On This Day In History - 1969 - Arafat is appointed Chairman of the Executive Committee of the PLO
Jewish Virtual Library - Yasser Arafat was founder and leader of the Fatah political party and later the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization and president of the Palestinian National Authority. Arafat spent the majority of his life dedicated to fighting Israel though he was also involved in skirmishes between Palestinians and Jordanian and Lebanese forces at different times.
Together with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and President Shimon Peres, Arafat was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize in World Peace for his efforts in signing the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords. Arafat's legacy has left him highly scorned and villified for leading the Palestinians into the Al-Aqsa Intifada, a war with Israel that lasted nearly five years from 2000 to 2005 and claimed thousands of lives on both sides of the conflict.
