Born in Jaffa in 13 Jan. 1932; grew up in Jaffa and got educated at Al-Amiriyya School (with Ibrahim Abu Lughod and Farouk Qaddoumi); left with his family in the course of the 1948 Nakba to Beirut; received a BA in Psychology from the AUB in 1953; worked as a teacher at Al-Maqassed School in Beirut and later in secondary schools in Kuwait from 1954-58; returned to Beirut and worked in journalism, gaining a reputation as a Nasserist writer; was Director of Al-Hawadeth weekly magazine from 1958-64; in 1961, also founding member and leading figure of the Palestinian Liberation Front (PLF), which established the Abtal Al-Awda (Heroes of the Return) group in the 1960s and circulated the bulletin Tariq Al-Awda (Path of Return); served as Deputy Sec.-Gen. of the Arab Journalists Union from 1963-67; attended the first PNC meeting in 1964; formed an alliance with Ahmed Shuqeiri; resigned from Al-Hawadeth in 1964 to join the PLO; was appointed by the PLO Exec. Committee as PLO representative in Beirut in Oct. 1964 (serving until his resignation in 1993); Exec. Committee member of the International Organization of Journalists from 1964-76; founding member of the Union of Palestinian Writers since 1966; served as PLO Exec. Committee member in 1966-67 and again from 1991-93; member of the PNC; served as PLO representative to the UNGA on various occasions during the years 1974-93; escaped an assassination attempt by As-Sai’qa in 1976; founding member of the Arab National Conference since 1992; suspended his participation in the Exec. Committee on 23 Aug. 1993, in protest against the manner in which the negotiations with Israel were conducted, and called for an extraordinary PNC meeting; resigned on 10 Sep. 1993 from all his PLO posts - except his seat in the PNC - in protest against the impending signing of the DoP; was one of nine PLO Exec. Committee members who signed a statement rejecting the Oslo II Agreement on 4 Oct. 1995; remains critical of the PLO leadership’s stance; helps in coordinating the Damascus groups; member of the National Islamic Conference since 1996; founding member of Mu’tamar Al-Awda (the Return Conference) since 2002; has written numerous articles, essays and books, incl. The Left and Arab Nationalism (Arabic, Cairo, 1959); The Palestinian between Diaspora and State (Arabic, Beirut, 1977): Moments of History (Arabic, Jeddah, 1986); Twenty Years with the PLO: Memoirs (Arabic, Beirut, 1986); Gaza-Jericho Agreement First: The Inadmissible Agreement (Arabic, Beirut, 1994).
He died at the age of 77 on August 2, 2009. The cause of his death was not clear, but an official at the Palestinian National Authority said he died of cancer.**


** Wikipedia



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