Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Ahmad As'ad al-Shuqairi was born in Tibnin Castle in Lebanon in 1908. He was married and had three sons and three daughters. His father was the Mufti of the Fourth Ottoman Army and an opponent of Hajj Amin al-Husseini during the British Mandate. He studied at the al-Jazzar Mosque under the Mufti of Acre, Abdullah al-Jazzar, and completed his primary education in Tulkarm and Acre. He attended secondary school at the Bishop Gobat Boys' School (Zion School) in Jerusalem, graduating in 1926. He studied at the American University of Beirut between 1926 and 1927 and earned a Bachelor of Laws degree from the Jerusalem Law Institute in 1932. He worked in journalism and then as a lawyer. He was appointed a member of the Syrian mission to the United Nations in 1949-1950, Assistant Secretary-General of the Arab League from 1951 to 1957, Minister of State for United Nations Affairs in the Saudi government, and its Permanent Representative to the United Nations until 1963. He also served as the representative of Palestine to the League of Arab States in 1963.
He became involved in the national movement from his early youth, and was a member of the Conference of Muslim Youth Associations in Jaffa in 1928. He was affiliated with the Independence Party and was an opponent of Hajj Amin al-Husseini, demanding that young people be given the opportunity to participate in public life. Through his work as a lawyer, he defended detainees in British prisons and stood against the confiscation of farmers' lands. He was tasked with establishing the Arab Information Office in Washington in 1945 with the aim of promoting the Palestinian cause. He was the director of the Arab Office in Jerusalem between (1946-1947). The Arab leaders tasked him with reviving the Palestinian entity. He oversaw the convening of the first Arab Palestinian Conference in Jerusalem in 1964, from which the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) emerged. He oversaw the drafting of its national charter and its most important institutional structures, foremost among them the Palestine Liberation Army, the Palestinian National Fund, and the PLO Research Center. He was the first chairman of its Executive Committee and its National Council. He hastened to communicate with the regional environment and the countries of the world in the name of the PLO in order to support the Palestinian cause. He was known for the three no's. No peace, no negotiation, no recognition, which was declared by the Arab Summit Conference in Khartoum after the setback of June 1967.
He was an eloquent speaker, and in his many speeches he expressed his belief in the goal of liberating Palestine and in armed struggle as the way to achieve it. However, many criticized him for his unilateral decision-making and his recklessness in press statements. Some of his speeches caused a political crisis, especially with Jordan. Many also considered him a product of the Arab regional system's convictions regarding Palestine, which constrained his options and brought him the enmity of the emerging armed resistance forces, especially Fatah and others. He resigned from his position under the pressure of the 1967 defeat and the demands of his peers.
Shukairy lived through the tragedy of World War I and Britain’s occupation of Palestine in 1917. He was expelled from the American University of Beirut for participating in a political demonstration in 1927. He was arrested during the Buraq Uprising in 1929 and placed under house arrest in Acre for a period of time. He was imprisoned twice during the Great Palestinian Revolt in 1936, and experienced the bitterness of the Nakba in 1948 and the Naksa in 1967.
Al-Shuqairi left behind over twenty books, including Forty Years of Arab and International Life (1969), Dialogue and Secrets with Kings and Presidents (1970), and On the Road to Defeat with Kings and Presidents (1972). All his books were collected in six volumes and published by the Center for Arab Unity Studies in 2006. Al-Shuqairi died in Amman in 1980.
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