Go to: Respected as a tough leader, Yasser Arafat used humor to make a point. At the insistence of then-U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, Arafat condemned terrorism at a U.N. meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1988. Shultz was not satisfied and wrote a statement for Arafat to read. That evening, according to "The Fifty Years War: Israel and the Arabs," Arafat told reporters, "The executive committee of the PLO, I repeat for the record, totally and absolutely renounces all forms of tourism. Sorry, I meant terrorism." After reading Shultz's statement, he quipped, "What more do you want me to do? Striptease?"