Yasir Arafat 2004 Deaths

Yasir Arafat

head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) who for decades led the Palestinian people in their often violent quest for a Palestinian state. Arafat, Shimon Peres, and Yitzhak Rabin shared the 1994 Nobel peace prize for the 1993 accord with Israel that led to limited Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In 1999, Arafat and Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak agreed to finalize their borders and the status of Jerusalem by 2000. Their failure to resolve the issues led to renewed violence. After years of confinement to his Ramallah headquarters, the Israeli government allowed the increasingly ill and frail Arafat to Paris to seek medical treatment. He died there.