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Yasser Arafat, Leader of Palestinian Movement, Dies (Update2) Nov. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who rose from the ranks of guerrilla fighters to share a Nobel Peace Prize with his Israeli archenemies only to watch the peace process later unravel, died today. He was 75. Arafat died at the Percy military hospital in Clamart, south of Paris, Palestinian officials said at a news conference in the West Bank. He slipped into a deep coma two days ago, suffering from a brain hemorrhage. Arafat's death followed days of conflicting and confusing reports about the state of his health since he was airlifted from his Muqata headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Oct. 29 for treatment of a mysterious illness. Palestinian leaders yesterday agreed that Arafat will be buried at the Muqata compound after a ceremony in Cairo. Palestinians wanted him buried in Jerusalem. The Israeli cabinet approved Ramallah. Fearing a challenge to his authority, Arafat never groomed or named a successor. Under Palestinian Authority law, the Legislative Council Speaker Rawhi Fattouh becomes interim president of the Palestinian Authority. Fattouh may be sworn in today, Reuters reported. Elections must be held within 60 days. Bush, Blair "We express our condolences to the Palestinian people," U.S. President George W. Bush said in a statement issued by the White House early today. "We hope that the future will bring peace and the fulfillment of their aspirations for an independent democratic Palestine that is at peace with its neighbors." U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, who will meet with Bush tomorrow to discuss how to revive the Middle East peace process, today called Arafat "a huge icon for the Palestinian people." "Whatever differences we had with him, I think it is right to recognize that," Blair said in an interview with the U.K.'s GMTV. Arafat, who was also chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was elected Palestinian Authority president in 1996. "Irreplaceable" Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, who saw Arafat two days ago at the hospital, and Mahmoud Abbas, his predecessor, have been touted as possible successors. Arafat differed with both and blocked their attempts to limit his powers. Abbas today was appointed to Arafat's seat as head of the PLO. "Arafat is irreplaceable," said Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the al- Quds al-Arabi newspaper, who knew Arafat for 25 years. "He's a hero, not only to the Palestinian people, but to many Arabs, too." Arafat spent the last years of his life holed up in his battered and sand-bagged Ramallah headquarters. He was officially declared an "enemy" by Israel in March 2002, and Israeli troops have surrounded his compound since then. "They either want to kill me, or capture me, or expel me," Arafat told al-Jazeera television in May 2002. "I hope I will be a martyr in the Holy Land. I have chosen this path and if I fall, one day a Palestinian child will raise the Palestinian flag above our mosques and churches." "Irrelevant" Israeli leader Shimon Peres once called Arafat a "fruitcake." Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon labeled him "irrelevant." To Palestinians and the Arab world, though, Arafat was the eternal warrior, the architect of the Palestinian national movement for an independent state. The Vatican today expressed hope that peace would come to the Holy Land, leading to "two independent, sovereign states," according to spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Vals. Arafat "was a very charismatic leader, who loved his people and who tried to lead them toward independence," Navarro-Vals said. "It is the end of an era," said German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer in a faxed statement. "With the death of President Yasser Arafat the Palestinian people have lost their historic leader." Parkinson's Disease Arafat almost always dressed in olive-green fatigues with a black and white checkered headscarf wrapped around a face of stubble. In his latter years, his lips trembled and his hands shook violently, both are often symptoms of Parkinson's disease. Aides denied reports that he suffered from the disorder. Arafat was obsessed with details and insisted on signing every check himself. As for money, the English-language Arab News said two days ago that Arafat had signed over as much as $6.5 billion to his wife before lapsing into a coma last week. The Saudi-owned newspaper, citing unidentified Palestinians, said Arafat's signing of a will giving her authority over the money pitched her into a battle with Palestinian leaders who believe the money belongs to the Palestinian people. An International Monetary Fund report said on Sept. 20 that Arafat had diverted $900 million of his government's revenue to private bank accounts from 1995 through 2000. He moved Palestinian Authority gas taxes into an account at Bank Leumi Le-Israel in Tel Aviv, and diverted tobacco and alcohol taxes, as well as other revenue, into other accounts, according to the IMF report on the Palestinian economy. Bank Leumi, Israel's largest state-owned bank, has declined to comment on the Arafat account, the existence of which was previously disclosed. "Most of it has been used to invest in Palestinian assets at home and abroad," Karim Nashashibi, the IMF representative to the West Bank and Gaza, said during a presentation of the report at an annual IMF and World Bank meeting in Dubai. UN Speech Arafat preferred to work at night, catnapping a few hours at a time during daylight. He also was prone to emotional outbursts and dramatics, as in his 1974 appearance at the United Nations, which granted observer status to the Palestine Liberation Organization. During his speech, Arafat waved a leafy branch above his head and said: "I come bearing an olive branch in one hand." He then pulled out a pistol and said: "And the freedom fighter's gun in the other. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand." Marriage A Muslim, Arafat for years said he had no time for a family, describing himself as ``wedded'' to the Palestinian cause. In 1991, he married his aide, Suha Taweel, 28, a French- educated Christian who converted to Islam. The couple had one daughter, Zahwa. Before Arafat was flown to Paris for medical treatment, his wife hadn't seen him since 2001. When Palestinian leaders sought to see Arafat at the hospital two days ago, they encountered resistance from his wife, who told al-Jazeera television in an interview that they wanted "to bury Arafat alive." She finally allowed only Qureia to see him. Arafat dedicated his life to the Palestinian cause, from supplying arms as a teenager to the Palestinians before the 1947 war to leading the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Vilified by most Israelis as a terrorist, his picture adorns many Palestinian homes. Assassinations Arafat's death follows the Israeli assassinations of Hamas leaders Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and his successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, in March and April. After a Palestinian attack on Israelis, Sharon said in an interview with Israel television's Channel Two on April 23 that he was no longer bound by a pledge to President Bush that he wouldn't harm Arafat. Arafat was born Mohammed Abdel-Rahman Abdel-Raouf Arafat Al-Qudwa Al- Husseini in Cairo on Aug. 4, 1929, according to a birth certificate that he said was incorrect. He gave his birthplace as Jerusalem. He was the sixth of seven children. His father, a successful merchant, came from Gaza and his mother from Jerusalem. At a young age, relatives and friends started calling him Yasser, or "easy-going." Arafat's mother died when he was 4, and he went to live with an uncle in Jerusalem, which at the time was a British protectorate. It was then that Arafat was exposed to fighting between Arabs and Jews. Studied Engineering Arafat studied engineering at Cairo University, and while there he studied Jewish life, associated with Jews and read the works of Zionists. By 1946, he had become a Palestinian nationalist and was obtaining weapons in Egypt to be smuggled into Palestine. He left his studies to fight Israel in the first Arab- Israeli war, after Arab nations rejected a 1947 UN vote to split the British mandate area into separate Jewish and Arab states and sought to destroy Israel after it declared independence in 1948. Arafat later said he and compatriots were disarmed and turned back by other Arabs who didn't want the help of Palestinian irregulars. After the Israelis won the war, the Palestinians, including the 750,000 who fled or were forced out of what is now Israel, were left without a state of their own, even though there was a provision in a 1947 UN agreement to create one. Organizes Fatah Arafat was an engineer in Kuwait with his own contracting business when in 1958 he helped found the Palestinian National Liberation Movement, or Fatah, dedicated to Palestinian statehood. In 1965, the group launched its first military operation against Israel. Arafat rose to prominence after the battle of Karameh, Jordan, in March 1968, when Palestinian guerrillas and Jordanian soldiers repelled an Israeli armored force of 15,000 men. While Israel inflicted 10 times more casualties on the Palestinians than it suffered, the battle lifted Palestinian morale and led to a flood of volunteers for Arafat's Fatah movement. ``What we have done is to make the world realize that the Palestinian is no longer "Refugee No. So-and-So,' but the member of a people who hold the reins of their own destiny and are in a position to determine their own future," Arafat said after the battle. Within a year of Karameh, Arafat became chairman of the PLO, an umbrella group of Palestinian organizations, with Fatah its largest member. He would hold the post until his death. Moves PLO to Lebanon In the Six Day War of 1967, Israel emerged victorious and captured the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt. In 1968, Arafat and his fighters inflicted a significant defeat on Israeli troops who entered Jordan. Israeli retaliation for Palestinian attacks from Jordan, challenges to King Hussein's authority, and finally a Palestinian attempt to kill the king, sparked a Jordanian war against the Palestinians in 1970. By 1971, the last of the Palestinian fighters was driven from the kingdom. Arafat moved his headquarters to Lebanon, from where the PLO launched attacks against Israel. In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon to drive out the PLO, which was evacuated under international supervision. Arafat's PLO then based itself in Tunis, where in 1988 it proclaimed a Palestinian state. During this period, the PLO recognized UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, implicitly acknowledging Israel's right to exist and abandoning the goal of eliminating the Jewish state. Madrid Conference The Israeli-Palestinian peace process began with the Madrid Conference in 1991. Two years later, Arafat and Israel signed accords granting mutual recognition and creating an autonomous Palestinian body to rule over parts of the West Bank and Gaza for a five-year interim period. In 1992, Arafat survived a deadly plane crash in the Sahara Desert. Another agreement between Arafat and the Israelis, in 1995, provided for an expansion of Palestinian self-rule. In between the two accords, Arafat was awarded the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize, which he shared with Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Peres. At their Camp David, Maryland, summit in July 2000, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered Arafat about 90 percent of the West Bank, and administrative control over some of east Jerusalem, including Islam's third-holiest place, the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex. Rejects Offer Arafat rejected the offer, arguing that Israel didn't cede enough of east Jerusalem or address adequately the needs of more than 5 million Palestinian refugees scattered around the Arab world who are seeking to return to their homes in what is today Israel. "There's no way Arafat could have sold that deal to his people or to the rest of the Arab world," al-Quds' Atwan said. In September 2000, a Palestinian uprising against Israel began. Israeli-Palestinian negotiations halted, and Sharon, Barak's successor, said there would be no peace talks as long as the violence continued. In July 2004, Qureia offered his resignation as prime minister after Arafat named his cousin Moussa Arafat security chief, sparking cries of corruption and cronyism. Arafat refused to accept the resignation. Following a week of dissent that included the burning of the Palestinian Authority offices in the Gaza Strip, Arafat asked Brigadier General Abdel Razek Majaide to return to the top security post. He put his cousin in a senior security job in Gaza. Qureia later retracted his resignation. On Aug. 18, 2004, Arafat said the Palestinian leadership had made mistakes and used "unacceptable practices." He promised to correct the mistakes and called for a "comprehensive workshop of reforms." 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