Yasser Arafat: 1929-2004...

This is a very lengthy article, so I'll provide a few excerpts:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/nov2004/araf-n12_prn.shtml

Yasser Arafat will be remembered as a man of tremendous personal courage and unswerving loyalty to the cause of Palestinian liberation. Millions throughout the world will dismiss with contempt the slanders heaped on Arafat, the international symbol of Palestinian resistance for nearly four decades, by the likes of Ariel Sharon and George W. Bush, war criminals both, who have the temerity to call Arafat a terrorist.

On this question, Arafat himself gave an excellent response in his speech to the United Nations in 1974:

"The difference between the revolutionary and the terrorist lies in the reason for which he fights. By whoever stands by a just cause and fights for freedom and liberation of his land from the invaders, the settlers and the colonialists, cannot possibly be called terrorists...As to those whom fight against just causes, those who wage war to occupy, colonise and oppress other people, those are the terrorists. Those are the people whose actions should be condemned, who should be called war criminals; for the justice of the cause determines the right to struggle."
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Discussions led by US President Clinton at Camp David, Maryland, in July 2000 between the PLO and Israel's Labour Prime Minister Ehud Barak saw Arafat willing to make more concessions than under Oslo, including allowing Israel to annex the most densely populated Jewish settlements and even limitations on the right to return, in favor of compensation from an international fund.

But Arafat could not accept the proposal that the whole of Jerusalem remain under Israeli sovereignty. The talks broke down and hundreds marched in Gaza demanding resumption of the Intifada against Israel. Arafat was given a hero's welcome by cheering crowds in Alexandria, Egypt and in the Palestinian Authority because of his refusal to cede to Israeli demands on Jerusalem.
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His treatment at the hands of Israel and the US was barbaric. Old and in ill health, he was forced to live for months on end under house arrest in a few rooms in the PA headquarters in Ramallah, surrounded by Israeli troops and deprived of the most basic amenities. Yet he steadfastly refused to leave his post, fearing that the Israeli's would never allow him to return.

Even at the end, he agreed to leave Ramallah for medical treatment in Paris only after the Israeli government guaranteed he would be allowed to return. Such was his dedication to the struggle of his people.

more...
www.wsws.org

The last paragraph cracks me up. "He would be allowed to return"...right...in a pine box. I wonder if we will ever know what the "mysterious illness" was that claimed his life. :shrug: