Birth: 1/1/1916 Death:26/1/2012
Born in Khan Younis in 1916; participated in armed resistance during the revolts of 1939 and the Nakba of 1948; among the leaders of the Holy Salvation Army and in the battles at Al-Qastal in 1948; co-founder (with Abdullah Rimawi and Abdullah Ni’was) of the Ba’ath Arab Party’s branch in Ramallah (Renaissance Party) in 1952 and member of its leadership from 1949-59; member of the first PLO Exec. Committee established in Aug. 1964, where he headed the opposition to Ahmed Shuqeiri; member of the PNC; formed, together with Subhi Ghosheh and Ishaq Duzdar, the Civilian Resistance Committee in Jerusalem in May 1967; once more on the PLO Exec. Committee in 1971-72; joined the Rejectionist Front in 1974; stood for PNC presidency in 1977, but was defeated by Khaled Fahum; later head of the Ibrahimiyyeh College in Jerusalem; published his war memoirs – In the Midst of the Struggle for the Arab-Palestinian Cause: The Memoirs of Freedom Fighter Bahjat Abu Gharbieh, 1916-1949 (Arabic, Institute for Palestine Studies, 1993), describing his role in the Palestinian resistance particularly during the Great Rebellion (1936-1939) against the British and the 1948 War; addressed a major right-of-return rally in Amman in December 2001; a second volume of his memoirs covering the period between the Nakba and the Intifada (1949-2000) is published by the Arab Institute for Research and Publication in 2005. He died on January 26th, 2012.
