Remembering Palestine’s Yasser Arafat On His Birth Anniversary

Yasser Arafat, the controversial Palestinian leader, would have turned 89 today.

A Palestinian student walks past a mural depicting late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Gaza City (Photo : Reuters)

• Yasser Arafat looms large over the history of Palestine’s political struggle, having served as Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and President of the Palestinian National Authority (PNO).
• His legacy, however, remains vigorously disputed. Arafat’s supporters see him as a devoted martyr to the Palestinian cause while his detractors point to the allegations of corruption and violence that surrounded his regime.
• India, as a long-time supporter of Palestine, hosted Arafat in November 1997 and signed an MoU for bilateral cooperation in trade, commerce, industry, science and technology, and culture.

(Photo: The Quint)

(This story was first published on 24 August 2015. It is being reposted from The Quint’s archives to mark Yasser Arafat’s birth anniversary.)