Birth: NULL/NULL/1939 Death:NULL/NULL/NULL
Born in Al-Masmiyah village, near Gaza, on 23 March 1939; was displaced during the Nakba in Aug. 1948 and lived with his family for one year in Gaza, then moved to Damascus; received elementary and secondary education in Damascus; worked as craftsman until 1958; then studied at Damascus University, from where he received a Licentiate in Philosophy, Sociology and Psychology in 1964; worked as a teacher during his university studies; moved to Algeria in 1964 and worked as editor of Palestinian and Arab issues in Al-Shabab weekly newspaper; returned to Damascus in 1965 and worked at Al-Ba’ath daily magazine, becoming Director of its News Dept. and editor of its opinion page; also wrote political programs for the Syrian Radio and Television; joined the PLO in the late 1960s; was editor-in-chief of the PLO magazine Al-Tala’e’ in 1970 and editorial board member of the Sawt Filastin magazine; was banned by Syrian authorities from writing in the Syrian press after 1971; served as Vice-Pres. of the PLO office in Moscow from 1977-1978; returned to Damascus in 1978 and worked for the PLO Political Dept., serving as head of Media and Public Relations; started working as a free-lance writer in 1979; also became researcher in the PLO’s Palestine Research Center in Beirut and Secretary, then editor-in-chief of its periodical Shu’un Filastiniyya; was deported from Beirut after 1983 and the PLO’s Palestine Research Center was closed down by Lebanese authorities; moved to Nicosia, Cyprus, where the Center re-opened and resumed its work; was representative of the Writers’ Union in the PNC in 1984; resigned from his work for Shu’un Filastiniya in 1985; became member of the PNC (independent) in 1988; moved to Vienna in 1989 and worked as freelance writer; returned to Palestine in 1995; was awarded the Palestinian Prize for Biographical Work by the PA Ministry of Culture in Dec. 2004 for his biography published in different volumes during 1994-2002 (one volume was recently added in 2005); other works include The Roots of Palestinian Refusal – 1918-1948 (Cyprus, 1990).
