Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Born in Beit Sahour on 17 Sept. 1910; joined the Benedictine Ecclesiastical Seminary Institute in Beit Jala and Jerusalem (which later turned into the Sacre Coeur Institute in 1933), graduating in 1937; was ordained as a priest on 27 June 1937 in Jerusalem; also wrote articles opposing Zionist expansion and Mandate policies; became editor-in-chief of the Zion Monitor magazine; studied Law in Jerusalem; then became pastor for the Latin Parish in Ramallah in June 1940; founded Al-Ahliyyeh Secondary College in Ramallah, focusing on Palestinian education (rather than the pro-British education common at the time) which caused disputes with the Director of the British Education Dept., Sir Farrell; was appointed Diretor of the Roman Catholic Church Court in Jerusalem in Dec. 1945; worked closely with Haj Amin Al-Husseini, who advised the Latin Patriarchate to buy 22,000 dunums of land in Tayasir village, near Jenin, in order to save it from Zionist expansion; was arrested on 20 July 1951 under “allegations” of being involved in the assassination of King Abdullah but proven innocent; served in Cyprus, Beirut, Jerusalem and then Karak following Mandate pressures on the Roman Catholic Church to send him away from Palestine due to his political involvement; while head of the Church Court in Beirut in 1965, was visited by Yasser Arafat and Khalil Al-Wazir who consulted him on whether it was about time to move the Palestinian Question to armed resistance; advocated that armed resistance needs to work side by side with political work; had close ties with the PLO and was appointed as PLO consultant for the Vatican in 1973; later went to Tunisia and was appointed PLO Commissioner for Latin America and the Caribbean with his office in Santiago, Chile, where one of his activities was establishing a committee for building a mosque for the Muslim community in Venezuela; stayed since in the Latin Seminary in Beit Jala; died on 8 Jan. 2005.
Source
Achievements and Awards
Received an award from the Chilean government; worked for the PLO in Paris (1978), Tunisia (1980), Beirut (1984), Amman, Damascus, and again Amman from 1984-1996; came back together with other returnees to participate in the PNC meeting in Gaza in April 1996.
- Years in active
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