08-19-2002, 02:01 PM
Yasser Arafat may be best known as the Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and President of the Palestinian National Authority (PA).
But the title he has held for longest is leader of Fatah - the Palestine Liberation Movement (the name is derived from the initials of the Arabic name, Harakat Tahrir Filistin, in reverse).
Arafat formed Fatah as a commando cell
The Israeli authorities have accused Fatah of terrorist attacks on Israelis since the start of the current intifada last September, and argue that Mr Arafat is responsible for such attacks.
Fatah leaders and organisers have been victims of Israel's targeted assassination policy.
Palestinians maintain that Fatah and its various groups act only in the occupied territories, where they argue resisting the Israelis by any means is legitimate.
Commando raids
Fatah was founded by Mr Arafat and a handful of close comrades in the late 1950s. They wanted to rally Palestinians in the diaspora to launch commando raids on the young Israeli state.
The group came out into the open in 1965; under Mr Arafat's effective leadership it became the strongest and best-organised of the Palestinian factions and it has remained so ever since.
The leader took advantage of the power vacuum following Israel's defeat of the allied Arab armies 1967 to make self-sufficiency the key to the Palestinian struggle against Israel.
But at the same time, he was successful in raising huge sums from supportive Arab states who shared his vision of a purely Palestinian nationalist movement - and feared the influence a successful Palestinian leftist one might have on their own populations.
Armed and unarmed struggle
Mr Arafat took over as chairman of the executive committee of the PLO in 1969, a year that Fatah is recorded to have carried out 2,432 guerrilla attacks on Israel.
Marwan Barghuti leads Fatah in the West Bank
The ejection of Palestinian fighters from Jordan during the "Black September" of 1970 saw Mr Arafat's power base move to southern Lebanon. Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon saw him and the Fatah leadership banished to distant Tunisia.
But the struggle was not over in the West Bank and Gaza; Arafat loyalists - the Fatah Hawks - were key players in the first Palestinian intifada which broke out in 1987.
The Oslo peace process of the 1990s brought back many of the Fatah old guard back to run the newly-formed PA.
Paramilitary force
Oslo specified the creation of a large Palestinian security force, mainly to protect Israel from militant attacks under the peace accords.
The Fatah Hawks were dissolved, but in 1995 the Fatah leadership instituted its own militia, the Tanzim.
Analysts say the Tanzim was designed to be a counterweight to the military might of the home-grown militant Islamist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
It has also served as an unofficial pro-Arafat offensive force that can attack the on-going Israeli occupation, and has spearheaded many of the recent armed confrontations.
It is not known how many Tanzim members there are, but they could number in the tens of thousands - most of them young men of an age to be "graduates" of the 1987-92 intifada.
Analysts argue that the Tanzim is the current manifestation of the various groups that used to make up Fatah - such as the Fatah Hawks, Force 17, the Western Sector and a recent arrival, the Aqsa Brigade.
But the title he has held for longest is leader of Fatah - the Palestine Liberation Movement (the name is derived from the initials of the Arabic name, Harakat Tahrir Filistin, in reverse).
Arafat formed Fatah as a commando cell
The Israeli authorities have accused Fatah of terrorist attacks on Israelis since the start of the current intifada last September, and argue that Mr Arafat is responsible for such attacks.
Fatah leaders and organisers have been victims of Israel's targeted assassination policy.
Palestinians maintain that Fatah and its various groups act only in the occupied territories, where they argue resisting the Israelis by any means is legitimate.
Commando raids
Fatah was founded by Mr Arafat and a handful of close comrades in the late 1950s. They wanted to rally Palestinians in the diaspora to launch commando raids on the young Israeli state.
The group came out into the open in 1965; under Mr Arafat's effective leadership it became the strongest and best-organised of the Palestinian factions and it has remained so ever since.
The leader took advantage of the power vacuum following Israel's defeat of the allied Arab armies 1967 to make self-sufficiency the key to the Palestinian struggle against Israel.
But at the same time, he was successful in raising huge sums from supportive Arab states who shared his vision of a purely Palestinian nationalist movement - and feared the influence a successful Palestinian leftist one might have on their own populations.
Armed and unarmed struggle
Mr Arafat took over as chairman of the executive committee of the PLO in 1969, a year that Fatah is recorded to have carried out 2,432 guerrilla attacks on Israel.
Marwan Barghuti leads Fatah in the West Bank
The ejection of Palestinian fighters from Jordan during the "Black September" of 1970 saw Mr Arafat's power base move to southern Lebanon. Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon saw him and the Fatah leadership banished to distant Tunisia.
But the struggle was not over in the West Bank and Gaza; Arafat loyalists - the Fatah Hawks - were key players in the first Palestinian intifada which broke out in 1987.
The Oslo peace process of the 1990s brought back many of the Fatah old guard back to run the newly-formed PA.
Paramilitary force
Oslo specified the creation of a large Palestinian security force, mainly to protect Israel from militant attacks under the peace accords.
The Fatah Hawks were dissolved, but in 1995 the Fatah leadership instituted its own militia, the Tanzim.
Analysts say the Tanzim was designed to be a counterweight to the military might of the home-grown militant Islamist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
It has also served as an unofficial pro-Arafat offensive force that can attack the on-going Israeli occupation, and has spearheaded many of the recent armed confrontations.
It is not known how many Tanzim members there are, but they could number in the tens of thousands - most of them young men of an age to be "graduates" of the 1987-92 intifada.
Analysts argue that the Tanzim is the current manifestation of the various groups that used to make up Fatah - such as the Fatah Hawks, Force 17, the Western Sector and a recent arrival, the Aqsa Brigade.