Ruhi Al-Khatib Al-Kanani ( 1914 - 1994 ) Secretary of the Holy City of Jerusalem.

• Maintenance of sewerage network and roads inside the wall.
• Establishing bus stops and planting trees in the mountains.
• Building schools and libraries.

The registration and internal regulations of the company stated: “This company was established on the sixth day of February 1956 pursuant to the announcement published in Appendix No. 1, Issue No. 2621 of the Official Gazette issued on the 4th of Rajab 1375 corresponding to the 16th of February 1956 by the founders whose names are as follows:

• Jerusalem Municipal Council.
• Ramallah Municipal Council.
• Municipal Council in Al-Bireh.
• Bethlehem Municipal Council.
• Beit Jala Municipal Council.
• Beit Sahour Municipal Council.

The General Assembly of Shareholders, in its first meeting held in the Palestinian Museum Hall in Jerusalem, approved and blessed the steps taken to Arabize the company.

Among the figures who played an effective role in Arabizing the company were the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Rawhi Al-Khatib, and the Secretary of the Board, Ahmed Zuhair Al-Afifi Al-Kanani. Lawyer Ibrahim Bakr Al-Nashashibi, Engineer Elias Dahbour, and Ghaleb Al-Nashashibi. A committee was formed consisting of Messrs. Fadl George Antiba and Nihad Abu Gharbieh. This committee conducted a comprehensive study of the company’s assets and estimated its material costs. An agreement was reached between the committee delegated by the Jordanian government and the British company to purchase this company for 250 thousand pounds sterling. In the aforementioned General Assembly meeting, Rawhi Al-Khatib thanked Hamad Al-Farhan and Saad Al-Tal from Jordan for their contribution to Arabizing the company. The first board of directors of the company was formed after Arabization in the session of 7/20/1957 and included:

• Jerusalem Municipality is represented by Mr. Rawhi Al-Khatib and Mr. Nihad Abu Gharbieh.
• Ramallah Municipality represented by Mr. Amin Haddad.
• Al-Bireh Municipality represented by Mr. Abdullah Al-Joudah.
• Bethlehem Municipality represented by Mr. Elias Al-Bandak.
• Beit Jala Municipality represented by Mr. Wadih Damas.
• Beit Sahour Municipality represented by Mr. Nicola Abu Aita.

In addition to the membership of Messrs. Ghaleb Abdul Razzaq, Jalil Harb, Kamel Barakat, Mustafa Al-Alami, Ghaleb Al-Nashashibi, Anton Banayot, Aql Mahmoud, Dr. George Farah, Bishara Qanawati, Ahmed Zuhair Al-Afifi Al-Kanani, and Abdul Mohsen Abu Mizr .

On 12/12/1962, a meeting was held at the office of the Jericho mayor, which included Engineer Ali Al-Nusour from the Jordanian Ministry of Economy, the Director General of the Jerusalem Electricity Company, Ghaleb Al-Nashashibi, Saleh Abdo, and Rafiq Al-Nabulsi, the owners of the Jericho Electricity Project.

On 4/25/1963, the Jordanian Minister of Economy was informed of the liquidation of the Aqabat Jaber Camp Electricity Project in favor of the Jerusalem District Electricity Company, pursuant to Article 49 of Temporary Law No. 28 of 1962.

On 5/4/1964, on Monday, the fourth of May 1964, the Jericho Electricity and Public Interests Project was handed over to the Jerusalem District Electricity Company.

In 1970, he was elected as a member of the Board of Directors of the Industrial Development Bank in Amman. In the same year, at the request of the Arab League, he visited Spain, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela and Guyana , where he explained the history of the Palestinian cause and the persecution inflicted by the Zionists on the Palestinians.

• Telegram from Mr. Ruhi Al-Khatib, Mayor of Jerusalem, to King Hussein, on the necessity of seeking to stop the confiscation of properties and endowments adjacent to the Noble Sanctuary in Jerusalem Amman:

Jerusalem cries out to you, O Islam, and asks you to order the immediate submission of a complaint to the UN Security Council to stop the confiscation and demolition of properties and endowments adjacent to the Noble Sanctuary and within the city walls, to stop construction on usurped Arab lands outside the walls of the Holy City, and to stop the application of the Law of Legal and Administrative Organizations on the Arabs of Jerusalem. Al-Aqsa, the Noble Rock, and the Prophet’s Night Journey insist on calling for an urgent call to hold an Arab-Islamic summit to confront the rapid danger that aims to liquidate the Arabs of Jerusalem and Islam in the Holy City. History will record your initiative and noble endeavor.

• King Hussein's telegram to Mr. Rawhi Al-Khatib, in response to his telegram regarding the confiscation of Arab properties in the city of Jerusalem

Amman:I have received your esteemed telegram expressing the feelings of all our brothers in the Holy Land who are subjected to various forms of violence and persecution, as their homes are being demolished and their lands confiscated in implementation of the Zionist plan to Judaize Jerusalem, which violates our most basic historical rights in the Holy City and conflicts with the principles of justice and the Charter of Human Rights. Our government has asked our permanent representative to the United Nations to submit an urgent complaint to the UN Security Council to put an end to these terrorist acts and take rapid measures that guarantee the preservation of the lives and property of our secure people and respect for places of worship and the freedom to perform religious rituals. As you know, our call for a summit conference is still standing, hoping that it will receive a quick response from our brothers, the kings and presidents. May God guide us all to what is right and good, with our best wishes to you and our appreciation and pride for our steadfast brothers in the Holy Land .

• Telegram of Mr. Rouhi Al-Khatib to the kings, presidents and princes, Arabs and Muslims on the necessity of seeking to stop the confiscation of properties and endowments adjacent to the Noble Sanctuary in Jerusalem Amman:

Jerusalem cries out to you, O Islam, and asks you to join Jordan in submitting an immediate complaint to the UN Security Council to stop the confiscation and demolition of properties and endowments adjacent to the Noble Sanctuary and within the walls of the Holy City, to stop construction on Arab lands usurped outside the walls of the city by the occupying Israeli authorities, and to stop the application of the Law of Legal and Administrative Organizations on the Arabs of Jerusalem in violation of the Security Council resolution issued on 21/5/1968. Al-Aqsa, the Noble Rock, and the Prophet’s Night Journey insist on demanding, in consultation with Jordan, a very urgent call to hold an Arab-Islamic summit conference to confront the rapid danger that aims to liquidate the Arabs of Jerusalem and Islam in the Holy City, and history will record your initiative and noble endeavor .

• King Faisal’s telegram to Mr. Ruhi Al-Khatib, Mayor of Jerusalem, in response to his telegram regarding the confiscation of Arab properties in the city of Jerusalem Riyadh:

We are ready to do everything in our power to save Jerusalem, and we will not hesitate to do what we can to defend and liberate it. We were and still are ready to attend an Islamic summit to liberate Jerusalem from the clutches of Zionism. I ask God Almighty to unite the word of Muslims, and to guide us all to what He loves and is pleased with .

For more than half of his life, his name remained attached to the Jerusalem Municipality and its Secretariat, until the title of Mayor of Jerusalem became synonymous with the name of Ruhi Al-Khatib for more than thirty-five years, that is, from the time the Jordanian government adopted the Jerusalem Municipality as a Secretariat in 1959 until he passed away in Amman in 1994.

A son of the city of Jerusalem, and the son of one of its distinguished families, he was born in the year 1914, the year that witnessed the outbreak of the First World War, which led to the end of Ottoman rule over the Arab countries that fell under the mandate. The young Jerusalemite’s awareness was opened to the beginnings of the British mandate over Palestine, and in the year 1929 he obtained an Oxford and Cambridge certificate that qualified him to work as a teacher in an orphanage. A year after his job in 1931, he joined the English College, and after that he worked for fifteen years in the mandate government in various positions in a number of Palestinian cities.

The son of Jerusalem who discovered the extent of the Zionist-British conspiracy against Palestine resigned from his government job in 1946 to work as head of the Arab Bureau in Jerusalem and then in the National Committee. He witnessed the Nakba that led to the occupation of the western part of the city.

After the Nakba in Palestine, Rawhi Al-Khatib turned to work in the economic field, so he established the Al-Zahraa Hotel, which was the first hotel to be established in the eastern part of the city to attract Arab and foreign tourists, and he was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Arab Hotels Company , while he also held the position of Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Jerusalem District Electricity Company and other positions with economic titles.

After the unification of the two banks, the city of Jerusalem witnessed the holding of municipal elections four times in the years 1951, 1955, 1959, and 1963. In the first three times, he was elected as a member of the municipal council, and in 1957 the Jordanian government chose him as mayor of Jerusalem. When it decided to change the name of the municipality to the Secretariat, Rawhi al-Khatib was the first mayor of Jerusalem in September 1959.

He was not a partisan, but his political presence prompted many political forces and movements to deal with him, so it was natural for him to have a prominent role in the birth of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1964. The late Ahmed Al-Shuqairi chose him to be a member of the preparatory committee to select members of the Palestinian National Council, and by virtue of his position as Secretary of Jerusalem, he was a witness and participant in the birth of the organization, which chose to hold its first conference in the Holy City.

After the Zionist occupation of Jerusalem and the West Bank in June 1967, the Secretary of Jerusalem was active with the rest of the national figures in confronting the occupation policy, and Rouhi Al-Khatib, who was later arrested and deported to Jordan on March 7, 1968, did not rest.

Those close to him described him as a “specialist in the city of Jerusalem.” Therefore, Abu Hani devoted his life to defending the Arab identity of Jerusalem and exposing the occupation’s practices aimed at Judaizing it. Until his last day, he continued to practice his job from Amman as the Secretary of Jerusalem, where he participated in a large number of meetings of Arab and Islamic cities and capitals, and was elected to leadership positions in these conferences, at a time when he supervised the brotherhood of Jerusalem with a number of Arab cities and capitals, most notably Baghdad.

He participated in numerous official Jordanian delegations in various international forums to explain the dangers facing Jerusalem. The Arab League also sent him to a large number of countries around the world to explain the issue of the Holy City. In Amman, he published the magazine “Al-Quds Al-Sharif,” which focused on defending Jerusalem and confronting Judaization measures. He also published a number of books that discussed the Zionist dangers threatening Jerusalem.

At the end of April 1993, a year before his departure, Rawhi al-Khatib returned to his city, among a number of deportees whom Israel agreed to return to their cities. Before returning, he gave a speech in the presence of King Hussein on behalf of his fellow returnees, to see that the Jerusalem he had forcibly left in early 1968 was not the Jerusalem he had returned to in 1993 due to the occupation’s policy. In addition to his many duties, Abu Hani was elected a member of the Board of Directors of the Industrial Development Bank in Amman, then Chairman of the Board, a position he held until his death in 1994. Perhaps no man’s name is associated with the name of his city, as Rawhi al-Khatib’s name is associated with the city of Jerusalem, which remained present in every day of his life spanning eighty years.

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