Yasser Arafat Years in Tunisia

From 1982 to 1994, establishment in Tunis

Withdrawal of Lebanon

In 1982, in full war of Lebanon, Arafat dead by leaving accuracy a building reduced to ground by an Israeli bomb escapes. It is forced to leave Beirut, besieged by the Israeli army, on August 30th, 1982 on board a ship towards Greece then Tunisia what disorganizes its financial re-entries partly. The Tunisian president, at the time Habib Bourguiba, was not very inclined to lodge Arafat but ends up accepting after the pressures of the Arab Ligue and his wife. One year afterwards, Arafat returns to Tripoli. As of September, the partisans of Arafat are pushed back by dissidents of the PLO directed by Abou Moussa supported by Syrian troops towards the refugee camps of Tripoli. Yasser Arafat is constrained with the exile. Farouk Kaddoumi request with the Soviet Union to protect the ships leaving the port from the city to ensure the departure of Abou Am but the Soviets refuses. Farouk Kaddoumi then requires the assistance of the French who accept. The USSR justifies its refusal by the will to avoid any conflict with the USA. Arafat and 4  000 of its partisans leave Tripoli on Greek buildings protected by the French navy. It installs its general headquarter in the town of Borj Cedria very close to Tunis where it lives constantly on its guards. It does not have a fixed residence and never sleeps more than one night at the same place. It accepts the dispersion of its fighting forces. Arafat avoids death on October 1st 1985 when an Israeli fighter plan F-15 bombards the head office of the PLO with Tunis where was to hold a meeting between the leaders of the movement at which Arafat arrives late. This operation intervenes after the assassination of three Israelis in Cyprus. In spite of the renouncement of the terrorism of the PLO in November 1985 in Cairo, the organization is implied in more than 100 terrorist acts at the time of the two following years.

The first Intifada

See also: the First Intifada

In 1988, bursts in the West Bank and with Gaza the the First Intifada, the “revolt of the stones”. Although the PLO was largely implied in this revolt, this one was mainly carried out by the Commandement unified of Intifada, and not by the Tunisian faction of Arafat. The US president Ronald Reagan puts an end to the 13 years of prohibition to discuss with the PLO. The May 2nd 1989, in official visit, for the first time, in Paris, Arafat declares “null and void” the charter of the PLO which affirmed that “the armed struggle is the only way for the release of Palestine”. It is the condition which François Mitterrand had put to agree to meet the leader of the PLO and posts for example its devotion towards “Our Lord Jesus-Christ” (“Palestinian since born with Bethlehem, which is a Hebraic word which wants to say " house of the pain" ”), to rejoin with him the Palestinian Christian minority, which very often is persecuted by the integrist Moslems and is obliged to flee. As of this time, it assists with all the masses of Christmas in Bethlehem, except when the access him is prohibited by it by Israel at the end of its life. It gives a report on a “correspondence with the Général de Gaulle in 1968” and shows the Cross of Lorraine that the latter would have sent to him, which will deny the son of the general.

Alliance with Saddam Hussein

See also: War of the Gulf

In 1989, the disintegration of the Soviet empire and the end of the Cold war involve a redistribution of diplomatic alliances which marginalize Arafat on the international scene. Moreover, the Russian government authorizes the emigration towards Israel several hundreds of thousands of its nationals of Jewish confession.

Seeking an exit with her insulation, Yasser Arafat is combined with Saddam Hussein, from which Arafat would have received from financial aid, and does not condemn the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, which is perceived like a treason by Kuwait. In the days which preceded the invasion, Yasser Arafat made the shuttle between Baghdad and Kuwait City to try to impose her mediation. But its Kuwaiti interlocutors noticed that it seemed to be curiously receptive with the arguments of Saddam Hussein.

This alliance is worth in Yasser Arafat, after the second war of the Gulf and the defeat of the Iraqi armies, the resentment and the anger of oil monarchies and the Americans. It is paradoxically saved by the new Israeli government, where the left arrives at the capacity in 1992 with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, which estimates that Yasser Arafat cannot refuse any more to give them all the necessary guarantees as regards safety, for the creation of a Palestinian autonomous State in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip.

Marriage

Arafat Marie with her secretary, Souha Tawil, 34 years its junior, the July 17th 1990. The close relations of Arafat do not appreciate this union that they estimate incongruous.

His wife, Souha, affirm that it met for the first Arafat time in 1988. He asked it in marriage in 1990. This one is celebrated in secrecy in Tunis. Arafat convened for the occasion two witnesses, who would be two of his guards, as well as a sheik, like wants it the Islamic law for the marriage. Souha did not wear a dress of marriage but a normal dress and Arafat wore her traditional military dress and a Keffieh.

Arafat wished to keep the secret marriage in spite of the refusal of his wife. According to it, Arafat acted thus because the marriage coincided with the war of the Gulf and the first Intifada and which it was anxious consequences that could involve.

They have together a Zahwa girl, born the July 24th 1995 with Paris. The two pilots of the plane of the Palestinian leader as well as an engineer find death and Arafat suffers only from some contusions, the United States would have decided into 2003 to expel towards Tunisia the president of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat, which denied categorically the Palestinian ambassador in Tunis, Mourir Ghannem. The Web site “Elaph.com” affirms that “the construction of a palate with Hammamet, in Tunisia, recently accelerated in order to make it possible Yasser Arafat to settle there soon”. “Elaph.com” adds that “the palate will be one of most comfortable and of largest of the Middle East and North Africa. Its construction would cost several million dollars”. This information is also contradicted by his wife Souha Arafat who declared that her husband would not leave Palestine as long as it is alive.

Convalescence

April 10th, 2004, whereas Yasser Arafat is hospitalized with Hôpital of instruction of the armies Percy Faouk Kaddoumi, chief of the political Department (foreign affairs) of the PLO declares “After the care, it will need one period of convalescence which will be done here in Tunis, soon, Inchallah”. This declaration intervenes little before the departure of Kaddouni for Paris to the head of a delegation. Farouk Kaddoumi went to the bedside of Arafat accompanied by Mohamed Ghanim, member of the Central committee of the Fatah, it and Ahmed So, chief of associated staff, the three person in charge residing permanently at Tunis.

See too

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