The Teflon Guerrilla

By Kate Dangel and Sarah Dick

Title Explanation

Teflon Guerrilla is a term Friedman uses to describe Yasir Arafat. The notion behind it being that nothing “sticks” to him.

Arafat was often vague and shifted sides politically. He had the "skin of a chameleon, which took on whatever political colors were in season" (111). This way he could connect with as many people as possible.

Independence

Arafat never actually freed Palestine, but he changed the way the world saw Palestinians.

He did, however, keep the PLO independent.

Unity

Arafat united all Palestinians under simple ideology that Israel had no right to exist.

He also united all the guerrilla groups

under the PLO.

Relevance

Arafat gave an international name to the PLO.

The many guerrilla attacks on Israel and other terrorist attacks increased the notoriety of the PLO and the Palestinian condition.

Theatrics

Arafat was very popular and used that to exploit his power.

He also involved the media to increase his power and make people believe the Arab world needed him.

Eventually his hypocrisies came back to bite him and damaged his credibility towards diplomats.

Arafat was also involved with guerrilla warfare and he turned the PLO into an “umbrella organization covering all Palestinian

guerrilla groups" (111).

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2001/03/08/arafat/index.html

Yasir Arafat

He was a Palestinian born in 1929 and moved to Jerusalem at a young age.

He attended Cairo University, but was

more into the politics and military strategies of the Palestinians.

After college, he move to Kuwait.

He and a few other Palestinians there formed their own guerrilla group called al-Fatah in the 1950s.

In 1967, Fatah joined the PLO and dominated the scene.

Fatah was famous for its guerrilla attacks on Israel, from Jordan in the beginning, then eventually from Lebanon.

http://quranbible.wordpress.com/2006/09/16/iraq-iran-cnn-military-analyst/

Fatah was affiliated with communism, and therefore the USSR. They receive weapons and support from them, as well as Syria, who was allied with the USSR.

While Arafat and Fatah were technically allied with communism, Arafat was not committed to those ideals. Fatah solely exists for the purpose of freeing Palestine.

Fatah only was concerned with Palestinian nationalism.

Arafat used Fatah as a means to promise and take action on getting a state for the Palestinians as they had no nation post WWI and WWII.

Bibliography

De Prineuf, Flore. "Where's Arafat?" Salon.com. Salon Media Group, Inc., 2009. Web. 13 Sept. 2009. <http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2001/03/08/arafat/index.html>.

Friedman, Thomas L. From Beirut to Jerusalem. Random House Inc. New York, 1995.

"Iraq – Iran – CNN military analyst." Qur’an – Bible. World Press, 2009. Web. 13 Sept. 2009. <http://quranbible.wordpress.com/2006/09/16/iraq-iran-cnn-military-analyst/>.

Rubin, Barry, and Judith Colp Rubin. Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Questia Online Library. Web. 6 Sept. 2009. <http://www.questia.com>.