You mean when he was born in what is now Israel, there weren't any Palestinian refugees? True enough.

As his birth certificate shows, Arafat was born in Cairo, Egypt. Only revisionist anti-Israel propagandists now give any shrift to his revisionist claim of being born in Jerusalem.

He also attended Cairo University from 1952-1956 and then served in the Egyptian Army during the Suez conflict.

It was only well after the founding of Fatah, circa 1960, when he already into his 30s, that Arafat began claiming to have been born in Jerusalem.

Encyclopedia bio of Arafat.