by Saeed Shabazz
Staff Writer

NEW YORK (FinalCall.com)�Yasser Arafat isn�t stepping down as leader of the Palestinian Authority but hasn�t decided whether he will run again for Palestinian president. According to July 12 reports from his Ramallah compound, the Palestinian president told the media, only senior Palestinian officials and his people can decide his fate. He has also expressed a willingness to keep talking to a U.S. administration that wants him gone.

So as U.S. President George Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and others call for his resignation, Mr. Arafat remains a powerful symbol. Western detractors may lob criticism and old adversary Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, may call him "irrelevant," but Yasser Arafat is not a man easily dismissed.

Biographers say Mr. Arafat is strongest when under siege. He is a guerilla fighter and surviving tough times are engrained in him, they say.

"Palestinians believe strongly that they still need Mr. Arafat. He is the elected leader and the symbol of national aspirations," said Khalil Shikaki, a Palestinian and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution�s Saban Center in Washington, D.C. According to Mr. Shikaki, Mr. Arafat is legendary because he has done more than anyone else to put the Palestinian cause on the world agenda.

Born to Palestinian parents in Cairo, Egypt on August 24, 1929, he is one of seven children, his father was a successful merchant. His mother, who was said to be devoted to her religion, died when he was just four. His birth name was Mohammed. He was nicknamed "Yasser," which means "easy", by playmates.

After his mother�s death he went to live with a married uncle in Jerusalem. Then as a teenager in the 1940s, Mr. Arafat became involved in Palestinian causes. The effort to establish the state of Israel on Palestinian land was underway. At age 17, he smuggled weapons for fighters from Cairo. He participated in some of the battles of the 1948 war with Israel, preaching that Palestinians should do their own fighting to protect their country.

After the war�s end, he entered the King Fahd University, now Cairo University, earning a degree in civil engineering. There he met future Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) compatriots Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyad), Salim Zannum (Abu Adeeb) and others. In 1952, Mr. Arafat was elected president of the Union of Palestinian Students. He led demonstrations for Palestinian liberation and edited a student newspaper. He also managed to convince Egyptian authorities to allow him to establish a military training camp in preparation for further struggle inside Palestine. But he also ran afoul of Egyptian authorities, who jailed him for his perceived collaboration with the outlawed Muslim organization.

According to biographer, Alan Hart, Mr. Arafat�s first major act as a guerilla was sabotaging a huge Israeli water storage plant near the town of Faluja. This act, according to Mr. Hart provoked the February 1955 Israeli attack on Gaza, bringing Egypt and the Soviet Union together. It also brought President Nasser, of Egypt, and Mr. Arafat closer. Offered a post in the Egyptian Army, Mr. Arafat turned it down. He had other plans. In 1957, he left Cairo for Kuwait, where he teamed up with Khalil Wazir (Abu Jihad) and Khaled al-Hasan to form FATAH (the Movement for the National Liberation of Palestine). He founded the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1964, but the Arab world ignored the group.

"He began to think of himself as another Nelson Mandela, Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro, all rolled up into one �Third World� revolutionary leader," Professor Naseer Aruri told The Final Call. Professor Aruri is a retired political science teacher at the University of Massachusetts and author of "The Obstruction of Peace: The U.S., Israel and The Palestinians."

In the 1967 "Six Day War," Israel launched a preemptive strike against Arab troops on its borders, seizing Sinai from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria and the West Bank and the Old City of Jerusalem from Jordan. After the defeat, the losers approached Mr. Arafat and the PLO for help against Israel. "He had gained a far ranging reputation in the Arab world as an astute guerilla fighter," Prof. Aruri noted.

It was in a 1968 PLO clash with Israel, known as the Battle of Karameh, that Mr. Arafat gained more recognition as a warrior. In September 1970 battles against Syria and the Israeli siege against the PLO in Beirut, Lebanon. In 1982, Mr. Arafat was again recognized as a man of great fortitude. He refused to wilt under pressure.

"Yasser Arafat was very muscular as a young man. He was always smiling. The legend of his courage is widespread," remembers journalist Akram Zadeh, 69, who said he met Mr. Arafat in Iran, when they were young. Mr. Zadeh recalled a story of an airplane crash in North Africa, involving Mr. Arafat and his comrades. According to Mr. Zadeh, everyone except Mr. Arafat perished.

During his tenure as PLO chairman, the United Nations reaffirmed the rights of the Palestinians to statehood and the right of Palestinian refugees to return home. He was also able to get the UN to affirm in writing that the Palestinian people had a "right to struggle by all means necessary," including "military resistance" to secure these rights. The PLO was the preeminent Palestinian resistance movement and Mr. Arafat was its unquestioned leader. In the United States and Israel, however, the PLO was branded a terrorist group. Over time and after much bloodshed, the PLO offered some concessions. One major step was recognizing Israel�s right to exist.

In 1988, Mr. Arafat made concession to the United Nations, saying the PLO would recognize Israel as a sovereign state. He negotiated the Oslo Accords in 1993, which gave the Palestinians self rule. For that effort, he and Israeli leaders Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin received the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize.

"I will carry this Nobel Peace Prize to our children, who have a promise of freedom, security in a homeland not threatened by an invader from outside, or an exploiter from inside," Mr. Arafat said December 10, 1994

By 1996, Mr. Arafat was pushing for an agreement on self-rule for all Palestinian cities and villages in the West Bank. He was then elected president of Palestinian-controlled territory.

In 1999, French researcher Jean-Francois Legrain wrote that only Mr. Arafat could assure a legitimate transition toward co-existence with Israel. If he disappeared before the transition is settled�a bloody conflict would ensue, he wrote. "A transition worked out after Arafat is gone will be illegitimate and weak," Mr. Legrain added. That same year, Mr. Arafat and the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak signed an agreement to finalize their borders and to determine the status of Jerusalem by 2000.

So despite Israeli and Bush administration campaigns to oust Yasser Arafat, Palestinians remain unlikely to sign on and Mr. Arafat unwilling to bow out.

Dr. Nasser Al-Kidwa, Permanent Palestinian Observer to the UN explained why: "His mission is to lead the Palestinian people until the establishment of an independent state. We are still in the phase of national liberation, and I think he symbolizes the ambitions of the Palestinian people during this stage. For him the office of president of the Palestinian Authority is a mission rather than a post."