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Palestinian Leader Arafat Dies at 75
14 minutes ago
By RAVI NESSMAN, Associated Press Writer
RAMALLAH, West Bank - Yasser Arafat (news - web sites), the guerrilla leader turned Nobel Peace Prize winner who forced his people's plight into the world spotlight, died Thursday at age 75 — still reviled by many as a terrorist.
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Slideshow: Yasser Arafat Dies at 75

Arafat died at 3:30 a.m. in a French military hospital. His last days were as murky and dramatic as his life. Arafat was flown to France on Oct. 29 after nearly three years of being penned in his West Bank headquarters by Israeli tanks.
He initially improved but then sharply deteriorated as rumors swirled about his illness. Neither doctors nor Palestinian leaders would say what killed Arafat.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians poured into the streets of the Gaza Strip (news - web sites) in a spontaneous show of grief. Dozens of gunmen fired into the air, and marchers waved Palestinian flags.
Mosques blared Quranic verses and children burned tires on the main streets, covering the skies in black smoke. People pasted posters of Arafat on building walls.
Palestinian Parliament Speaker Rauhi Fattouh was to be sworn in as Palestinian Authority (news - web sites) president until elections are held in 60 days, according to Palestinian law. Officials said they want to ensure a smooth transition, despite uncertainty and a behind-the-scenes power struggle to assume the Arafat mantle.
President Bush (news - web sites) issued a statement of condolence to the Palestinian people.
"We express our condolences to the Palestinian people. For the Palestinian people, we hope that the future will bring peace and the fulfillment of their aspirations for an independent, democratic Palestine that is at peace with its neighbors," the president said.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres (news - web sites), who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Arafat and assassinated Israeli leader Yitzak Rabin, said:
"The biggest mistake of Arafat was when he turned to terror. His greatest achievements were when he tried to build peace."
Palestinian flags at Arafat's battered Ramallah compound were lowered to half staff. Television broadcast excerpts from the Quran with a picture of Arafat in the background.
"He closed his eyes and his big heart stopped. He left for God but he is still among this great people," said senior Arafat aide Tayeb Abdel Rahim, who broke into tears as he announced Arafat's death.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) said he was saddened by Arafat's passing.
"President Arafat was one of those few leaders who could be instantly recognized by people in any walk of life all around the world. For nearly four decades, he expressed and symbolized in his person the national aspirations of the Palestinian people."
British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) sent condolences to the Palestinian people.
"President Arafat came to symbolize the Palestinian national movement. ... (and) led his people to an historic acceptance and the need for a two-state solution," Blair said.
Top Palestinian officials flew in to check on their leader while Arafat's 41-year-old wife, Suha, publicly accused them of trying to usurp his powers. Ordinary Palestinians prayed for his well being, but expressed deep frustration over his failure to improve their lives.
Arafat's failure to groom a successor complicated his passing, raising the danger of factional conflict among Palestinians.
A visual constant in his checkered keffiyeh headdress, Arafat kept the Palestinians' cause at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict. But he fell short of creating a Palestinian state, and, along with other secular Arab leaders of his generation, he saw his influence weakened by the rise of radical Islam in recent years.
Revered by his own people, Arafat was reviled by others. He was accused of secretly fomenting attacks on Israelis while proclaiming brotherhood and claiming to have put terrorism aside. Many Israelis felt the paunchy 5-foot, 2-inch Palestinian's real goal remained the destruction of the Jewish state.
Arafat became one of the world's most familiar faces after addressing the U.N. General Assembly in New York in 1974, when he entered the chamber wearing a holster and carrying a sprig. "Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun," he said. "Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand."
Two decades later, he shook hand at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (news - web sites) on a peace deal that formally recognized Israel's right to exist while granting the Palestinians limited self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (news - web sites). The pact led to the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for Arafat, Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.
But the accord quickly unraveled amid mutual suspicions and accusations of treaty violations, and a new round of violence that erupted in the fall of 2000 has killed some 4,000 people, three-quarters of them Palestinian.
The Israeli and U.S. governments said Arafat deserved much of the blame for the derailing of the peace process. Even many of his own people began whispering against Arafat, expressing disgruntlement over corruption, lawlessness and a bad economy in the Palestinian areas.
A resilient survivor of war with Israel, assassination attempts and even a plane crash, Arafat was born Rahman Abdel-Raouf Arafat Al-Qudwa on Aug. 4, 1929, the fifth of seven children of a Palestinian merchant killed in the 1948 war over Israel's creation. There is disagreement whether he was born in Gaza or in Cairo, Egypt.
Educated as an engineer in Egypt, Arafat served in the Egyptian army and then started a contracting firm in Kuwait. It was there that he founded the Fatah (news - web sites) movement, which became the core of the Palestine Liberation Organization (news - web sites).
After the Arabs' humbling defeat by Israel in the six-day war of 1967, the PLO thrust itself on the world's front pages by sending its gunmen out to hijack airplanes, machine gun airports and seize Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics (news - web sites).
"As long as the world saw Palestinians as no more than refugees standing in line for U.N. rations, it was not likely to respect them. Now that the Palestinians carry rifles the situation has changed," Arafat explained.
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