Palestinians in US recall Arafat as a unifier, symbol of nationhood.

Please note: Arafat was a terrorist, by any definition of the word. Each person quoted in this article is objectively expressing their support and approval of terrorism.

Palestinian-American Ray Hanania recalled how he and his family gathered in front of their television set to watch Arafat address the United Nations general assembly in 1974. “We were second-class citizens. He forced everybody to respect us,” said Hanania, whose parents were Palestinian refugees. “He took the Palestinians out of oblivion and shoved them in everybody’s face,” he said.

Rima Nashashibi saw the process first hand. “Palestinians were invisible in 1968,” recalled Nashashibi, who was born in Jerusalem and bounced between Israel and the United States before settling in Orange County, California. Arafat “put them back on the map. He kept the struggle alive, and generated world-wide support for the Palestinian cause.” …

Arafat “was the dominant image, the dominant name for young Palestinians,” said Nihad Awad, the executive-director of a prominent US Islamic advocacy organisation, the Washington, D.C.-based Council on Islamic-American Relations. “He was the Nelson Mandela of the Palestinians,” he said.

As a young man Awad was struck by Arafat’s dedication to the project of Palestinian self-determination. “You never saw him out of uniform. He gave his personal life for the cause,” Awad said.