Yasser Arafat Signed Time Magazine Cover.

ARAFAT, Yasser.

$1,250.00

Item Number: 146623

Rare Time Magazine Latin American Edition cover from the December 13, 1968 issue. Octavo, one page, featuring a reproduction of a bust portrait of Yasser Arafat painted by Hector Garrido. Signed and dated by Arafat in Arabic at the upper right. In near fine condition with mail folds.

Yasser Arafat was chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization from 1969 to 2004 and president of the Palestinian National Authority from 1994 to 2004. Ideologically an Arab nationalist and a socialist, Arafat was a founding member of the Fatah political party, which he led from 1959 until 2004. In the latter part of the 1950s, Arafat co-founded Fatah, a paramilitary organization which sought Israel's replacement with a Palestinian state; however, in 1988, he acknowledged Israel's right to exist and sought a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and in 1994, he returned to Palestine, settling in Gaza City and promoting self-governance for the Palestinian territories. Arafat remains a controversial figure. Palestinians generally view him as a martyr who symbolized the national aspirations of his people, while many Israelis regarded him as a terrorist. Palestinian rivals, including Islamists and several PLO radicals, frequently denounced him as corrupt or too submissive in his concessions to the Israeli government.