Obituary:
Unity in struggle
George Habash (1925-2008)
It is perhaps no surprise after so much use that the heart of George Habash, who struggled his whole life for the liberation of Palestine, should give way. A lifelong advocate of Arab unity and a single state Palestine of all of its citizens, Habash never accepted that justice was but an idea or that a land and its people could be seized and erased. He died at the age of 82 in Amman on Saturday.
George Habash was born on 1 August 1925 into a wealthy Greek Orthodox family in the Palestinian city of Lydda. In summer 1948, while still a student at the American University in Beirut's medical school, he returned back to Lydda to try and organise resistance. He and his whole family, along with 95 per cent of the city's inhabitants, were forced out at gunpoint by Zionist gangs under the leadership of Itzhak Rabin. Of the violence unleashed in the wake of the creation of the state of Israel, Habash later said: "It is a sight I shall never forget. Thousands of human beings expelled from their homes, running, crying, shouting in terror. After seeing such a thing, you cannot but become a revolutionary."
In 1951, Habash graduated from the AUB top among his class and was appointed a junior staff member. A year later he had to resign the post because of his political activities, and he moved to Jordan where he opened a clinic in Amman. In 1952 he came to prominence as a founding member of the Arab Nationalist Movement, aligned to and inspired by the pan-Arabism of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel-Nasser.
His concern for Arab unity, however, did not prevent him speaking out against tainted Arab regimes. As Habash said many years later in a remarkable address entitled "Palestine Between Dreams and Reality", delivered on the occasion of his stepping down from leadership of the PFLP in 2000: "only rarely will a regime find itself in the same trench as the masses." Siding with the people was one of the constants of his political life.
Because of his outspoken denunciation of official Arab regimes, Habash spent much of his life moving uneasily between Arab capitals. He was also continually hunted by Israeli intelligence agencies. A key figure in the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) until the June 1967 Arab defeat, Habash founded the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in December 1967. While, attending a meeting in Damascus the following year, Habash was arrested, spending a few month in Jail in Syria, before the PFLP succeeded in smuggling him out of prison and whisked him off to Beirut. From there he went to Cairo, where he met Nasser and discussed with him the necessity of popular armed struggle against Israel.
In 1970, the PFLP grasped worldwide attention when it blew up four hijacked airliners -- three at Dawson's Field in the Jordanian desert, and one in Cairo -- having first disembarked all the crew and all passengers. Deeply incensed, King Hussein of Jordan expelled the PLO and all its factions from Jordan, in what would become known as "Black September".
From 1974, Habash emerged as the most-staunch opponent of the policy of compromise adopted by the PLO under Yasser Arafat, ruling out political negotiations with Israel and accusing Arafat of diverting the revolutionary Palestinian movement. While secular in orientation, Habash cultivated links with the Islamist Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in opposing the 1993 Oslo Accords. He refused to set foot on the "autonomous territories" assigned to the newly-establish Palestinian Authority in 1994, insisting on the full right of return of Palestinian refugees in accordance with international law.
In 2000, Habash stepped down as leader of the PFLP, but never abandoned his principled struggle on behalf of justice for the Palestinian people. His justification for stepping down was that he wanted to give an example for others, by proving that political leaders can continue struggling for their ideals outside official posts. Even in his final hours, this Palestinian son followed developments in Gaza, called for unity, and denounced the attempts of US President Bush to annul the right of Palestinian refugees to return.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared a three-day period of mourning in the wake of his death. It is indeed certain that Palestinians of all political currents will feel in these days the loss of this force. But Habash himself was both wise and humble enough to know that the manoeuvres of the opponents of justice and dignity hold no sway. As he once said, "the decline that the Arab Nation is living through is preparing the way for a sweeping popular revival. A thing gives rise to its opposite."
George Habash who died on 24 January in Amman is survived by his wife Hilda, and their two daughters, Messa and Lamma.
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