Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Helmy Youssef Musleh Hanoun (Abu
Youssef, 1913 - July 29, 2001) was a Palestinian politician and leader from the
city of Tulkarem, and a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization. In
which he announced the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organization,
and Hanoun was the first to announce from inside Palestine in the early
seventies that the Palestine Liberation Organization is the sole and legitimate
representative of the Palestinian people, for the first time since Israel took
control of the Palestinian territories in 1967 and at a time when the Palestine
Liberation Organization and its leadership were It is located outside
Palestine, and the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, dubbed him "the
affectionate of Palestine."
His upbringing and education
Helmy Youssef Musleh Hanoun, from
the city of Tulkarm, was born in 1913 in the city of Jaffa, when his father was
working there at the time. Helmy Hanoun joined the American University of
Beirut, where he obtained a bachelor's degree in commerce in 1934. During his
studies at the university, he excelled in tennis and took over the leadership
of the university's tennis team.
his political life
Helmy Hanoun worked in Palestine
since 1934 in the field of supervising the Palestinian citrus trade outside
Palestine, as the lands of the Tulkarem region were famous for citrus
cultivation. He represented Palestine before the Nakba in several European
countries, including Britain, in the marketing of Palestinian citrus, as he was
a member of the marketing delegation. During that period, he was elected a
member of the Palestinian Citrus Control Council.
He founded the Palestinian People's
Newspaper in 1946, to be one of the most prominent Palestinian newspapers at
the time. In 1956, Hanoun was a member of the National Socialist Party, and he
was also a candidate from the party.
On August 14, 1962, the Jordanian
government assigned him the position of mayor of Tulkarm, then he was elected
on September 27, 1963, as mayor of Tulkarm, and was re-elected again on March
28, 1972, at the head of the "Palestinian National Front" bloc.
Palestinian National Front in 1967, as Hanoun had assumed the leadership of the
"Palestinian National Front" bloc under the guidance and absolute
support of Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization, then he was
elected on April 12, 1976 again to head the municipality of Tulkarm at the head
of the "Palestinian National Front" bloc in the West Bank local
elections of 2018. 1976, the second election during the era of Israeli control,
the results of which were the victory of Hanoun and the victory of the
Palestine Liberation Organization, and Hanoun continued in this position until
the date of April 24, 1998.
Hanoun participated in the first
Palestinian conference held in Jerusalem on May 28, 1964 under the auspices of
the Jordanian King Hussein bin Talal and with the participation of all Arab
countries at the level of foreign ministers. Hanoun was a member of the first
Palestinian national parliament after the Nakba, known as the Palestinian
National Council, in which he announced the establishment Palestine Liberation
Organization, and Hanoun was one of the signatories of the Palestinian National
Charter.
During the 1970s, Hanoun assumed the
presidency of the Council of the “Palestinian Al-Fajr Newspaper.” He also
played a prominent role in 1980 in the birth of the “Fatah Youth Committees for
Social Work,” as his orientations were with the Palestinian National Liberation
Movement (Fatah).
In 1972, Hanoun contributed to the
establishment of the "Palestinian National Steering Committee" after
Israel took control of the rest of the Palestinian territories in the Naksa War
in 1967, and he was a leader in it, as the committee was the leadership
framework within the Palestinian territories and it presented itself as an
original extension of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The committee
folded under the "Palestinian National Front," which Hanoun helped
found, an anti-Israel political framework that is an arm of the Palestine
Liberation Organization.
Hanoun was the first to announce
from inside Palestine in the early seventies that the Palestine Liberation
Organization is the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian
people, for the first time since Israel took control of the Palestinian territories
in 1967, at a time when the Palestine Liberation Organization and its
leadership were outside Palestine. The leadership of the Palestine Liberation
Organization inside Palestine was accompanied by Karim Khalaf, Bassam
Al-Shakaa, and Muhammad Melhem, so Israel attempted to assassinate Khalaf and
Al-Shakaa, and exiled Melhem outside Palestine, while Hanoun was placed under
house arrest from 1980 to 1983.
In October and November 1977, Hanoun
officially announced that he would not go to the Geneva talks as suggested by
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, following Sadat's invitation to the Palestine
Liberation Organization to attend the preparatory conference for the Geneva
Conference on December 14, 1977 in Cairo under the name "Cairo Preparatory
Conference for the Preparation of the Peace Conference." The PLO refused
this invitation, and Hanoun declared that if the PLO wanted to go to the Geneva
conference, then he would go.
In 1981, the new Israeli Minister of
Defense, Ariel Sharon, tried to persuade Hannoun to join peace negotiations to
create Palestinian autonomy and to create a new Palestinian leadership
alternative to the Palestine Liberation Organization, within which Hannoun
would be. Hannoun strongly opposed that.
In 1988, Israeli Defense Minister
Yitzhak Rabin made several times an offer to Hannoun to install him within a
new leadership of the Palestinian people, in which this new leadership would be
inside Palestine as an alternative to the leadership of the Palestine
Liberation Organization outside Palestine. Hannoun rejected that and considered
it a dangerous attempt to bypass the PLO and establish a Palestinian state. On
June 20, 1988, Israeli media announced that the prominent Palestinian
politician Hilmi Hanun had refused Rabin's invitation to speak, and on January
20, 1989 Hanun said in response to Rabin: "He knows very well that we have
leadership for the Palestinians. they go.”
His death and immortality
Helmy Hanoun died in the city of
Tulkarm on July 29, 2001 at the age of 88. Palestinian President Yasser Arafat
mourned him. In memory of Helmy Hanoun, one of the most prominent main streets
in the city of Tulkarm was named after his death. A school in the city was also
named after him.
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Achievements and Awards
- Years in active
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