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Modern History Essay

Defined as a person who partakes in or advocates the use of violence to intimidate or coerce often for ideological or political reasons, the word 'terrorist' is often associated with the former unaesthetic representative of the Palestinian people, Yasser Arafat. Whilst often hailed as a freedom fighter, Yasser Arafat although engaged in armed rebellion, is fighting Israel, a country which does not fit the cirteria of a tyrannical, dictatorial or opressive government. Throughout Arafat's 36 year and 11 year reign at the helm of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the Palestinian National Authority respectively, Arafat's policy of terrorism became completely lucid.

In order to establish that Arafat was not a freedom fighter, it is important to acknowledge that the conflict in the Middle East could have potentially been resolved diplomatically by Yasser Arafat, who was given an invitation to address the UN General Assembly in 1974. "This was a remarkable gift to a man who was openly seeking the destruction of a UN member state, deliberately killing its civilians, and who had been recently involved in hijacking airplanes, assassinating diplomats, and attacking the Olympic games." (1) Arafat claimed that Zionism and Israel were too evil to have a right to exist, and they were 'imperialist, colonialist and racist as well as profoundly reactionary and discriminatory'. In his speech Arafat also insisted that the Palestinians were prime examples of an oppressed and racially discriminated nation. Furthermore, Arafat attempted to divorce methods of 'resistance' from the issue of terrorism, outlining that the end to 'Palestinian opression' justified any means of struggle. Arafat even went as far as comparing the Palestinian rebellion to the European resistance against the Nazis, however what he failed to explain was that there is a difference between fighting armies and blowing up buses filled with school children. Arafat ostensibly failed to comprehend that how a struggle is waged is a relevant consideration to whether he can be labelled a freedom fighter or a terrorist.

1. Rubin, B. (2003). Yasir Arafat: A political biography. New York: Oxford University Press. Page 71