7 - 13 June 2001
Issue No.537
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 7 - 13 June 2001 Issue No.537 |
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The death of Faisal Al-Husseini, the senior PLO official whose family home in East Jerusalem, the Orient House, served as headquarters for an informal Palestinian Jerusalem Municipality and was an essential stop on the itineraries of foreign statesmen and diplomats seeking a more comprehensive picture of the Palestinian struggle, is a great loss to all Arabs. He will be sorely missed, particularly by the people of Jerusalem, a city with which the name Al-Husseini will be forever linked.
Faisal was the son of Abdel-Qader Al-Husseini, who died defending Jerusalem in the battle of Al-Kastel just a few days before the establishment of the State of Israel, and a grandson of Moussa Kazem Pasha Al-Husseini, one of the commanders who led the early struggle in Palestine from 1919 to 1933 and who died in 1934 after being injured in a demonstration protesting British connivance with the Zionists. For the past 30 years Faisal Al-Husseini occupied a central role in the struggle for an Arab Jerusalem. Born in 1940 in Iraq, where his father had been exiled by the British, he was educated at the Baghdad military academy. An officer in the Palestine Liberation Army, Al-Husseini returned to East Jerusalem after its occupation in 1967 to organise popular resistance. He spent several years in Israeli jails and under house arrest. Al-Husseini died in Kuwait on Thursday. He is survived by his wife, Najat, a son, Abdel-Qader, 25, and daughter, Fadwa, 23.
The last post
Faisal Al-Husseini is dead, yet Palestinians are determined to continue his struggle, reports Khaled Amayreh from Jerusalem
The sudden death of Faisal Al-Husseini shocked and saddened all Palestinians. That hundreds of thousands of ordinary Palestinians paid homage to him by taking part in his funeral procession, however, underscored their determination to carry on with his legacy: the struggle for freedom and justice in Jerusalem and the whole of Palestine.
Al-Husseini, son of Abdel-Qader Al-Husseini, the late commander of the famous 1948 battle of Al-Kastel in what is now West Jerusalem, died of a heart attack on 31 May in Kuwait, where he was attending a conference against normalisation with Israel. His body was flown to Amman aboard a private Kuwaiti airplane on the instructions of Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah.
On Friday 1 June, a Jordanian helicopter transported his coffin to Ramallah, where Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and other top Palestinian officials paid their last homage to the man whom many considered Arafat's most likely successor.
"You are our leader and son of our leader, the martyr Abdul-Qader Al-Husseini," said Arafat in a suffocated voice. "We shall not forget that you carried the burden of Jerusalem on your shoulders. We shall continue the journey after you until the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital."
Arafat had cut short a visit to Belgium to return to Ramallah for the funeral. While in Brussels, he charged that Israel was at least partly responsible for Al-Husseini's death, as the strong tear gas bombs Israeli police had fired at Al-Husseini during a recent demonstration in Jerusalem may have lead to his death, as Al-Husseini was known to have suffered from a chronic respiratory disease.
The funeral of Faisal Al-Husseini proceeding to the family cemetery close to Al-Aqsa Mosque where he was buried next to his father. Below: the funeral of Abdel-Qader Al-Husseini in April 1948
(photos: AP, AFP& Al-Ahram archives)In Ramallah, a military cortege flanked by an honour guard carried the coffin slowly through the streets amid a sea of humanity chanting Allah Akbar (God is Great). The funeral proceeding was then transferred to East Jerusalem, where the procession began at Orient House, Al-Husseini's headquarters.
There, the outpouring of grief was overwhelming, as thousands of mourners from all walks of life and representing various political and religious orientations came to pay their last tribute to the leader of a people long tormented by insidious racial discrimination.
"He is the legitimate son of this city; he carried its burden with him wherever he went. Today Jerusalem mourns her son," said tearful Mahdi Abdul-Hadi, who heads a Jerusalem research centre.
In the afternoon, Al-Husseini's coffin was moved to the esplanade of Al-Aqsa Mosque. After the final rites, Al-Husseini was laid to rest beside his father and his grandfather Musa Kazem Al-Husseini, former mayor of Jerusalem during the late Ottoman era and the early British mandate.
Before the burial, young Palestinians converging on Al-Haram Al-Sharif (the noble sanctuary for the Arabs, and Temple Mount for the Israelis) in the thousands, unconcerned about the onerous presence of the Israeli police, removed Israeli flags and hoisted Palestinian and black flags atop the towers overlooking the Muslim world's third holiest sanctuary.
The Israeli police, which generally kept a low profile and allowed many Palestinians from outside Jerusalem into the city for the first time in years, did not try to remove the flags -- and for good reason. The atmosphere was so charged with emotion that the smallest miscalculation could have triggered a bloodbath.
The funeral procession was enormous by any standard. Indeed, some of Jerusalem's eldest citizens said they had not witnessed such a large funeral procession in many years, probably since the death of Al-Husseini's father in April 1948.
"The Palestinians seemed to have succeeded in retaking control of the city for a few hours," said the Israeli police chief. "This huge multitude of people is a testimony that the Palestinian people will not forget Jerusalem, the holy city for which Faisal Al-Husseini lived, struggled and eventually died," remarked Al-Quds newspaper.
Many right-wing Israelis spoke indignantly of the presence of so many Palestinians, and Israeli minister Rahba'am Zevi called Al-Husseini "a terrorist and son of a terrorist." Early on Friday, an extremist Jewish group known as "families of victims of terror" petitioned the Israeli High Court to block Al-Husseini's burial at Al-Haram Al-Sharif.
The court ruled that the petition had been submitted too late, as the funeral was already under way. Al-Husseini, who believed in the possibility of peace between Palestinians and Israelis, was among the first Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) members to conduct secret meetings with Israeli officials. He was expressing the Palestinians' genuine desire for a true peace with Israel, based on the "two states for two peoples" formula, with an undivided and open Jerusalem serving as capital for the two states, Israel and Palestine.
However, successive Israeli governments refused to negotiate with a proud Palestinian who, while reaching out for peace, was uncompromising about Arab rights in the city. Al-Husseini used to tell the Israelis that if they insisted on annexing the whole of Jerusalem and the whole of Palestine, then the Palestinians would likewise demand the liberation of Palestine from the river Jordan to the Mediterranean.
Al-Husseini made strenuous efforts, often against impossible odds and constant Israeli intimidation, to consolidate and strengthen Arab presence in Jerusalem. In 1979 he founded the Arab Study Centre, a think-tank specialised in Israeli affairs. The centre eventually became a symbol of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation and was consequently closed down several times.
Al-Husseini also encouraged local youth to remain steadfast and resist Israeli ethnic cleansing using all legal means at their disposal. In the last few years of his life, however, Al-Husseini sounded the alarm about Israeli efforts to drive Arabs out of Jerusalem. He often said: "I am not worried about the children of Jerusalem mourning their mother-town; I am worried about Jerusalem mourning her children."
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