Personal Info
- Country of residence: Jordan
Information
Ahmed Asaad Al-Shukairy (1908 - February 26, 1980) was a Palestinian politician, born in the Lebanese castle of Tibnin, and raised in the Palestinian city of Tulkarm from an infant until an adult. He is the founder of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and its first president, and before that he held the position of Assistant Secretary-General of the Arab League, the Saudi Minister of State for United Nations Affairs, and the Saudi Ambassador to the United Nations.
His upbringing and education
Ahmed Asaad Al-Shugairi was born in Tebnin Castle, southern Lebanon, in 1908. His father, Asaad Al-Shugairi, was the Mufti of the Ottoman Fourth Army, and he was exiled outside Palestine. As for his mother, she is of Turkish origin. After his mother's divorce from his father, Asaad, Ahmed Al-Shugairi returned as an infant to his city Tulkarem with his mother, where his family is located, especially his uncle Qassem Al-Shugairi and his uncle's family and their home. His uncle Qassem was an official in the city's Finance Department. After that, his mother married in the city to a man named Salim from the city, and he worked in the telephone lines department in the city's Lightning and Post Office, then her husband, Salim, died a year after the marriage and was buried in the city cemetery. Ahmed Al-Shugairi received his education in the schools of his city, Tulkarm, and in 1916 his mother died of cholera, and was buried in the city's cemetery.
His father, Asaad Al-Shugairi, returned one day to the city of Tulkarm, accompanied by the Ottoman commander Jamal Pasha, but Ahmed was unable to know his father at that time. Ahmed Al-Shugairi talked about all the details of his life in his home city of Tulkarm in his book “Forty Years in Arab and International Life.”
Ahmed Al-Shugairi witnessed the battles of World War I in the city of Tulkarm, and continued his education in the city of Tulkarm, and when the battles intensified in Tulkarm, he was forced to complete his education at the Amiriya School in Acre, then he completed his secondary education in 1926 at the Zion School in Jerusalem, after which he joined the American University in Beirut .
Beginning with political work
His connection with the Arab Nationalist Movement was documented during his education at the American University in Beirut, and he was an active member of the Al-Urwa Al-Wuthqa Club, but the university expelled him the following year because of his leadership of a huge demonstration at the university in protest against the French presence in Lebanon, and it was from the French authorities that they took a decision to deport him from Lebanon in the year 1927.
Al-Shugairi returned and joined the Institute of Law in Jerusalem, and at the same time worked as an editor for the Mirror of the East newspaper. After graduating, he trained in the office of lawyer Awni Abdel-Hadi, one of the founders of the Istiqlal Party in Palestine, and in that office he got acquainted with the symbols of the Syrian revolution who sought refuge in Palestine and was influenced by them.
Between 1936 and 1939, Al-Shukairy participated in the events of the Great Palestinian Revolution. As a lawyer, he was active in defending Palestinian detainees before the British courts. He also participated in the Bloudan Conference in September 1937. The British authorities pursued him, so he left Palestine for Egypt. In 1940, when his father died, he returned to Palestine, settled there and opened a law firm.
It was decided to establish Arab offices in a number of foreign capitals, so Ahmed Al-Shugairi was appointed director of the Arab Media Office in Washington [?], then he became director of the Central Arab Media Office in Jerusalem, and he continued to head this office until the Palestinian catastrophe in 1948, when he immigrated to Lebanon and settled in Beirut. .
His work at the United Nations
Because he holds the Syrian nationality and due to his extensive experience, he was chosen by the Syrian government to be a member of its mission to the United Nations in 1949/1950. He then returned to Cairo and held the position of Assistant Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, and remained in that position until 1957.
He was also chosen in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to hold the position of Minister of State for United Nations Affairs, then he was appointed permanent ambassador of Saudi Arabia to the United Nations. Al-Shugairi's activities during his tenure at the United Nations focused on defending the Palestinian cause and the issues of the Arab Maghreb.
After the death of Ahmad Hilmi Abdel-Baqi, the representative of Palestine to the Arab League, Al-Shukairy was chosen to occupy that position by the Arab presidents and kings in the Arab League.
Founding and chairing the organization
In the 1964 Arab Summit Conference (Cairo), which was called for by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Palestine Liberation Organization was established, and the conference assigned the representative of Palestine, Ahmed Al-Shugairi, to contact the Palestinians and write a report on that to be presented to the next Arab summit conference. Ahmed Al-Shugairi made a tour during which he visited the Arab countries and contacted the Palestinians In it, and during his tour, the two drafts of the National Charter and the Statute of the Palestine Liberation Organization were drawn up, and it was decided to hold a general Palestinian conference. Al-Shukairy selected the preparatory committees for the conference, which in turn drew up lists of names of candidates for membership in the first Palestinian conference (March 28 to June 2, 1964), which was called the Council. The first Palestinian National for the Palestine Liberation Organization. This conference elected Ahmed Al-Shugairi as its president, announced the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and ratified the national charter and the organization’s articles of association. At the second Arab summit on September 5, 1964, Al-Shukairy presented a report on the establishment of the organization, in which he emphasized the military and organizational aspects of achieving the liberation of Palestine and the mobilization. The conference approved what Al-Shugairi accomplished and approved providing financial support to the organization.
Al-Shukairy dedicated himself to the executive committee of the organization in Jerusalem, laid the foundations for work and regulations in the organization, supervised the establishment of its own departments and offices in Arab and foreign countries, and supervised the construction of the military apparatus under the name of the Palestine Liberation Army.
In the second session of the Palestinian National Council, which was held in Cairo from May 31 to June 4, 1965, Al-Shugairi presented a report on the achievements of the Executive Committee, then submitted his resignation from the presidency of the Council, which was accepted by the Council, and renewed his presidency of the Executive Committee and granted him the right to choose its members.
his resignation
During his participation in the Arab Summit Conference in Khartoum 1967, Ahmed Al-Shugairi clashed with the Arab leaders, blaming them for the loss of what was left of Palestine (the West Bank and Gaza Strip). An ally, what remains for Shugairi after his collision with most of the Arab leaders? While the debate was fierce and difficult, inside the hall, the Mossad team consisting of David Kamhi, Mike Harari, Shabtai Shavit, was outside the hall, disguised under the guise of “media” as journalists, foreigners counting the breaths of the Palestinian delegation participating in the Khartoum conference. The presence of the Mossad team was confirmed by the writer specialized in intelligence affairs. Yossi Melman. Where he indicated in his book “War of Shadows - Mossad and the Security Establishment” that the Mossad agent, David Kamhi, impersonated a British journalist and reported the proceedings of the Arab summit conference in Khartoum 1967, which was known as the “Three No’s” conference. After the end of the conference, a campaign of protests began within the Executive Committee, calling for his resignation, and it climaxed on December 14, 1967, when seven members of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization submitted a memorandum to Ahmad Al-Shugairi [?] demanding that he step down from the presidency, “for the methods by which you carry out the work of the organization.” They announced their resignation from the committee. They are: Yahya Hamouda, Nimr Al-Masry, Bahjat Abu Gharbia, Osama Al-Naqeeb, Wajih Al-Madani, Youssef Abdel-Rahim, and Abdel-Khaleq Yaghmour. On December 19, 1967, Al-Shukairy dismissed them all. But Shugairi's fate was decided on December 20, 1967, when he joined the opposition, Abd al-Majid Shoman, head of the Palestinian National Fund, who submitted his resignation, bringing the number to eight members out of the fifteen, and soon there were calls for his removal from the Fatah movement and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, forcing al-Shugairi To invite the Executive Committee, with all its members, to a session held under his chairmanship, at the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization, in Cairo, on December 24, 1967, but he refused to submit his resignation to them, and said, I have come here in the name of the people. I present my resignation to the Palestinian people. Thus, on the twenty-fifth of the same month, he addressed the Palestinian people to an appeal in which he announced that he had relinquished the presidency of the Palestine Liberation Organization. At that point, the Executive Committee decided that Yahya Hamouda, one of its members, assume the presidency of the organization by proxy, until the PNC convenes. On December 25, 1967, it called for collective leadership, and Shugairi justified his resignation. That it is due to his “problem” with “the Arab kings and presidents, with whom he cannot work, and it is not possible to work without them; And this is the problem.” He believes that the Egyptian press has a role in his resignation. Al-Shugairi sent his letter of resignation to the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, along with another letter endorsing Yahya Hammouda, representative of Palestine to the League of Arab States.
The resignation of Ahmed Al-Shugairi was a big blow to the Shuqairis, who are the founding generation who, along with Ahmed Al-Shugairi, was the first founder of the Palestine Liberation Organization. They were later named within the Palestinian National Council (the Independents). During that period, accusations were leveled at Al-Shukairy against the Palestinians, that he had created a Palestinian fictitious institution, whose policies were cooked from above - that is, through the Arab regimes - but this institution was during his reign preserving its national constants. She didn't budge an inch. And that his heirs in the leadership of the organization, who were hostile to him and accused him of negligence, and less than a month had passed since they commanded this ship after he stepped down, until they had begun to deviate from its main project, which is the liberation of all Palestinian lands without any decrease, and they began to search for peaceful solutions to the issue The Palestinian organization does not conform to the approach and policy of the organization founded by Al-Shukairy. Whatever the case, the most serious development the PLO faced in terms of its national program, immediately after Shugairi's resignation, was through the Palestinian National Councils under the domination of the Palestinian factions, starting from January 1968 until 1971, and under the influence of the movement. Fatah, which adopted the idea of establishing a democratic state in Palestine, in which Arabs and Jews coexist. That is, the Palestine Liberation Organization abandoned its position rejecting the presence of Jewish immigrants in Palestine, after it considered them racist colonialists during the Shugairi period, and the justification for that was to gain the support of international public opinion, and to attract the forces and political parties in the world.
As soon as Yahya Hammouda took over the presidency of the Palestine Liberation Organization, a statement was attributed to him and was reported by the Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar on January 3, 1968, very dangerous sayings, “It is necessary to confront matters and not demand the impossible. We say to the Jews, even those who came to Palestine after 1948: You really want peace and coexistence.” ? Liberate yourself from Zionism as a political movement and an orthodox racist and religious ideology, and accept to live with the Arabs in a Palestinian, Jewish-Arab state where each group has its share, according to its entitlement and rights. He added: “Everything is possible, if the Jews of Israel refuse to abandon Zionism, we have to divide Palestine according to justice and truth, and it is known that a part of Palestine has always belonged to the Arabs, in this part our ancestors lived, died and were buried. This part is our homeland and our spiritual and cultural heritage. It is our homes, our lands and our trade. No one had the right to take away this property, which is part of us, to give it to a people looking for a homeland because the Jews were victims of Nazi persecution. It is all done now and it is absurd to ask the Jews to return to their original land. If they want to stay in Palestine without abandoning Zionism, then let them occupy the parts of Palestine that were not exploited before 1948, and give us back the parts they stole from the Arabs, otherwise there will be a permanent conflict, whatever the results.
Achievements and Awards
Dedication to writing
Al-Shukairy did not accept any official job or position after his resignation, so he used to live in his home in Cairo most of the year, and was devoted to writing, and he used to hold intellectual seminars in his house, and when former Egyptian President Muhammad Anwar Sadat signed the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, he left Cairo for Tunisia in protest.
his death
After several months in Tunisia, he contracted the disease, and was subsequently transferred to Al-Hussein Medical City in Amman, but he died on February 25, 1980, at the age of 72. According to his will, he was buried in the cemetery of the companion Abu Ubaidah Amer bin Al-Jarrah in the Jordan Valley, three kilometers from the border with Palestine.
Some of his writings
Among the books left by Ahmed Al-Shugairi that revolve around Arab issues and the Palestinian issue:
From Jerusalem to Washington, 1947.
"Forty Years of Arab and International Life", 1969.
Dialogue and Secrets with Kings and Presidents, 1970.
From Summit to Defeat, with Kings and Presidents, 1970.
On the Road to Defeat, With Kings and Presidents, 1972.
The Great Defeat with Kings and Presidents, 1973.
Twenty-one-star flag, 1977.
Pages from the Arab Cause, 1979.
"Jewish Myths", 1980.
"Battles of the Arabs, and what is similar to yesterday's night."
Arab issues.
In defense of Palestine and Algeria.
Palestine on the platform of the United Nations.
The United Arab State Project.
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