2. Early life
• Arafat was born in 1929 to a successful
business father and a religiously devoted
mother.
• Arafat’s birth name was Mohammed, but
he was nicknamed Arafat, which means
“easy” in Arabic.
• His mother passed away when he was
only four, and his father sent him to
Jerusalem, to live with a wedded uncle.
• In the 1940s, as a teen, Arafat was
recruited into the Palestinian cause.
• Before Israel defeated the Arabs in the
1948-1949 Arab-Israeli War, he was a
leader in the Palestinian attempt to steal
weapons into the land.
4. Education and involvement in freedom movements
• Arafat studied civil manufacturing at the
University of Cairo in Egypt, after the
war.
• He led the Palestinian Students League;
by his graduation, he was dedicated to
establishing a group that would liberate
Palestine from Israeli control.
• He founded Al Fatah, an underground
terrorist group, in 1956.
• Al Fatah was initially overlooked by
Egypt and other Arab countries including
Syria and Jordan; these nations founded
their own organization, the Palestinian
Liberation Organization.
6. Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization
• The Arab League members did not turn
to Arafat until Israel annexed the Gaza
Strip (from Egypt), Golan Heights (from
Syria) and West Bank (from Jordan) in
the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
• He subsequently became the leader of
the Palestinian Liberation Organization
(PLO) in 1968.
• For the next two decades, the PLO
initiated bloody attacks on Israel, and
Arafat acquired a status as a merciless
terrorist.
8. Diplomatic recognition of Israel and Oslo Peace Accords
• By 1988, however, when Arafat informed
the United Nations that the PLO would
grant diplomatic recognition to Israel, he
opened up to diplomacy.
• Nevertheless, grassroots Palestinian
groups did not cease violence against
Israeli civilians.
• In 1993, Arafat went to Norway for secret
peace negotiations, leading to the Oslo
Peace Accords, signed in Washington,
D.C., with Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin.
• That accord extended limited self-govern
to the Palestinians, winning Arafat,
Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister
Shimon Peres the 1994 Nobel Peace
Prize.
9. 1994 recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize:
Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin
10. First President of the Palestinian Council
• Arafat was elected the first President of
the Palestinian Council ruling the West
Bank and Gaza Strip, in January 1996.
• Conversely, Israeli settlements on
Palestinian land persist, as does
Palestinian fighting for a homeland.
12. Illness and Death
• On November 11, 2004, Yasser Arafat
died at Percy military hospital (Hôpital
d'instruction des armées Percy) in Paris,
France.
• The 75-year-old was in unconsciousness
ever since he left for France for medical
treatment three weeks prior.
