In January 1996 Arafat was elected the first president of the Palestinian Council governing the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/WorldNewsTonight/profile_arafat.html-------------
Palestinian elections to be held next year
· Presidential vote in January
· Arafat to stand, says aide
· Judicial reforms promised
Staff and agencies
Wednesday June 26, 2002
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,744306,00.html-----------------
Palestinian elections postponed
Arafat promised to hold elections in January
The Palestinian leadership has postponed plans to hold general elections next month, Palestinian officials have said.
Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat told the BBC's Newshour programme it was impossible to convene the election on 20 January because of "Israeli obstruction".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2599293.stmThere was international oversite. Jimmy Carter was involved in the monitoring, and pronounced them open and fair.
Perhaps Jimmy's opinion is worth 'shite' to you, but I still value it.
Whether you, Bush, or Sharon like it or not, Arafat is the preferred choice of the Palestinians as their leader, and that's not likely to change no matter how many uninformed comments you pass on the elections.
-------------
Despite everything that Israel did to rail-road these elections by, for example, setting up road-blocks to intimidate people from getting to the polls, people flocked to vote and the elections were conducted fairly and openly, under the monitoring of Jimmy Carter and European Watch Teams.
The problem is that neither Israel nor the US wants to respect the wishes of the Palestinian people and need to demonize Arafat to replace him with some sort of a puppet. Carter has already warned both Bush and Israel about the folly of pursuing that but hell, when have those two ever listened to anyone?
U.S. Department of State
96/01/22 Daily Press Briefing
Office of the Spokesman
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING
I N D E X
Monday, January 22, 1996
Briefer: Nicholas Burns
<snip>
The United States congratulates the Palestinian people on yesterday's elections, and we congratulate Chairman Arafat on his election, as well as those elected to the Palestinian Council. We share the view of the international monitoring community that the election was a successful and historic opportunity for the Palestinian people democratically to choose their leaders.
Election authorities overcame many challenges to prepare for this historic event. There has been an enthusiastic and popular response throughout the election process, including a very high turnout during registration, the participation of nearly 700 candidates for the 88 seats on the Council, a lively campaign, and a very high electoral turnout over the weekend.
<snip>
MR. BURNS: I would note that there was a massive international monitoring presence, and the American monitoring team was led by former President Jimmy Carter. Our Consulate General in Jerusalem had people throughout the West Bank. Our Embassy in Tel Aviv had, I think, 40 people in Gaza.
There were some irregularities. We understand that there is counting that continues in some districts, but I think it was a credible process -- the electoral process -- and I think on balance it was certainly free and fair. That's how we judge it, based on the reports that we have received, both from former President Carter but also from the European Union monitoring team. Both those teams have made statements.
Q Nick, do you have any concern about the very heavy Israeli security presence at the voting places in East Jerusalem and the impact that apparently had on the turnout?
<snip>
Q Nick, do you have any concern about the very heavy Israeli security presence at the voting places in East Jerusalem and the impact that apparently had on the turnout?
MR. BURNS: Mark, I've just seen the press reports on that. What I've not seen is a report from our Consulate in Jerusalem, which would have been best placed to have observed that if we had people there -- and I assume we had some people in East Jerusalem.
So pending our analysis of what the ConGen says, I think I'd like to reserve some judgment on that particular question.
Q But can you explain why he hasn't reported yet?
MR. BURNS: I have not seen the report. I assume that there is going to be a report from the ConGen. The ConGen may have reported, and it may be just a case that I haven't seen the report. But I'd like to reserve judgment on your question until I have a chance to at least see a report and perhaps even talk to some people who were there.
Q But have you seen the comment by former President Carter saying it was clear that there was an attempt to intimidate the voters in East Jerusalem?
MR. BURNS: Yes, I have seen that comment.
Q And do you give it any credence now?
MR. BURNS: Former President Carter said what he did. He was in charge of the U.S. monitoring team, and I think that his statement has to speak for itself.
<snip>
http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/briefing/daily_briefings/1996/9601/960122db.html------------------------
Palestinian elections were monitored by international observers, including Jimmy Carter.
http://www.io.com/~jewishwb/iris/archives/457.htmlhttp://leb.net/~bcome/palestine/ierley.htmlhttp://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH01ei0----------------------
Yasser Arafat – Biography*
Mohammed Abdel-Raouf Arafat As Qudwa al-Hussaeini was born on 24 August 1929 in Cairo1, his father a textile merchant who was a Palestinian with some Egyptian ancestry, his mother from an old Palestinian family in Jerusalem. She died when Yasir, as he was called, was five years old, and he was sent to live with his maternal uncle in Jerusalem, the capital of Palestine, then under British rule, which the Palestinians were opposing. He has revealed little about his childhood, but one of his earliest memories is of British soldiers breaking into his uncle's house after midnight, beating members of the family and smashing furniture.
After four years in Jerusalem, his father brought him back to Cairo, where an older sister took care of him and his siblings. Arafat never mentions his father, who was not close to his children. Arafat did not attend his father's funeral in 1952.
In Cairo, before he was seventeen Arafat was smuggling arms to Palestine to be used against the British and the Jews. At nineteen, during the war between the Jews and the Arab states, Arafat left his studies at the University of Faud I (later Cairo University) to fight against the Jews in the Gaza area. The defeat of the Arabs and the establishment of the state of Israel left him in such despair that he applied for a visa to study at the University of Texas. Recovering his spirits and retaining his dream of an independent Palestinian homeland, he returned to Faud University to major in engineering but spent most of his time as leader of the Palestinian students.
He did manage to get his degree in 1956, worked briefly in Egypt, then resettled in Kuwait, first being employed in the department of public works, next successfully running his own contracting firm. He spent all his spare time in political activities, to which he contributed most of the profits. In 1958 he and his friends founded Al-Fatah, an underground network of secret cells, which in 1959 began to publish a magazine advocating armed struggle against Israel. At the end of 1964 Arafat left Kuwait to become a full-time revolutionary, organising Fatah raids into Israel from Jordan.
It was also in 1964 that the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) was established, under the sponsorship of the Arab League, bringing together a number of groups all working to free Palestine for the Palestinians. The Arab states favoured a more conciliatory policy than Fatah's, but after their defeat by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War, Fatah emerged from the underground as the most powerful and best organised of the groups making up the PLO, took over that organisation in 1969 when Arafat became the chairman of the PLO executive committee. The PLO was no longer to be something of a puppet organisation of the Arab states, wanting to keep the Palestinians quiet, but an independent nationalist organisation, based in Jordan.
Arafat developed the PLO into a state within the state of Jordan with its own military forces. King Hussein of Jordan, disturbed by its guerrilla attacks on Israel and other violent methods, eventually expelled the PLO from his country. Arafat sought to build a similar organisation in Lebanon, but this time was driven out by an Israeli military invasion. He kept the organization alive, however, by moving its headquarters to Tunis. He was a survivor himself, escaping death in an airplane crash, surviving any assassination attempts by Israeli intelligence agencies, and recovering from a serious stroke.
His life was one of constant travel, moving from country to country to promote the Palestinian cause, always keeping his movements secret, as he did any details about his private life. Even his marriage to Suha Tawil, a Palestinian half his age, was kept secret for some fifteen months. She had already begun significant humanitarian activities at home, especially for disabled children, but the prominent part she took in the public events in Oslo was a surprise for many Arafat-watchers. Since then, their daughter, Zahwa, named after Arafat's mother, has been born.
The period after the expulsion from Lebanon was a low time for Arafat and the PLO. Then the intifada (shaking) protest movement strengthened Arafat by directing world attention to the difficult plight of the Palestinians. In 1988 came a change of policy. In a speech at a special United Nations session held in Geneva, Switzerland, Arafat declared that the PLO renounced terrorism and supported "the right of all parties concerned in the Middle East conflict to live in peace and security, including the state of Palestine, Israel and other neighbours".
The prospects for a peace agreement with Israel now brightened. After a setback when the PLO supported Iraq in the Persian Gulf War of 1991, the peace process began in earnest, leading to the Oslo Accords of 1993.
This agreement included provision for the Palestinian elections which took place in early 1996, and Arafat was elected President of the Palestine Authority. Like other Arab regimes in the area, however, Arafat's governing style tended to be more dictatorial than democratic. When the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu came to power in Israel in 1996, the peace process slowed down considerably. Much depends upon the nature of the new Israeli government, which will result from the elections to be held in 1999.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(921 posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
