Arafat

The goal of our struggle is the end of Israel, and there can be no compromise (Yasser Arafat, quoted in The Washington Post, 1970).

Yasser Arafat is not a Palestinian. He was born in Cairo, Egypt, in 1929. His real name is Muhammad Abdel Rahman (first name) Abdel Raouf (father’s name) Arafat (grandfather’s name) Al Qudua (name of his family) Al Husseini (name of his family clan). Arafat adopted the pseudonym Yasser to gain more respect by identifying himself with a famed Muslim warrior and companion of Muhammad, Yasser bin Amar. Later Arafat took the name Abu (father of) Amar to afford himself even more respect. Abu Amar is what his associates commonly call him.

Arafat is not a Palestinian or refugee by any definition. The UN says, “Palestine refugees are persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict.” Arafat lived in Egypt then and did not lose his home or means of livelihood. He lived in Jerusalem with his uncle for four years (1933–1937) that do not qualify.

Although the UN includes as refugees the descendants of Palestinian refugees, Arafat does not qualify there either. His parents moved to Egypt from British Mandate Palestine in 1927, 20 years before Israel’s War of Independence. Therefore, Arafat’s parents were not refugees. Neither is he a Palestinian based on the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Charter. Article 5 states, “Palestinians are Arab citizens who were normally resident in Palestine until 1947.” Arafat was “normally resident” in Egypt until he moved to Kuwait in 1957. Thus he is neither a Palestinian by birth or residence, nor a refugee by UN definition.

Arafat began his university education in 1947 but did not graduate with a civil engineering degree until 1956. A poor student, he preferred student politics to studying. He took a hiatus from his Cairo schooling to fight Israel near the Gaza Strip in 1948.

In 1953 he applied to the University of Texas but was rejected. He later applied for immigration to Canada. It is not known how far into the process he went.

Arafat is a Sunni Muslim and practices his religion regularly. He supported Iraq in the Persian Gulf War of 1991. In the early 1960s he helped found Fatah, a Palestinian terrorist group that opposes Israel by targeting civilians. He appeared before the UN packing a pistol on his hip. Still, the international community officially gave him and his organization recognition. After a long career as the principal architect of terror, Arafat joined in various “peace” talks.

He has squandered for his personal use millions of dollars donated to the Palestinian cause and stashes some of his money in an Israeli bank in Tel Aviv. He also uses donated money from foreign countries to finance terrorism.

Arafat was the personal protégé of nazi-sympathizer Haj Amin al-Husseini, grand mufti of Jerusalem. Husseini, the first to organize suicide squads to terrorize Palestinian Jews, fled to Germany in 1941 where he collaborated with Hitler.

In 1973 the Israeli Secret Service recorded Arafat ordering the execution of two American diplomats. He has permitted or directly ordered hundreds of terrorist attacks resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians. Said Ariel Sharon in 1995, “I don’t know anyone who has as much civilian Jewish blood on his hands as Arafat since the Nazi times.”

In 1994 Arafat received the Nobel Peace Prize.