Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

ARAFAT, YASIR • 37sible for the terrorist actions committed by the Black Septembergroup, in 1974 Arafat committed al Fatah to abstaining from terroristactions outside the borders of the former Mandate of Palestine, a declaratorypolicy not always observed in practice, as shown by the activitiesof the al Fatah–controlled Hawari group and Force 17 group.In 1982 the Israeli army forced the PLO and Arafat out of Lebanon,although both returned in 1983. In 1983 Syria instigated a revoltagainst Arafat among extremists within the PLO, including somemembers of al Fatah, and he was again forced to flee from Lebanonwhen his new base in Tripoli was besieged by PLO mutineers.Arafat used the opportunity afforded by the first intifada in 1988to shift the attention of PLO leaders and subgroups from their intramuralquarreling to adopting a common strategy. The 19th PalestineNational Council, held in Algiers in November 1988, vindicatedArafat’s approach with an implicit endorsement of the right of Israelto exist alongside a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the GazaStrip and by adopting a resolution renouncing the use of terrorismoutside the borders of the former Mandate of Palestine. While Arafatexplicitly denounced the use of terrorism, he regarded subsequentarmed struggle within Israel and the occupied territories of the GazaStrip and West Bank as a form of insurgency rather than terrorism.With his signing of the 13 September 1993 peace accord with Israelon behalf of the PLO, Arafat renounced such further insurgent orterrorist activity within Israel proper or the occupied territories. In1994 both Arafat and the late Yitzhak Rabin became joint recipientsof the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts in establishing the peacesettlement.Following the peace accord, the Palestinian Authority (PA) establishedits initial headquarters in the West Bank city of Jericho andopened offices in Gaza. On 20 January 1996 elections were heldthroughout the areas controlled by the PA for the 88-seat PalestineCouncil, with Arafat’s slate winning 88 percent of the vote. On 12February 1996 Arafat was sworn in as president of the PalestinianAuthority. On 14 December 1998, in the presence of U.S. PresidentBill Clinton, Arafat presided over a meeting of the Palestine NationalCouncil, with 500 of its 650 members present, which voted to ratifythe PLO Central Council’s 10 December 1998 decision to rescind thespecific clauses in the PLO Charter calling for the destruction of theState of Israel.