Retrieved 15 November 2012.  ^ " Palestinians
Palestinians head to Paris to probe Arafat's death". Irish Times. 17 November 2004. Retrieved 18 December 2015.  ^ "Family: Platelet
Platelet disorder killed Arafat". Ma'an News Agency. 11 October 2011. Retrieved 4 July 2012.  ^ a b Arafat's widow calls for body to be exhumed. Gregg Carlstrom, Al Jazeera, 4 July 2012. ^ Erlanger, Steven; Altman, Lawrence K. (8 September 2005). "Medical Records Say Arafat Died From a Stroke". The New York Times.  ^ a b "Arafat's doctor wants autopsy". Associated Press. 12 November 2004. Retrieved 12 December 2007.  ^ Yasser Arafat: Palestinians
Palestinians call for poison inquiry. BBC, 4 July 2012. ^ "Improving forensic investigation for polonium poisoning". Lancet. Retrieved 12 October 2013.  (Subscription required.) ^ a b c d e (in French) Luis Lema, "Yasser Arafat, la valse des isotopes", Le Temps, Saturday 24 May 2014, p. 3. ^ "Yasser Arafat's body exhumed in Ramallah". Gregg Carlstrom, Al Jazeera, 27 November 2012. ^ "Yasser Arafat's remains exhumed for death investigation, Palestinians
Palestinians say". CBS, 27 November 2012. ^ "Experts exhume Arafat, seek evidence of poison". Reuters. Retrieved 27 November 2012.  ^ "Q&A: Francois Bochud on the Arafat report". www.aljazeera.com.  ^ 'Swiss study: polonium found in Arafat’s bones,'. David Poort and Ken Silverstein, Al Jazeera, 6 November 2013. ^ Swiss team: Arafat poisoned to death with polonium. Reuters/Haaretz, 6 November 2013. ^ Tait, Robert (8 November 2013). "Arafat's body loaded with polonium, say scientists" – via The Sydney Morning Herald.  ^ AP (26 December 2013). "Russia: Arafat's death not caused by radiation". The Washington Times. Retrieved 13 January 2014.  ^ "Arafat was not poisoned, French prosecutor says".  ^ Poisoned toothpaste and exploding phones: New book chronicles Israel’s ‘2,700’ assassination operations Ethan Bronner, Saturday 27 January 2018, The Independent ^ Frankel, Glenn (26 January 2018). "Review How Israel's secret services built the most robust assassination machine in history". Washington Post. Retrieved 8 March 2018. 

Further reading

External video

Booknotes interview with John and Janet Wallach on Arafat: In the Eyes of the Beholder, 23 December 1990, C-SPAN

Aburish, Said K. (1998). Arafat: From Defender to Dictator. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-58234-049-4.  Gowers, Andrew; Tony Walker (2005). Arafat: The Biography. Virgin Books. ISBN 978-1-85227-924-0.  Karsh, Efraim (2003). Arafat's War: The Man and His Battle for Israeli Conquest. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 978-0-8021-1758-8.  Livingstone, Neil (1990). Inside the PLO. Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest Association. ISBN 978-0-7090-4548-9.  Rubin, Barry M.; Judith Colp Rubin (2003). Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-516689-7.  Rubenstein, Danny; Dan Leon (1995). The Mystery of Arafat. Steerforth Press. ISBN 978-1-883642-10-5.  Sela, Avraham. "Arafat, Yasser." The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East. Ed. Sela. New York: Continuum, 2002. pp. 166–171. Wallach, Janet (1990). Arafat: In the Eyes of the Beholder. Lyle Stuart. ISBN 978-0-8184-0533-4. 

External links

Find more aboutYasser Arafatat's sister projects

Media from Wikimedia Commons Quotations from Wikiquote Texts from Wikisource Data from Wikidata

Biography of Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat at Nobelprize.org Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat (1929–2004) at PASSIA A Life in Retrospect: Yasser Arafat, Time Appearances on C-SPAN Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat on IMDb Works by or about Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat in libraries ( WorldCat
WorldCat catalog) Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat collected news and commentary at The Jerusalem
Jerusalem Post " Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat collected news and commentary". The New York Times.  Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat at Curlie (based on DMOZ)

v t e

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v t e

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v t e

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Background

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Arab revolt 1944 Operation ATLAS 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine

1948–1950s

1948–49 Arab–Israeli War 1950s  Palestinian Fedayeen
Palestinian Fedayeen attacks (Reprisal operations) 1956 Suez Crisis

1960s

1966 Operation Shredder 1967 Six-Day War 1967–70 War of Attrition

1968 Battle of Karameh

Palestinian insurgency in South Lebanon

1968 Operation Gift

1970s–1980

1973 Yom Kippur War

Palestinian insurgency in South Lebanon

1972 Operation Isotope / Lod
Lod Airport massacre / Munich Olympics massacre 1972–79  Operation Wrath of God (Airstrike, Spring of Youth) 1973 Libyan Arab
Arab Airlines Flight 114 1974 Ma'alot massacre 1975 Savoy Operation 1976 Operation Entebbe 1978 Coastal Road massacre / Operation Litani 1980 Misgav Am hostage crisis

1980s

1981 Operation Opera 1982  Lebanon
Lebanon War 1982–2000 South Lebanon
Lebanon conflict 1984 Bus 300 affair 1985 Operation Wooden Leg 1987–93 First Intifada

1988 Mothers' Bus rescue / Tunis
Tunis raid

1990s

1992 Operation Bramble Bush 1993–2008 Palestinian suicide attacks 1993 Operation Accountability 1996 Operation Grapes of Wrath

2000s

2000–05 Al-Aqsa Intifada (Second Intifada) 2000–06 Shebaa Farms conflict 2001–present Rocket and mortar attacks on southern Israel 2003 Ain es Saheb airstrike 2006 Operation Bringing Home the Goods / Operation Summer Rains / Operation Autumn Clouds / Lebanon
Lebanon War 2006–present Gaza– Israel
Israel conflict

2007–08 Operation Hot Winter 2008–09 Gaza War

2007–present Lebanese rocket attacks

2010s

2010 Adaisseh skirmish / Palestinian militancy campaign Gaza– Israel
Israel conflict

2011 Southern Israel
Israel cross-border attacks 2012 Operation Returning Echo / Operation Pillar of Defense 2014 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict 2015  Israeli–Palestinian conflict
Israeli–Palestinian conflict (2015–2016)

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Diplomacy and peace proposals

To 1948

1914  Damascus
Damascus Protocol 1915 McMahon–Hussein Correspondence 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement 1917 Balfour Declaration 1918 Declaration to the Seven / Anglo-French Declaration 1919 Faisal–Weizmann Agreement 1920 San Remo conference 1922 Churchill White Paper 1937 Peel Commission 1939 White Paper 1947 UN Partition Plan 1948 American trusteeship proposal

1948–91

1948 UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 194 1949 Armistice agreements / Lausanne Conference 1950  Tripartite Declaration 1964 Palestinian National Covenant 1967 Khartoum Resolution / UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 242 1973 UNSC Resolution 338 / UNSC Resolution 339 1974 Israel– Syria
Syria disengagement agreement / UNSC Resolution 350 1978 UNSC Resolution 425 / Camp David Accords 1979 UNSC Resolution 446 / Egypt– Israel
Israel Peace Treaty / UNSC Resolution 452 1980 UNSC Resolution 478 1981 UNSC Resolution 497 1983 Israel– Lebanon
Lebanon agreement

1991–present

1991 Madrid Conference 1993 Oslo Accords 1994 Gaza– Jericho
Jericho Agreement / Israel– Jordan
Jordan peace treaty 1995 Beilin-Abu Mazen agreement 1998 Wye River Memorandum 1999 Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum 2000 Camp David Summit / Clinton Parameters 2001 Taba Summit 2002  Beirut
Beirut Summit and peace initiative / Road map 2003 Geneva Initiative 2004 UNSC Resolution 1559 / UNSC Resolution 1566 2005 UNSC Resolution 1583 / Sharm el-Sheikh Summit / Israeli disengagement from Gaza / Agreement on Movement and Access 2006 UNSC Resolution 1701 2007 Annapolis Conference 2010 Israeli–Palestinian peace talks 2013 Israeli–Palestinian peace talks

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Presidents of the Palestinian National Authority

Yasser Arafat Mahmoud Abbas

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Chairmen of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization

Ahmad Shukeiri Yahya Hammuda Yasser Arafat Mahmoud Abbas

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Laureates of the Nobel Peace Prize

1901–1925

1901 Henry Dunant / Frédéric Passy 1902 Élie Ducommun / Charles Gobat 1903 Randal Cremer 1904 Institut de Droit International 1905 Bertha von Suttner 1906 Theodore Roosevelt 1907 Ernesto Moneta / Louis Renault 1908 Klas Arnoldson / Fredrik Bajer 1909 A. M. F. Beernaert / Paul Estournelles de Constant 1910 International Peace Bureau 1911 Tobias Asser / Alfred Fried 1912 Elihu Root 1913 Henri La Fontaine 1914 1915 1916 1917 International Committee of the Red Cross 1918 1919 Woodrow Wilson 1920 Léon Bourgeois 1921 Hjalmar Branting / Christian Lange 1922 Fridtjof Nansen 1923 1924 1925 Austen Chamberlain / Charles Dawes

1926–1950

1926 Aristide Briand / Gustav Stresemann 1927 Ferdinand Buisson / Ludwig Quidde 1928 1929 Frank B. Kellogg 1930 Nathan Söderblom 1931 Jane Addams / Nicholas Butler 1932 1933 Norman Angell 1934 Arthur Henderson 1935 Carl von Ossietzky 1936 Carlos Saavedra Lamas 1937 Robert Cecil 1938 Nansen International Office for Refugees 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 International Committee of the Red Cross 1945 Cordell Hull 1946 Emily Balch / John Mott 1947 Friends Service Council / American Friends Service Committee 1948 1949 John Boyd Orr 1950 Ralph Bunche

1951–1975

1951 Léon Jouhaux 1952 Albert Schweitzer 1953 George Marshall 1954 United Nations
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 1955 1956 1957 Lester B. Pearson 1958 Georges Pire 1959 Philip Noel-Baker 1960 Albert Lutuli 1961 Dag Hammarskjöld 1962 Linus Pauling 1963 International Committee of the Red Cross / League of Red Cross Societies 1964 Martin Luther King Jr. 1965 UNICEF 1966 1967 1968 René Cassin 1969 International Labour Organization 1970 Norman Borlaug 1971 Willy Brandt 1972 1973 Lê Đức Thọ (declined award) / Henry Kissinger 1974 Seán MacBride / Eisaku Satō 1975 Andrei Sakharov

1976–2000

1976 Betty Williams / Mairead Corrigan 1977 Amnesty International 1978 Anwar Sadat / Menachem Begin 1979 Mother Teresa 1980 Adolfo Pérez Esquivel 1981 United Nations
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 1982 Alva Myrdal / Alfonso García Robles 1983 Lech Wałęsa 1984 Desmond Tutu 1985 International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War 1986 Elie Wiesel 1987 Óscar Arias 1988 UN Peacekeeping Forces 1989 Tenzin Gyatso (14th Dalai Lama) 1990 Mikhail Gorbachev 1991 Aung San Suu Kyi 1992 Rigoberta Menchú 1993 Nelson Mandela / F. W. de Klerk 1994 Shimon Peres / Yitzhak Rabin / Yasser Arafat 1995 Pugwash Conferences / Joseph Rotblat 1996 Carlos Belo / José Ramos-Horta 1997 International Campaign to Ban Landmines / Jody Williams 1998 John Hume / David Trimble 1999 Médecins Sans Frontières 2000 Kim Dae-jung

2001–present

2001 United Nations / Kofi Annan 2002 Jimmy Carter 2003 Shirin Ebadi 2004 Wangari Maathai 2005 International Atomic Energy Agency / Mohamed ElBaradei 2006 Grameen Bank / Muhammad
Muhammad Yunus 2007 Al Gore / Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2008 Martti Ahtisaari 2009 Barack Obama 2010 Liu Xiaobo 2011 Ellen Johnson Sirleaf / Leymah Gbowee / Tawakkol Karman 2012 European Union 2013 Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons 2014 Kailash Satyarthi / Malala Yousafzai 2015 Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet 2016 Juan Manuel Santos 2017 International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

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1994 Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize laureates

Chemistry

George Andrew Olah
George Andrew Olah (United States/Hungary)

Literature

Kenzaburō Ōe
Kenzaburō Ōe (Japan)

Peace

Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat (Palestine) Shimon Peres
Shimon Peres (Israel) Yitzhak Rabin
Yitzhak Rabin (Israel)

Physics

Bertram Brockhouse
Bertram Brockhouse (Canada) Clifford Glenwood Shull (United States)

Physiology or Medicine

Alfred G. Gilman
Alfred G. Gilman (United States) Martin Rodbell
Martin Rodbell (United States)

Economic Sciences

John Harsanyi (United States) John Forbes Nash (United States) Reinhard Selten
Reinhard Selten (Germany)

Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize recipients 1990 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 2000 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

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Time Persons of the Year

1927–1950

Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh (1927) Walter Chrysler
Walter Chrysler (1928) Owen D. Young
Owen D. Young (1929) Mohandas Gandhi (1930) Pierre Laval
Pierre Laval (1931) Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1932) Hugh S. Johnson
Hugh S. Johnson (1933) Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1934) Haile Selassie
Haile Selassie (1935) Wallis Simpson
Wallis Simpson (1936) Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek / Soong Mei-ling
Soong Mei-ling (1937) Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (1938) Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin (1939) Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill (1940) Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1941) Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin (1942) George Marshall
George Marshall (1943) Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1944) Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman (1945) James F. Byrnes
James F. Byrnes (1946) George Marshall
George Marshall (1947) Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman (1948) Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill (1949) The American Fighting-Man (1950)

1951–1975

Mohammed Mosaddeq (1951) Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II (1952) Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Adenauer (1953) John Foster Dulles
John Foster Dulles (1954) Harlow Curtice
Harlow Curtice (1955) Hungarian Freedom Fighters (1956) Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev (1957) Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle (1958) Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1959) U.S. Scientists: George Beadle / Charles Draper / John Enders / Donald A. Glaser / Joshua Lederberg
Joshua Lederberg / Willard Libby
Willard Libby / Linus Pauling
Linus Pauling / Edward Purcell / Isidor Rabi / Emilio Segrè
Emilio Segrè / William Shockley
William Shockley / Edward Teller / Charles Townes / James Van Allen
James Van Allen / Robert Woodward (1960) John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy (1961) Pope John XXIII
Pope John XXIII (1962) Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. (1963) Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson (1964) William Westmoreland
William Westmoreland (1965) The Generation Twenty-Five and Under (1966) Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson (1967) The Apollo 8
Apollo 8 Astronauts: William Anders
William Anders / Frank Borman
Frank Borman / Jim Lovell (1968) The Middle Americans (1969) Willy Brandt
Willy Brandt (1970) Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon (1971) Henry Kissinger
Henry Kissinger / Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon (1972) John Sirica
John Sirica (1973) King Faisal (1974) American Women: Susan Brownmiller / Kathleen Byerly
Kathleen Byerly / Alison Cheek / Jill Conway / Betty Ford
Betty Ford / Ella Grasso / Carla Hills / Barbara Jordan / Billie Jean King
Billie Jean King / Susie Sharp / Carol Sutton / Addie Wyatt (1975)

1976–2000

Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter (1976) Anwar Sadat
Anwar Sadat (1977) Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping (1978) Ayatollah Khomeini (1979) Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan (1980) Lech Wałęsa
Lech Wałęsa (1981) The Computer (1982) Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan / Yuri Andropov
Yuri Andropov (1983) Peter Ueberroth
Peter Ueberroth (1984) Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping (1985) Corazon Aquino
Corazon Aquino (1986) Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev (1987) The Endangered Earth (1988) Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev (1989) George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush (1990) Ted Turner
Ted Turner (1991) Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton (1992) The Peacemakers: Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat / F. W. de Klerk
F. W. de Klerk / Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela / Yitzhak Rabin
Yitzhak Rabin (1993) Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II (1994) Newt Gingrich
Newt Gingrich (1995) David Ho
David Ho (1996) Andrew Grove
Andrew Grove (1997) Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton / Ken Starr
Ken Starr (1998) Jeffrey P. Bezos (1999) George W. Bush
George W. Bush (2000)

2001–present

Rudolph Giuliani (2001) The Whistleblowers: Cynthia Cooper / Coleen Rowley
Coleen Rowley / Sherron Watkins (2002) The American Soldier (2003) George W. Bush
George W. Bush (2004) The Good Samaritans: Bono
Bono / Bill Gates
Bill Gates / Melinda Gates
Melinda Gates (2005) You (2006) Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin (2007) Barack Obama
Barack Obama (2008) Ben Bernanke
Ben Bernanke (2009) Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg (2010) The Protester (2011) Barack Obama
Barack Obama (2012) Pope Francis
Pope Francis (2013) Ebola Fighters: Dr. Jerry Brown / Dr. Kent Brantly
Kent Brantly / Ella Watson-Stryker / Foday Gollah / Salome Karwah
Salome Karwah (2014) Angela Merkel
Angela Merkel (2015) Donald Trump
Donald Trump (2016) The Silence Breakers (2017)

Book

Authority control

WorldCat
WorldCat Identities VIAF: 112863535 LCCN: n83055228 ISNI: 0000 0001 2148 1294 GND: 118503766 SELIBR: 174763 SUDOC: 030636930 BNF: cb120454206 (data) NLA: 40524425 NDL: 00620275 ICCU: ITICCUCFIV75512 BNE: XX834305 SNAC: w6vr9hjz

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