Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Born in Masmiyah, near Gaza, in 1938; moved with his family to Hebron after two of his brothers were killed during a Zionist invasion into their village, and from there to Jericho, settling in Aqabat Jaber Refugee Camp; after 1952, sneaked through the borders to Beit Hanoun, Gaza, and lived with other parts of his family in Jabalia and then in Khan Younis Refugee Camp; completed his secondary education in the Gaza Strip; became politically active in the mid-1950s, emphasizing the right of return for Palestinian refugees; was arrested for his political activity in the course of the Israeli invasion of Gaza in 1956; worked as teacher in Khan Younis Refugee Camp and started a school that still holds his name; was deported from Gaza in Sept. 1963; worked as a teacher in Dubai from 1963-65, then was deported by British authorities in Dubai (Britain only withdrew in 1968 from the area); moved to Damascus; graduated with a degree in Literature from Damascus University in 1964 and worked in the field of media; became Director of the Palestine Radio, then of the Syrian Radio and Television; served as Dir.-Gen. of a media institute in Damascus; after 1969, became Dir.-Gen. of the Beirut-based Media and National Guidance Committee (which had another branch in Damascus); was PLO Exec. Committee member from 1984-96; co-founder of the Cultural Affairs Section of the PLO’s Education Dept.; moved the Cultural Affairs Section to the PLO Media Dept. in 1979 and changed the name of the Media and National Guidance Committee to the Media and Culture Dept., serving as its head until 1987, when he became Head of the Culture Dept. (after it was separated from the Media Dept.); was a leading critic of the Oslo Accords but remained member of the PLO and head of the PNC’s Political Committee; was member (for one meeting) of the delegation to the first official meeting in over 13 years between the US (represented by the US Ambassador to Tunisia, Robert Pelletreau) and PLO representatives, which took place in Dec. 1988 in Tunis; was briefly appointed head of a new PLO branch in Tunis dealing with refugee issues in 1994; voted against the amendment of the Palestinian Charter in the PNC meeting in April 1996, after calling for the establishment of a national refugee leadership; initiated a popular consortium for the defense of Palestinian right of return after 1996 and became its general coordinator (the consortium’s work was frozen following Zionist lobbying against it but reactivated after May 2001 and officially launched on 1 Dec. 2003); served as head of the Gaza-based Palestinian National Center for Research and Documentation in 1997; has four publications on Palestinian refugees, Zionism, normalization and Abdul Nasser, incl. Cultural Normalization and its Effect on the Arab-Israeli Conflict.
Source: Passia.org
Achievements and Awards
- Years in active
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