"The struggle of the Palestinian people is just... But the struggle needs to be tactic – slogans like 'Drive Israel into the sea' are too extreme to your detriment and better not to mention. ”
In 1964, Premier Zhou received a young Palestinian who was aspiring to restore the country in Beijing, and at the dialogue meeting, the young man had a humble posture and a respectful expression, and repeatedly nodded his head in favor of Premier Zhou's earnest teachings.
With this humble and courteous appearance, no one would have thought that he was Arafat, who would be known as the "King of Terror in the Middle East" in the future!
In order to lead the Palestinians to take back the Palestinian areas occupied by Israel, Arafat established the "Palestinian National Liberation Organization".
However, he obviously lacked experience in struggle at that time, and as a leader, he allowed his radical factions to carry out terrorist activities, and the situation in the Middle East continued to deteriorate and escalate, and the PLO was notorious for a while.
Arafat himself, on the other hand, became a problem that Israel was bound to get rid of, and he was assassinated more than fifty times in this life.
It was only in his later years that Arafat woke up in time and regretted that he had not really heeded the far-sighted advice of China's leaders as a young man.
What kind of person is Arafat? How did it end? Is the "King of Terror" hat planted or a fact?
1. Committed to national liberation
Arafat was born in Palestine in 1929.
At that time, the Jews had not yet established Israel, the land was still owned by the Arabs, and the situation in the Middle East was relatively stable.
Arafat's father did business here, earning a lot of money, and the family lived safely and prosperously.
When Arafat was young, his father moved with the family to Cairo, the more economically prosperous capital of Egypt.
In Cairo, Arafat received a wealth of educational resources, and he was admitted to Cairo University in 1944.
It was during his college years that Arafat came into contact with Arab nationalist ideas, deeply hating the colonial plundering of Arabs by Western countries, and determined to contribute his own power to change this situation.
But before Arafat could take any real action, Palestine fell into a huge crisis first.
"Zionism," which Arafat had never done before, suddenly became a riot and made a stir in the international community.
The Jews approached the Wall Street tycoons in the United States, did not know what deal was made in secret, and persuaded the US government to get involved in the affairs of the Middle East and help the Jews to establish a state.
And the address of this statehood is precisely the Palestinian area that belongs to the Arabs! Under the manipulation of the United States, the United Nations adopted separate governance of Palestine.
The resolution was separation, with the Arabs, who made up the majority of the population in Palestine, receiving only a small piece of land, while the Jewish minority, received a large share.
The Arabs were furious, and several major Arab countries immediately formed a coalition of forces to fight the Jews to the death.
Young Arafat's blood is boiling, Palestine is his homeland, how can he give it up?
He joined the Egyptian army and, along with the Arab coalition, entered Palestine on the day the Jews established Israel in 1948, and fierce armed clashes broke out with it.
This was the first Middle East war, and the first war with Israel in which Arafat participated.
He rose to prominence in the war and, at a young age, became an officer in the Egyptian army because of his outstanding performance.
But the war did not go well, and the Arab coalition was victorious, thinking that it was only a matter of time before it defeated the Israeli army and prevented the establishment of the Israeli state.
But I did not expect that the Western world, led by the United States, would forcefully step in and blatantly support Israel.
Arafat watched the coalition lose under Israeli gunfire and their land was overrun by Jews.
This defeat deeply stung Arafat, who turned his grief and anger into strength, determined to revive the Arab nation, destroy Israel and drive the Jews out of Palestine.
With this goal in mind, Arafat went to a military academy in Cairo to study military theory, and after graduation returned to the Egyptian army, rising directly to the rank of second lieutenant of engineers.
In 1956, when the Second Middle East War broke out, Britain and France launched attacks on Egypt in order to seize control of the Suez Canal from Egypt, and Israel intended to take a piece of the pie and join the Anglo-French coalition.
Arafat led Egypt's army into war again.
Although this anti-colonial struggle was won in the end, the casualties were extremely heavy.
Arafat saw bloodshed and sacrifice again and again, and his heart gradually hardened: to achieve the final victory, all this is inevitable.
The following year, Arafat left Egypt for Kuwait and came to the stronghold of Palestinian nationalists.
Young Palestinians here are aiming to return to their homeland and bring down Israel as their mission, and everyone shares Arafat's interests.
In 1959, they founded the Fatah organization, which aimed to overthrow Israeli rule.
During this period, the various measures against Israel developed by the organization were still within the normal range, and the most aggressive actions were only attempts to destroy Israel's infrastructure, and on the whole they were relatively mild.
In addition to Fatah, there are several other civil forces in Palestine that are also working in their own way to regain their homeland.
In 1964, in order to gain strength, important members of all these organizations gathered in Jerusalem for a meeting.
At the meeting, everyone decided to unite and form the Palestine Liberation Organization, or PLO for short. Fatah is the largest faction in the PLO and has great prestige.
Later, as the leader of Fatah, Arafat became the chairman of the PLO and began to lead the Palestinian people in their armed resistance.
However, this just struggle for national liberation gradually changed its taste, and the PLO began to embark on an antisocial path, which became synonymous with "terror".
Second, the PLO that is gradually getting out of control
Originally, other Arab countries had always shared the hatred of the Palestinian people about the establishment of Israel by Jews in the Palestinian areas;
For these brothers who have suffered, they have always adhered to the principle of holding money and making a strong contribution for many years, which can help.
But I didn't expect that the PLO, which was gradually going to extremes, turned out to be a white-eyed wolf, and wanted to overthrow Jordan, which took them in, and replaced it with a dove nest, which really chilled the hearts of Arab brothers.
It began with the Third Middle East War in 1967.
At that time, Israel was established for nearly 20 years, and with the support of the United States, its strength increased greatly, and the war took only six days to defeat the Arab coalition, and the land area was three times larger than before.
The PLO and its guerrillas were badly damaged after the war and had to move to Jordan to recuperate.
Jordan was part of Palestine before the colonial period and is considered the brother of the Palestinian "one mother".
King Hussein I of Jordan had a sense of justice and accepted Palestinian refugees without saying a word. At that time, when the PLO had nowhere to go, it was also agreed that they would take root in Jordan and seek to restore the country.
When the PLO arrived in Jordan, it did not regard itself as an outsider, and they used the refugee camps as a base to develop their own strength, and soon the number of armed personnel inside exceeded 10,000.
These guerrillas, armed with weapons and equipment, patrol the streets every day, treating the police as nothing and exploiting civilians to Jordan's misery.
Not only that, the PLO often sends troops to attack Israel, but Israel sees Jordan as a target of retaliation.
Jordan has only suffered defeat and has no strength in a war, and at this time, it is afraid of the escalation of the conflict and cannot be fought back by Israel.
In this regard, the PLO, which caused the war, not only was unapologetic, but also ridiculed the incompetence of the Jordanian army.
Since then, the PLO has become more and more arrogant, and a modern version of the story of the farmer and the snake has been staged with Jordan.
They not only snatched Jordan's oil fields for themselves, but also had the idea of assassinating the Jordanian king in June 1970 in a vain attempt to subvert the Jordanian regime and occupy Jordanian territory.
Of course, the PLO's wishful thinking did not start, but it was enough for Jordan to tear their faces with them.
King Hussein I was very angry, but he could not act rashly against these militants, he could only call PLO Chairman Arafat to question the matter.
Isn't the PLO waging a just struggle under the banner of liberating Palestine? How to start using the armed forces to do evil? How does Arafat explain this?
Arafat was speechless when asked, and he could only say powerlessly about the PLO's evil deeds: "The PLO is out of control, and I can't do anything." ”
The group is made up of several factions, moderate and radical, and although Arafat is in the highest position, he does not have the final say.
He has absolute say in the "Fatah" in the organization, but he has no control over other factions, such as the PLO's "Popular Front", which has become a breeding ground for lawless terrorists.
The assassination of the King of Jordan had not yet passed, and in September of that year, the Popular Front carried out terrorist activities in the name of PLO and committed a hijacking that shocked the world.
They hijacked three planes carrying more than 300 Western passengers and flew them all the way to airports in Jordan to blackmail the world:
Israel must release all Palestinian prisoners or all 300 hostages would die.
The Western world, regardless of the PLO's internal situation, directly spoke to Arafat: "If the hostages cannot be guaranteed to return home safely, then the Western military will make the PLO cease to exist again." ”
Arafat hurriedly held a press conference to state the PLO's position, and finally finally resisted great pressure to stop the activities of his subordinates.
But to prove that the PLO was not afraid of the West, the PLO blew up planes after releasing hostages.
Such terrorist actions not only caused the PLO to be shouted and beaten internationally, but also caused a series of subsequent troubles.
Third, build a peaceful country, regret not listening to China's advice
After the hijacking, the United States and Europe continued to put pressure on Jordan, and if Jordan continued to indulge the PLO's activities in its territory, it was very likely to be swept up by the army and suffer disaster.
Jordan has long hated what the PLO has been doing, and has long wanted to dig up this cancer on its body.
On September 15, the King of Jordan took advantage of the international scolding and decisively reacted: clear the PLO out of the country!
At this time, the Arab brothers have completely turned their faces, Arafat no longer wants to conflict with Jordan, and at this time he can only be forced to break off diplomatic relations with Jordan and declare war.
The Arab world suddenly fell out, and Syria was the first to stand up for Arafat, sending troops across the border to support the PLO to demonstrate to Jordan.
Other Arab countries stood still, but they all believed that Jordan had fallen to the West, and they condemned it.
And Israel also came to muddy the waters at this time, and the air force swaggered into the war zone, stood up for Jordan, and threatened Syria's withdrawal.
The scuffle, later known as Black September, saw Syria pulled out of the scene early, and the PLO and Jordan ostensibly shook hands with Egyptian mediation, but clashes continued.
By 1971, the PLO had killed 25,000 people in the war and could no longer fight back, and was finally cleared out of Jordan, suffering heavy casualties and losing face.
The cornered PLO eventually came to the Lebanese border and used it as a base to make a comeback.
But at this time, the PLO was already blinded by hatred, and even the leader Arafat forgot the original intention of the struggle and began to embark on a path of revenge.
Under the name of "Black September", they organized militants to target Israel, Jordan, the United States and the United Kingdom to carry out terrorist activities in the name of revenge.
In the seventies, "Black September" was like a shadow that shrouded the Middle East.
They attacked Lebanese Christians and Israeli civilians, massacred Israeli competitors at the Munich Olympics, and even went so mad as to assassinate Jordan's prime minister.
All these countries and regions that have been attacked by terrorism hate the PLO and Arafat to the bone;
Israel, in particular, carried out 57 assassinations against Arafat alone, its intelligence organization, the Mossad.
And Arafat is really a legend, he can successfully avoid assassination every time, even the Israelis admit that this is the will of God, Arafat is an "immortal bird".
Arafat cannot destroy Israel, and Israel cannot kill Arafat.
On the contrary, Arafat also led the PLO to carry out these angry actions, which caused the PLO to deteriorate internationally and became an unjust party.
When the time entered the 80s, the gradually aging Arafat finally woke up;
Premier Zhou's advice was correct, and their methods were radical and brutal, harming innocent civilians, which was indeed extremely detrimental to future struggles.
And after all these years, Israel has gained a foothold, and the Arab countries can no longer drive out the Jews.
They have no choice but to ease relations with Israel and gradually emerge from the chaos in the Middle East and seek future development.
Seeing that no country wanted to fight any more war, and Arafat could not remain obsessed with destroying Israel, he began to operate internationally to use political and diplomatic means to strive for peaceful statehood.
Finally, in 1988, the State of Palestine was officially proclaimed, and on the day of its establishment, Arafat announced to the world that the PLO would no longer carry out any terrorist acts.
Over the past 40 years, the Palestinian people have struggled, gone through detours and hardships to finally earn their place back.
Arafat, on the other hand, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for choosing to lay down force and reconcile with Israel.
epilogue
Palestinian-Israeli grievances have been struck for a long time, and the hard-won peace has not lasted long.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the two countries once again had contradictions over territorial and religious contradictions, and new hatred and old hatred were out of control.
Palestine has been attacked one after another by the Israeli army, while Israel has been subjected to repeated terrorist attacks.
Arafat was dubbed the "king of terror" by Israel, and any suicide or explosion in the territory was accused of being planned by Arafat.
In 2004, Arafat, known as the "Immortal Bird", tragically died of a sudden illness during treatment in Paris.
Whether he died of illness or was poisoned and assassinated has been controversial and has not yet been concluded.
Throughout his life, although Arafat is associated with "terror", it is undeniable that he has worked for the liberation of the Palestinian people throughout his life, and the Palestinians will not forget him.
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Author | Yuki
Edit the | Ayan