Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat
Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa, popularly known as Yasser Arafator by his kunya Abu Ammar, was a Palestinian leader. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, President of the Palestinian National Authority, and leader of the Fatah political party and former paramilitary group, which he founded in 1959. Originally opposed to Israel's existence, he modified his position in 1988 when he accepted UN Security Council Resolution 242. Arafat and his movement operated from several Arab countries...
ProfessionWorld Leader
Date of Birth24 August 1929
CityCairo, Egypt
It's obvious that the Israelis were not ready to make the necessary steps, and take the necessary positions, to make a peace agreement possible.
We plan to eliminate the state of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion. We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem.
We will make the lives of the infidels hell - millions of martyrs marching on Jerusalem.
The goal of our struggle is the end of Israel, and there can be no compromise.
It's always convenient for certain people to heap accusations on Israel.
Israel must withdraw from Jerusalem so that it becomes the capital of a state of Palestine.
What Kuwait did to the Palestinian people is worse than what has been done by Israel to Palestinians in the occupied territories.
Still, the American administration is following blindly the Israeli advisers in your policy, while they are pushing you to more and more disasters.
Since we cannot defeat Israel in war, we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish a sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel.
Peace for us means the destruction of Israel. We are preparing for an all-out war, a war which will last for generations.
The Palestinian people have no national identity. I, Yasser Arafat, man of destiny, will give them that identity through conflict with Israel.
The Amman Agreement failed because there was American pressure, and Israeli pressure, on Jordan to deal alone.
In 1982, when Alexander Haig and [Ariel] Sharon put this plan to invade the south of Lebanon and Beirut, they imagined that in two or three or five days, they can demolish the PLO and destroy its infrastructure. What happened? The longest Arab - Israeli confrontation.
Peace for us means the destruction of Israel.