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Arafat's War: The Man and His Battle for Israeli Conquest
A profile of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his role in the Middle East argues that Arafat is less interested in building a Palestinian state or in genuine peace with Israel than he is the destruction of the Israeli state.
Hardcover
First published September 30, 2003
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About the author
Efraim Karsh
64 books30 followersEfraim Karsh is director of the Middle East Forum, editor of the Middle East Quarterly, and Professor of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King's College London.
Born and raised in Israel, Mr. Karsh earned his undergraduate degree in Arabic language and literature and modern Middle Eastern history from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and his graduate and doctoral degrees in international relations from Tel Aviv University. After acquiring his first academic degree, he served for seven years as an intelligence officer in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), where he attained the rank of major.
Prior to coming to King's in 1989, Mr. Karsh held various academic posts at Columbia University, the Sorbonne, the London School of Economics, Helsinki University, the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in Washington D.C., and the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel-Aviv University. In 2003 he was the first Nahshon Visiting Professor in Israel Studies at Harvard.
Mr. Karsh has published extensively on the Middle East, strategic and military affairs, and European neutrality. He is the author of fifteen books, including Palestine Betrayed (Yale); Islamic Imperialism: A History (Yale); Empires of the Sand: the Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East 1798-1923 (Harvard); Fabricating Israeli History: The "New Historians" (Routledge); The Gulf Conflict 1990-1991 (Princeton); Saddam Hussein (Free Press); Arafat's War (Grove); and Neutrality and Small States (Routledge).
Mr. Karsh has appeared as a commentator on all the main British and American television networks and has contributed over 100 articles to leading newspapers and magazines, including Commentary, The Daily Telegraph, The International Herald Tribune, The London Times, The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.
He has served on many academic and professional boards; has acted as referee for numerous scholarly journals, publishers, and grant awarding organizations; has consulted the British Ministry of Defence and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as well as national and international economic companies/organizations; and has briefed several parliamentary committees. A recent CENTCOM directory of Centers of Excellence on the Middle East ranked Mr. Karsh as the fifth highly quoted academic among 20 top published authors on the Middle East, with his articles quoted three times as often as the best of the four non-American scholars on the list.
He is founding editor of the scholarly journal Israel Affairs, now in its sixteenth year, and founding general editor of a Routledge book series on Israeli History, Politics and Society.
(meforum.org)
Born and raised in Israel, Mr. Karsh earned his undergraduate degree in Arabic language and literature and modern Middle Eastern history from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and his graduate and doctoral degrees in international relations from Tel Aviv University. After acquiring his first academic degree, he served for seven years as an intelligence officer in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), where he attained the rank of major.
Prior to coming to King's in 1989, Mr. Karsh held various academic posts at Columbia University, the Sorbonne, the London School of Economics, Helsinki University, the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in Washington D.C., and the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel-Aviv University. In 2003 he was the first Nahshon Visiting Professor in Israel Studies at Harvard.
Mr. Karsh has published extensively on the Middle East, strategic and military affairs, and European neutrality. He is the author of fifteen books, including Palestine Betrayed (Yale); Islamic Imperialism: A History (Yale); Empires of the Sand: the Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East 1798-1923 (Harvard); Fabricating Israeli History: The "New Historians" (Routledge); The Gulf Conflict 1990-1991 (Princeton); Saddam Hussein (Free Press); Arafat's War (Grove); and Neutrality and Small States (Routledge).
Mr. Karsh has appeared as a commentator on all the main British and American television networks and has contributed over 100 articles to leading newspapers and magazines, including Commentary, The Daily Telegraph, The International Herald Tribune, The London Times, The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.
He has served on many academic and professional boards; has acted as referee for numerous scholarly journals, publishers, and grant awarding organizations; has consulted the British Ministry of Defence and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as well as national and international economic companies/organizations; and has briefed several parliamentary committees. A recent CENTCOM directory of Centers of Excellence on the Middle East ranked Mr. Karsh as the fifth highly quoted academic among 20 top published authors on the Middle East, with his articles quoted three times as often as the best of the four non-American scholars on the list.
He is founding editor of the scholarly journal Israel Affairs, now in its sixteenth year, and founding general editor of a Routledge book series on Israeli History, Politics and Society.
(meforum.org)
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 28, 2018
Yasser Arafat was without a doubt one of the most evil figures of the post-World War II world. He likely had more Jewish blood on his hands than anyone since Hitler (though the Ayatollhist regime in Iran, and their supporters in Hamas, Hezbollah, the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Campaign against Israel and the various Palestine solidarity groups certainly aim to finish Hitler's work today).
The author in this very exciting and very eye-opening book explains in detail what the real goals of Arafat and his Palestine Liberation Organization were, and particularly explains in detail the reasons for the failure of the Oslo Peace process of the 1990s. Karsch here proves that Arafat was not interested in peace and building up a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but his aim, as is the aim of Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, BDS etc is the total violent eradication of the State of Israel and its replacement in its entirety with an Arab Muslim-dominated state called 'Palestine'. A very good documentary on the failure of the Oslo process and the Palestinian terror war against Israel's civilian populace that followed is Relentless: The Struggle for Peace in the Middle East
Detailed here are Arafat's construction of a massive terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza, his very deliberate failure to disarm the genocidal terror groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad and the systematic program of hate and genocidal determination indoctrinated into Palestinian children and youth for the Israeli people, inculcated by the Palestinian Authority through its education system ,youth groups and Islamic religious network.
As the author explains 'To the nineteenth century military strategist Carl von Clausewitz war was the continuation of politics by other means, to Yasser Arafat peace has bveen the continuation of war by other means' From the beginning of his career in the early 1950s until his death in 2004, Violence was central to Arafat's very being and world view. 'The more he resorted to violence, the more enamored with it he became', until violence was an inextricable part of his identity. Like the Roman Emperor Nero who revelled in the sight of his imperial burning capital, Arafat feels most comfortable in wreaking and havoc and death on a large scale'
Hence the author traces how Arafat and the PLO nearly brought about the destruction of Jordan in 1970, his role in the civil war in Lebanon which Arafat helped spark in which the PLO massacred thousands of Lebanese Christians and Druze, and the PLO. support for Saddam Hussein's monstrous and deadly occupation of Kuwait in 1991.
From its launch in September 2000, the Palestinian terror campaign launched by Arafat and jointly carried out by various terrorist groups including the PLO/Fatah/Tazim/al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP , DFLP and Popular Resistance Committees-homicide bombings, mortar shelling, drive by shootings, lynching, rock throwing, stabbing , around a thousand Israelis were murdered, and tens of thousands injured and often maimed. This led to the construction by Israel of a security fence between pre-1967 Israel and the West Bank, to protect it's population, which has resulted in a hysterical campaign by Muslims and the international left to get the wall (dubbed the Apartheid Wall by the 'burn Israel' crowd, removed, presumably so more Jewish men, women and children could be murdered.
The author points out that Arafat himself was born in Egypt in 1929, and therefore does not even conform to the PLO's own definition of what a Palestinian is. A lot of the PLO, Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist leaders were born out of 'Palestine'.
While pledging peace with Israel when he signed the 1993 Oslo accord, Arafat addressing South African Muslim leaders in Johannesburg in May 1994, Arafat claimed that the Oslo agreements fell into the same category as the Treaty of Hudaibiya that was signed by Islam's founder Mohammed in 628 only to be reneged on a couple of years later when the situation tilted in Mohammed's favour.
In a plush Stockhlom hotel in January 1996 Arafat told Arab diplomats 'I have no use for Jews, They are and remain Jews. We now need all the hlp we can get from you in a united Palestine under Arab rule' continuing that 'We plan to eliminate the State of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state'
In June 2001 when a Palestinian homicide bomber blew himself up outside a Tel Aviv nightclub killing 21 Israeli teens (mainly girls) and wounding 120 others) Arafat praised the killer : 'The heroic martyrdom of the man who turned his body into a bomb, is the model of manhood and the sacrifice for Allah and his homeland' while senior Palestinian Authority cabinet minister, Ziad abu Ziad described the new Palestinian strategy ' Make them fear going to the malls or coffee shops, taking buses or trying to live normal lives'. The Palestinian terror war was never a n ordinary military encounter between two armed forces, but rather a terror assault on an unprotected civilian population
when the mass murderer and terror chief Arafat died in 2004 'progressives', the main stream world media and governments around the world. Across the Muslim world and in countries ruled by revolutionary regimes, like South Africa, streets and buildings are named after him.
His legacy of terror, murder and the drive for genocide are being furthered by Hamas, Hezbollah, the 'Palestine solidarity networks' , the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign of economic genocide against Israel, most the Muslim world community and the international left.
Peace will only come to Levant when the Arabs and all their backers realize Israel is here to stay and exists on right and not sufferance, and that a two state solution to the conflict cannot be merely a step to the eradication of Israel and its replacement by a unitary Palestine but that Israel is here to stay and will not be replaced by another Arab Muslim state.
The author in this very exciting and very eye-opening book explains in detail what the real goals of Arafat and his Palestine Liberation Organization were, and particularly explains in detail the reasons for the failure of the Oslo Peace process of the 1990s. Karsch here proves that Arafat was not interested in peace and building up a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but his aim, as is the aim of Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, BDS etc is the total violent eradication of the State of Israel and its replacement in its entirety with an Arab Muslim-dominated state called 'Palestine'. A very good documentary on the failure of the Oslo process and the Palestinian terror war against Israel's civilian populace that followed is Relentless: The Struggle for Peace in the Middle East
Detailed here are Arafat's construction of a massive terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza, his very deliberate failure to disarm the genocidal terror groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad and the systematic program of hate and genocidal determination indoctrinated into Palestinian children and youth for the Israeli people, inculcated by the Palestinian Authority through its education system ,youth groups and Islamic religious network.
As the author explains 'To the nineteenth century military strategist Carl von Clausewitz war was the continuation of politics by other means, to Yasser Arafat peace has bveen the continuation of war by other means' From the beginning of his career in the early 1950s until his death in 2004, Violence was central to Arafat's very being and world view. 'The more he resorted to violence, the more enamored with it he became', until violence was an inextricable part of his identity. Like the Roman Emperor Nero who revelled in the sight of his imperial burning capital, Arafat feels most comfortable in wreaking and havoc and death on a large scale'
Hence the author traces how Arafat and the PLO nearly brought about the destruction of Jordan in 1970, his role in the civil war in Lebanon which Arafat helped spark in which the PLO massacred thousands of Lebanese Christians and Druze, and the PLO. support for Saddam Hussein's monstrous and deadly occupation of Kuwait in 1991.
From its launch in September 2000, the Palestinian terror campaign launched by Arafat and jointly carried out by various terrorist groups including the PLO/Fatah/Tazim/al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP , DFLP and Popular Resistance Committees-homicide bombings, mortar shelling, drive by shootings, lynching, rock throwing, stabbing , around a thousand Israelis were murdered, and tens of thousands injured and often maimed. This led to the construction by Israel of a security fence between pre-1967 Israel and the West Bank, to protect it's population, which has resulted in a hysterical campaign by Muslims and the international left to get the wall (dubbed the Apartheid Wall by the 'burn Israel' crowd, removed, presumably so more Jewish men, women and children could be murdered.
The author points out that Arafat himself was born in Egypt in 1929, and therefore does not even conform to the PLO's own definition of what a Palestinian is. A lot of the PLO, Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist leaders were born out of 'Palestine'.
While pledging peace with Israel when he signed the 1993 Oslo accord, Arafat addressing South African Muslim leaders in Johannesburg in May 1994, Arafat claimed that the Oslo agreements fell into the same category as the Treaty of Hudaibiya that was signed by Islam's founder Mohammed in 628 only to be reneged on a couple of years later when the situation tilted in Mohammed's favour.
In a plush Stockhlom hotel in January 1996 Arafat told Arab diplomats 'I have no use for Jews, They are and remain Jews. We now need all the hlp we can get from you in a united Palestine under Arab rule' continuing that 'We plan to eliminate the State of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state'
In June 2001 when a Palestinian homicide bomber blew himself up outside a Tel Aviv nightclub killing 21 Israeli teens (mainly girls) and wounding 120 others) Arafat praised the killer : 'The heroic martyrdom of the man who turned his body into a bomb, is the model of manhood and the sacrifice for Allah and his homeland' while senior Palestinian Authority cabinet minister, Ziad abu Ziad described the new Palestinian strategy ' Make them fear going to the malls or coffee shops, taking buses or trying to live normal lives'. The Palestinian terror war was never a n ordinary military encounter between two armed forces, but rather a terror assault on an unprotected civilian population
when the mass murderer and terror chief Arafat died in 2004 'progressives', the main stream world media and governments around the world. Across the Muslim world and in countries ruled by revolutionary regimes, like South Africa, streets and buildings are named after him.
His legacy of terror, murder and the drive for genocide are being furthered by Hamas, Hezbollah, the 'Palestine solidarity networks' , the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign of economic genocide against Israel, most the Muslim world community and the international left.
Peace will only come to Levant when the Arabs and all their backers realize Israel is here to stay and exists on right and not sufferance, and that a two state solution to the conflict cannot be merely a step to the eradication of Israel and its replacement by a unitary Palestine but that Israel is here to stay and will not be replaced by another Arab Muslim state.
September 19, 2012
Although this book seems to be marketed as a biography, do not be mistaken. This book fails to delve deeply enough into Yasser Arafat's upbringing or psyche to be considered as such. Instead, Efraim Karsh's work should be principally read to understand the hostile and implacable mentality of Arafat his Fatah / Palestinian Authority colleagues towards Israel, particularly during the Oslo years and the subsequent breakout of the Second Intifadah, which Karsh more accurately dubs "Arafat's war of terror" (p. 9).
Where this book excels is in the clarity of its argument. Karsh cogently concludes that Arafat never intended to implement a peaceful settlement with Israel in the form of the Two-State Solution but rather desired to eliminate the State of Israel, whether by violence or by the coerced implementation of the Right of Return. Despite being party to the Oslo Accords, Arafat was never willing to make the transition from revolutionary to statesman. He always maintained the use of violence as a political tool, thus violating the spirit of Oslo.
In the words of Karsh, "From the moment of his arrival in Gaza, Arafat set out to build up an extensive terrorist infrastructure in flagrant violation of the Oslo accords and in total disregard of the overriding reason he had been brought from Tunisia [his base of operations in exile], namely, to lay the groundwork for Palestinian statehood" (p. 6). Among Arafat's violations of Oslo:
- Permitting and participating in incitement against Israel
- Failure to disarm Palestinian terrorist groups, principally Hamas and Islamic Jihad
- Reconstruction of the PLO's old terrorist apparatus in the West Bank and Gaza
- Creation of a larger Palestinian police force than permitted by the agreement, turning it into a virtual army
- Acquisition and smuggling of prohibited weapons into the territories using international money earmarked for the economic benefit of the Palestinian people
- Tacit support of terrorism against Israeli civilians when not supporting it outright
- Application of mass violence to achieve political goals, primarily the establishment of a Palestinian state within the territories and ultimately over all of Israel
While Karsh's account of Arafat is forthright and illuminating, it does suffer from some conspicuous flaws. One of the principal flaws of the book is the vitriolic tone Karsh consistently employs with regards to Arafat. For example, Karsh labels Arafat a homosexual and a "congenital liar" (p. 15) and physically characterizes him as "short (5 feet 4 inches tall), chubby, soft, with bulging eyes and [a] protruding lower lip" (p. 23). Although these assertions are more than likely true, this invective seems misplaced in what is supposed to be a serious academic debate.
Furthermore, Karsh's work suffers from a lack of "evenhandedness." Take note, by evenhandedness I am not referring to "moral symmetry." Instead, what I criticize Karsh for is his virtual inability to hold Israel responsible for any of Oslo's failings. Not once does he mention Israel failing to fulfill any of Oslo's provisions. By failing to take real note of Israeli failures vis-à-vis the Palestinians or other wrongs committed by the Israeli government or its citizens (such as the 1994 Baruch Goldstein massacre in the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron), Karsh once again takes away from the seriousness of this academic debate. And to me, that is quite unfortunate given the desperate need for a more dispassionate analysis of Yasser Arafat, who has been falsely lionized as a heroic resistance fighter.
In his achievement though, Karsh is able to characterize Arafat for who he really was--a self-interested extremist whose ultimate goal was not compromise, but destruction. For this reason, readers interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, who desire an account that contradicts the commonly-held and false view of Arafat as a hero and "man of peace," should read this book despite its imperfections.
The main conclusion I reached from this book: Although Israel may have violated certain provisions of the Oslo Accords, the Israeli government and the great majority of Israeli people truly believed in the spirit of the agreement. On the other hand, Arafat and his PLO compatriots calculatingly and systematically contravened provisions of the Oslo Accords because they never believed in the spirit of the agreement. Peaceful coexistence with two states side by side was not their dream. Israel's disappearance was forefront in their mind and their violent aggression corresponded to this mentality.
Where this book excels is in the clarity of its argument. Karsh cogently concludes that Arafat never intended to implement a peaceful settlement with Israel in the form of the Two-State Solution but rather desired to eliminate the State of Israel, whether by violence or by the coerced implementation of the Right of Return. Despite being party to the Oslo Accords, Arafat was never willing to make the transition from revolutionary to statesman. He always maintained the use of violence as a political tool, thus violating the spirit of Oslo.
In the words of Karsh, "From the moment of his arrival in Gaza, Arafat set out to build up an extensive terrorist infrastructure in flagrant violation of the Oslo accords and in total disregard of the overriding reason he had been brought from Tunisia [his base of operations in exile], namely, to lay the groundwork for Palestinian statehood" (p. 6). Among Arafat's violations of Oslo:
- Permitting and participating in incitement against Israel
- Failure to disarm Palestinian terrorist groups, principally Hamas and Islamic Jihad
- Reconstruction of the PLO's old terrorist apparatus in the West Bank and Gaza
- Creation of a larger Palestinian police force than permitted by the agreement, turning it into a virtual army
- Acquisition and smuggling of prohibited weapons into the territories using international money earmarked for the economic benefit of the Palestinian people
- Tacit support of terrorism against Israeli civilians when not supporting it outright
- Application of mass violence to achieve political goals, primarily the establishment of a Palestinian state within the territories and ultimately over all of Israel
While Karsh's account of Arafat is forthright and illuminating, it does suffer from some conspicuous flaws. One of the principal flaws of the book is the vitriolic tone Karsh consistently employs with regards to Arafat. For example, Karsh labels Arafat a homosexual and a "congenital liar" (p. 15) and physically characterizes him as "short (5 feet 4 inches tall), chubby, soft, with bulging eyes and [a] protruding lower lip" (p. 23). Although these assertions are more than likely true, this invective seems misplaced in what is supposed to be a serious academic debate.
Furthermore, Karsh's work suffers from a lack of "evenhandedness." Take note, by evenhandedness I am not referring to "moral symmetry." Instead, what I criticize Karsh for is his virtual inability to hold Israel responsible for any of Oslo's failings. Not once does he mention Israel failing to fulfill any of Oslo's provisions. By failing to take real note of Israeli failures vis-à-vis the Palestinians or other wrongs committed by the Israeli government or its citizens (such as the 1994 Baruch Goldstein massacre in the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron), Karsh once again takes away from the seriousness of this academic debate. And to me, that is quite unfortunate given the desperate need for a more dispassionate analysis of Yasser Arafat, who has been falsely lionized as a heroic resistance fighter.
In his achievement though, Karsh is able to characterize Arafat for who he really was--a self-interested extremist whose ultimate goal was not compromise, but destruction. For this reason, readers interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, who desire an account that contradicts the commonly-held and false view of Arafat as a hero and "man of peace," should read this book despite its imperfections.
The main conclusion I reached from this book: Although Israel may have violated certain provisions of the Oslo Accords, the Israeli government and the great majority of Israeli people truly believed in the spirit of the agreement. On the other hand, Arafat and his PLO compatriots calculatingly and systematically contravened provisions of the Oslo Accords because they never believed in the spirit of the agreement. Peaceful coexistence with two states side by side was not their dream. Israel's disappearance was forefront in their mind and their violent aggression corresponded to this mentality.
May 15, 2020
Written by an Israeli; hence, must be read with caution.
February 2, 2008
I don't miss Arafat at all.
Read
July 28, 2014This was some read. Bewteen the Israeli's and the Palestinians, I really don't know. No wonder they are having big problems.
December 29, 2014
A completely different perspective. An Israeli perspective on one of the most controversial leaders of 20th Century.
July 9, 2016
An excellent review of the course from Oslo to Defensive Shield. Important reading.
March 25, 2008
Things between Israel & Palastine make a bit more sense after reading this book.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews