Birth: NULL/NULL/1925 Death:NULL/NULL/2008
Born in Lydda on 26 Aug. 1925 to a Palestinian Greek Orthodox family; won a scholarship and studied Medicine at the AUB from 1944-1951; witnessed the mass expulsion from Lydda after the city’s fall on 14 July 1948; formed there the ‘Organization to Oppose Political Settlement with Israel’, and became founding member of the ANM in 1951 with Wadie Haddad, a fellow Palestinian, and Hani Al-Hindi, a Syrian; was its representative on the Exec. Committee of the National Conference; Pan-Arabist and Nasser-supporter in early years; moved to Jordan in 1956, was arrested for political activities, left for Damascus, was expelled in 1963 and relocated in Lebanon; called for fighting the national struggle for Palestine in a united Arab struggle; formed ‘Palestinian Chapters’ of the ANM in May 1964 to organize cells to carry out armed struggle against Israel; after the War of 1967, turned leftwards in his political thinking, established the PFLP in Dec. 1967, and became its Sec.-Gen.; led a ‘rejectionist’ front within the PLO after the Oct. 1973 War, when the PLO seemed to be ready for a possible accommodation with Israel; staged a reconciliation with Yasser Arafat in 1979, and joined with the PFLP the PLO Exec. Committee in 1981; left to Damascus in 1982 (where he stayed until moving to Amman due to his deteriorating health in 1992); led a National Salvation Front, in protest at the PLO’s short-lived consensus with Jordan; rejoined the PLO at the 1987 PNC conference, after the PLO-Jordan alliance had collapsed; at the PNC in Nov. 1988, gave approval to the Algiers Declaration (endorsing a two-state option and renouncing terrorism); was highly critical of the PFLP’s 2nd generation leadership at the 5th Congress in Feb. 1993; opposed to the Oslo Accords; resigned as Sec.-Gen. in April 2000 after 33 years and established a research center in Amman, Jordan.
