Word: plo
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...father of the nation" appellation is not simply a product of Arafat's 35 years at the helm of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), or his half-century in charge of the secular-nationalist Fatah movement he founded in 1956, and which remains the single largest party in Palestinian politics. It derives from the fact that Arafat's ascent in the national movement epitomized a Palestinian declaration of independence. Before Arafat and his comrades took charge of the PLO in 1968, the very term "Palestinian" hardly existed in the international lexicon. The fate of the Arab residents of what...
...Arafat's PLO broke the mould, demanding an independent voice and control over Palestinian destiny - a course that ultimately set it on a collision course not only with Israel, but also at various points with many of the Arab regimes. It was a combination of guerrilla resistance, hijackings and other high-profile terrorist operations and skillful diplomacy - all undertaken on Arafat's watch although often with layers of plausible deniability between the PLO chairman and specific actions - that introduced the world to the Palestinians in the early 1970s...
...only one year after Pan-Arab nationalism's final defeat at Israel's hands, Arafat became the first non-head of government to address the UN General Assembly, and the Arab League anointed the PLO "the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people," formally transferring responsibility for Palestinian fate into Palestinian hands. And if Arafat's personage became the symbol of this new nationalist voice suddenly recognized in the Arab world as the revolutionary head of state of a stateless people, his mystique was burnished by his uncanny ability to beat the odds...
...Yasser Arafat had three distinct roles in Palestinian politics - president of the Palestinian Authority, chairman of the PLO and head of the Fatah organization. It is generally agreed by Palestinian analysts that there will be no new Arafat, in the sense of a single individual who controls so much of Palestinian political life, and a new leadership is likely to be more collective and consultative in nature (a process that can complicate as well as facilitate negotiations). But the overriding concern among the key Palestinian factions is to avoid a chaotic succession struggle that will further weaken their national movement...
...that may be a political death sentence for Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. The generation of PLO leaders that embarked on the Oslo process had been derided by militants for putting all of its eggs in the basket of American goodwill, and Hamas crowed on Thursday that Bush's statements had vindicated its strategy of violence by proving that the path of negotiations pursued by Arafat and the PA was a dead end for Palestinian aspirations. And in light of the President's statement, it will be hard for PA leaders to sustain a belief among Palestinians...