Birth: 1/1/1939 Death:1/1/1981
Born in Zababdeh near Jenin on 30 Dec. 1939 into a Christian family; received his primary education in Zababdeh; his father was wounded in 1946 and taken to Jenin to be hospitalized but did not survive the trip and disappeared; was sent to the Latin Theological Seminary in Beit Jala in 1958, where education was focused on the study of theology, philosophy and music; completed his studies in 1964; believed in Liberation Theology; worked in the Terra Sancta High School in Amman, Jordan in 1964, teaching Religion, Arabic and English, and later French and Music to Christian religious schools until 1965; took some courses by Latin Fathers in Jerusalem in 1965; went to study to Paris but could not live there; returned to Jerusalem but soon after went to Belgium to study at the Faculty of Law at Louvain University; in 1966, became Pres. of the Union of Arab Students there; joined Fateh following the events of 1967 and was appointed its representative to Belgium in 1969; received a PhD in International Law from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), in 1970; served in the Saudi Arabian representative office, then in the Arab League office, 1971; worked for a European recognition of the PLO, especially during the European Summit on 14-15 Dec. 1973, which later led to the EU’s Venice Declaration in 1980; was PLO representative in Brussels from 1975, incl. representing the PLO at the European Parliament; was invited to a conference organized by the Jewish Progressive Union of Belgium on 10 May 1976, which led to the recognition of the PLO by the first Jewish organization in Belgium; contributed to the recognition of the Belgian government of the PLO in Oct. 1976 and the opening of the first PLO office in Brussels on 18 Nov. 1976; was deeply involved in Arab-European dialogue since 1976; co-edited, with Fawzi Al-Asmar, the book Towards a Socialist Republic of Palestine in 1978; was assassinated in Brussels on 1 June 1981 by a gunman; his coffin was taken to Beirut on 5 June, where Yasser Arafat paid tribute, then to Amman, where he was buried.
