The Movement for a Socialist Future mourns the death of Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestinian people who for more than 40 years embodied their struggle for self-determination. Arafat selflessly dedicated his whole life to the Palestinian cause. With his comrades he founded the Palestine Liberation Organisation in 1964 to represent a people driven into refugee camps and exile when the state of Israel was set up in 1948.

Already as a schoolboy in Cairo, Arafat realised that Palestinians could not rely on others to regain their homeland. With Abu Jihad, one of his closest comrades, he began to campaign for a popular liberation war. In 1965 their Fatah guerrilla organisation carried out its first raid into the Zionist state. Three years later he became chairman of the PLO.

In 1970 Jordanian forces killed thousands of Palestinian fighters in an operation which became known as Black September. The PLO was forced to leave Jordan. Despite this setback, Arafat continued his struggle, basing himself in Lebanon. There he developed politically, turning away from the policy of individual terror and towards mass struggle. Arafat narrowly survived the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the siege of Beirut.

Arafat and the PLO gradually won international recognition of their just cause. But UN resolutions against Israel's illegal occupation of the West Bank and Jordan have remained a dead letter to this day. Arab governments have stood and watched the suffering of the Palestinian people while the Syrian regime, amongst others, conspired against Arafat's leadership for many years. One by one, assassination squads sponsored by Israeli intelligence picked off Arafat's closest friends and allies, including Abu Jihad.

The Palestinian people themselves were compelled to launch an uprising, the Intifada, which began in 1987 and continues to this day. Many thousands, mainly young people, have died heroically fighting the might of the Israeli armed forces. Their sacrifice ultimately forced the Israelis in 1993 to recognise the aspirations of the Palestinian people for the first time. Arafat returned to Palestine in 1994 but right-wing Zionists in Israel sabotaged any chance of a comprehensive settlement. While attending a peace rally in November 1995, Yitzak Rabin, who had signed the accords with Arafat, was assassinated by a Jewish fanatic.

For the last few years, Arafat and the Palestinian leadership endured one hardship after another. The Israeli regime constructed hundreds of new settlements in the occupied territories, destroyed many Palestinian homes and farms, built roads that criss-cross the West Bank and compelled Arafat to stay in his compound in Ramallah. The Israelis destroyed Palestinian institutions and thwarted economic development. Such conditions undoubtedly contributed to Arafat's final illness and death. These actions provoked a wave of futile suicide bombings by frustrated Palestinians which targeted ordinary Israelis and only reinforced Sharon's brutal regime.

From Washington and Tel Aviv the message has been that Arafat was the "obstacle to peace". This relentless propaganda, repeated on the day of his death parrot-like by TV reporters, is a sickening example of an oppressed people being blamed for a predicament not of their own choosing. Arafat was an "obstacle" not to peace but to the desire to crush the Palestinians. He refused to sign away the legitimate rights of his people and bow down before the power of US and Israeli imperialism. His revolutionary self-sacrifice and courage will remain an inspiration to the oppressed and exploited all over the world.

Movement for a Socialist Future
11 November 2004