The death of Yassir Arafat in November 2004 marked the end of a political era. For forty years, he was the national symbol of the Palestinians in their struggle for a state of their own and one of the key figures in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Amnon Kapeliuk proves to be an intimate connoisseur of Arafat, having met and interviewed him over one hundred fifty times—more than any other journalist. Knowledgeable and engaging, he describes Arafat's political journey from guerrilla fighter to statesman: his childhood between Cairo and Jerusalem, the founding of the resistance organization Fatah in 1959, his assumption of the PLO chairmanship in 1969, the years in exile in Jordan, Lebanon, and Tunisia, Arafat's advocacy for a two-state solution to resolve the conflict, the failure of the Oslo peace process, and his final years under Israeli siege in Ramallah.