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Overview
Abu Sharif was one of the world's most notorious and dangerous terrorists in the 60's and 70's, acting as "minister of propaganda" for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and as a recruiter for terrorists like Carlos the Jackal. In 1972, a bomb was placed in a book and sent to him, leaving him half-blind, deaf in one ear, and almost fingerless. Finally abandoning the use of violence as a means to achieve his Palestinian nationalist aspirations, he aligned himself with Yasser Arafat, eventually becoming one of his closest advisors.
In this book, Abu Sharif, often alongside Arafat, takes us behind the scenes of all the major events in the Middle East during the last 30 years, from the secret caves in the West Bank where Arafat hid on his way to Jerusalem in 1967 to the peace negotiations in Oslo in 1993. Arafat and the Dream of Palestine combines a deeply personal account, informed by Abu Sharif's close relationship with Arafat, with a gripping, profoundly human history of Palestine.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780230621299 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | St. Martin's Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 05/12/2009 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 288 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Bassam Abu Sharif was a senior advisor to the late Yasser Arafat and currently serves as press officer of the PLO. He is the co-author, with former Israeli intelligence officer Uzi Mahnaimi, of The Best of Enemies about their roles in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts. A member of the National Council of Palestine, he divides his time between Amman and Ramallah.
Bassam Abu Sharif was a senior advisor to the late Yasser Arafat and currently serves as press officer of the PLO. He is the co-author, with former Israeli intelligence officer Uzi Mahnaimi, of The Best of Enemies about their roles in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts. A member of the National Council of Palestine, he divides his time between Amman and Ramallah.
Read an Excerpt
Arafat and the Dream of Palestine
An Insider's Account
By Bassam Abu Sharif
Palgrave Macmillan
Copyright © 2009 Bassam Abu SharifAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-230-62129-9
CHAPTER 1
THE RISE OF YASSER ARAFAT
On June 5, 1967, Israeli military forces quickly defeated the air forces of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, and then invaded and occupied the territories of Sinai, the Golan Heights, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Israel had flaunted its aggression against, and forcibly taken, Arab land. An atmosphere of depression, frustration, and humiliation pervaded the Arab world. Thousands of people all over the Middle East took to the streets to express their outrage in huge demonstrations against the United States and Great Britain, whose support and aid to Israel were seen as the main reasons for the Arab defeat.
At the time of the invasion, I was a member of the Arab Nationalist Movement, the purpose of which was the formation of a nationally conscious intellectual elite who would work toward revolutionizing Arab consciousness with the aim of eventually achieving Arab unity and social progress. It had been established decades earlier by two Palestinians, Dr. George Habash and Dr. Wadi' Haddad, along with a number of prominent Arabs from Libya, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, Yemen, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Habash and Haddad were close friends who had studied medicine together at the American University of Beirut (AUB) in Lebanon. Their studies had been interrupted in 1948 by the first Israeli invasion and occupation of Palestine, which established the State of Israel, driving thousands of unarmed Palestinians from their homes. Once the fighting broke out, both men returned to their villages in Palestine—Habash to Lod and Haddad to Safad—to help evacuate their families from the towns in which they had lived for generations. Most of their family members went first to Jerusalem, but then continued on to settle in Lebanon, since the fighting in Jerusalem made it too dangerous for them to settle their families there. When the men finally returned to their classes at AUB and told the other students and their friends about the atrocities they had witnessed, both began advocating for the necessity of resisting in any way they could the Israeli aggression against their people and their homeland.
At AUB, Habash and Haddad had been members of a society at the university called Al Urwa Al-Wuthqa, which had concerned itself mainly with promoting cultural events such as films, folk dancing, and fashion shows. However, following the catastrophe of 1948, Habash and Haddad felt that the society could be more beneficial on campus if it concerned itself with political affairs and helped to bring more awareness to their classmates about some of the social and economic problems the Arab world was facing, with special emphasis on what was taking place in Palestine.
In the early 1950s, they went on to launch the Arab Nationalist Movement, whose members were also university students, in particular those who were planning to return to their homelands when they graduated. Haddad and Habash hoped that this organization would eventually coordinate efforts on a larger scale to serve the Arab cause, which concentrated on unifying the entire Arab world after it had been divided into smaller countries by Britain and France following World War I.
After the Israeli invasion and occupation of Palestine in 1948, the Arab National Movement considered taking the path of armed struggle. Years later, in 1964, the Movement even went so far as to establish a number of militant groups, such as Shabab Al-Tha'r (Sons of Revenge) and Abtal Al-Awda (Heroes of Return). These groups, however, remained inactive out of respect for the United Arab Republic (U.A.R.), a brief union between Syria and Egypt. Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, who also served as U.A.R. president, argued that he was not ready to go to war with Israel. Nasser's main agenda item at that time was to establish unity with Iraq, which he hoped would eventually join the U.A.R. Nasser wanted to someday unite the whole of the Arab world under one flag. He had managed to get Syria to join, and was working on Iraq as his next step. Although he was not ready for war, he did promise to train Palestinian fighters and supply them with simple arms in preparation for the eventual fight against the Israeli occupation forces, which was inevitable. He referred to his stand as fowq alsifr, taht altawrit ("above zero and below involvement," also known as "no involvement").
I had officially become a member of the Arab Nationalist Movement in 1963, when I was still a freshman at AUB. That year, I went to Egypt to be trained by Shabab Al-Tha'r as a fighter, and I also received intensive training from the Al-Sa'iqa, the Egyptian special forces.
As Palestinians, our military training took place mainly in camps located in Egypt and Syria. We were taught reconnaissance and learned how to store and camouflage weapons and ammunition inside the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Sometimes we completed observational work for President Nasser by gathering information on Israeli military camps located along the borders with Egypt and Syria. The information included the numbers of troops, types of military equipment, and any troop movements we noticed. During some of these operations members of our groups were shot and killed by Israeli border guards, although what we were doing could not be described as military actions. We were simply involved in normal reconnaissance missions.
The humiliating defeat suffered by the Arab world in the 1967 Six Days' War changed everything for us Palestinians. The Egyptian banner of "no involvement" was soon tossed aside. Dr. Habash and Dr. Haddad took over the leadership of the Palestine branch of the Arab National Movement and began discussions for restructuring it to establish a military unit of fighters from its membership. By then, thousands of young men, including myself, had already been trained as fighters, and strategies to fight the occupation were soon being developed. I was chosen to be a member of the executive committee in charge of the Palestinian branch of the Arab Nationalist Movement along with Dr. Haddad.
The Arab Nationalist Movement Executive Committee met in Beirut in July 1967. Its objective was to decentralize the movement, making each branch independently responsible for its own program, designed specifically for the needs of each country. Previously, the military cells within each branch had been a mishmash of nationalities; there could be a Bahraini, a Qatari, a Palestinian, and a Moroccan in one cell, for example. This was not a good idea since each individual would be looking out for the interests of his own region or nation, very much with a tribal mentality. The Executive Committee now ordered that each individual was to join a cell in his own regional section so that the development of programs would meet the requirements of each individual country. Once members in each cell had been assigned to their regional or country branch, each branch was to draw up its own agenda. A General Secretariat, headed by George Habash, was formed to be in charge of coordinating the decisions made by the national and regional leaders. The Palestinians were therefore placed under a Palestinian leadership and had a new Palestinian agenda. Fateh, Shabab AlTha'r, Abtal Al-Awda, and the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF, under Ahmad Jibril) all took part in the Beirut conference.
Fateh was a secret organization that had been founded by Palestinian graduates working in the Arab Gulf States. One of its founders was Yasser Arafat, the son of a Palestinian textile merchant living in Egypt and a Palestinian woman from a well-known family in Jerusalem. After completing his degree in civil engineering from Cairo University in 1954, Arafat moved to Kuwait, where he soon became a successful contractor. He drove sports cars and liked to spend his vacations in Lebanon, like most rich Arabs. By the early 1960s, however, Arafat had started mobilizing and organizing the Fateh movement. Most of its founding members had neither purely secular nor religiously fanatical tendencies.
During the early 1960s there had been serious clashes between Israel and Syria over Israel's plans to divert Syrian water sources to Israel. In particular, the Al-Tawfique region on the border between the two countries experienced heavy artillery fighting in 1964. As a result, the Syrian government decided to allow Palestinian military resistance movements to set up camps in their territory. The Syrians gave Ahmad Jibril, a Palestinian who had joined the Syrian armed forces after the 1948 war and graduated from the Syrian Military Academy as an officer specializing in explosives, the go-ahead to organize the fidayeen (which in Arabic can mean either fighters ready to sacrifice their lives, or commandoes) to wage underground military operations against the Israeli army. This resistance movement was initially called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine– General Command (PFLP–GC), but eventually came to be known simply as the General Command. With so many Palestinians joining the PFLP movement, however, Syria began to see it as a possible threat to the regime—unless it could be divided into smaller, less effective splinter groups. Before the end of the year, Syrian intelligence ordered Jibril to split the General Command from the PFLP movement in the hopes that it would severely weaken the PFLP. Since that moment, Jibril remained an obedient officer in the Syrian army, even siding later with the Syrians against his own people during the conflicts in Beirut when the Syrians were vying for control in the 1980s.
In August 1967, the PFLP, Fateh, and other Palestinian organizations such as the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and the General Command met in Damascus. They agreed that to achieve their common aim of ridding Palestine of its yoke of Israeli occupation, they must unite under the same banner, which was initially known as the National Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine. On the day the announcement was to be made that all Palestinian organizations would join under one umbrella, there were no Fateh representatives in attendance. Why wasn't anyone from Fateh present for the announcement? The reason was really quite simple: Since Fateh had been operating underground for so many years, no real leader had ever been chosen. Since 1965, the members of the Fateh Central Committee, which represented the leadership of the group, had all been considered democratic equals. To be represented in this new federation, however, they would have to name one person as the head of Fateh. The central committee asked local Fateh branches, who were active mainly in the Gulf States, to suggest some names.
Although Yasser Arafat was the most active member of the Fateh leadership (he did everything from recruiting new members, to acquiring arms, to establishing relations between Fateh and the Gulf countries), the other members refused to give him the reins of Fateh. Two days before the Palestinian organizations' announcement, Arafat disappeared. The only trace his colleagues found in his room was a note that said: "The leadership is in the field." The announcement was then modified to include only the members who were present; however, it indicated that the door would remain open to anyone who wanted to join at a later date, leaving the opportunity for Fateh to join the stand of unity once they had selected their leader.
* * *
After the committee's decision to blackball him, Arafat decided to infiltrate the Occupied West Bank, which the Israelis had captured during the 1967 Six Days' War. He had thought of doing this before there was any disagreement over who was to lead Fateh, but the timing now was perfect. This way he could prove to one and all that he was a true leader of the group, both politically and in the field. By going to the Occupied Territories of Palestine, Arafat was proving his great courage to face the enemy. He also was proving that he could recruit new members and mobilize his fighters even while they were under occupation. His move was proof that not only was he a brave fighter in the field, but that he also was someone with great political acumen and organizational skills. Right under the noses of the Israelis, he was able to move from place to place to meet with his men in the field without getting caught.
I was later told the details of Arafat's trip to the West Bank by his bodyguard Saleh Nasser, an old fighter from Beit Fourik Village who had traveled with him. According to Nasser, Arafat crossed the Syrian border into Jordan in August 1967, joining up with some of his fighters near the northern city of Irbid. From there, the group headed toward the Jordan River to a prearranged point where it would be easier to cross. Once on the West Bank, they made their way to some caves between the Jordan Valley and the Nablus Mountains, a place considered to be safe by Palestinians who had crossed before.
Arafat pushed the men on relentlessly as they traveled over the rugged terrain by foot. Whenever a member of the group begged for a break, Arafat would usher him along, saying that a fighter never gets tired. Once they reached a prearranged place on the West Bank, Arafat immediately began to make plans. He knew that the Israelis would hear of his presence in the Occupied Territories sooner or later, that he had to make good use of every minute to set up the tanzim (military organization), and that, of course, he had to let the fighters know by his presence there that he was their leader. Arafat's entourage spent three weeks sleeping either in caves or under trees while moving from village to village.
One night while they were bivouacked near Ramallah, the roof of their cave began to tremble under the weight of several armored vehicles. They could hear orders being barked out in Hebrew and the heavy boots of soldiers trampling back and forth above them. Arafat signaled his group to remain silent.
For two hours, the Israeli armored vehicles remained parked right above their heads while soldiers searched the area. Finally, the soldiers' voices began to fade into the distance with the diminishing roar of the armored vehicles. Arafat told his men to wait an additional thirty minutes before signaling to Ahmad, a local man who knew the area, to see if it was safe to come out.
When Arafat received the all clear, he turned to one of his men, who knew Hebrew, and asked what the soldiers had said.
"They were looking for you."
Arafat smiled. "Brothers, we are heading for Jerusalem."
Arafat sent some of the men ahead to arrange for the document he was eventually going to need once he decided to leave Israel. The Israeli army had set up increasingly heavy border patrols along the Jordan River. The only way for Arafat to leave was going to be right under their noses.
I was told later by some of the men from Arafat's entourage just how tricky it had been to enter Jerusalem. They had to avoid main roads; they instead traveled along winding side roads that snaked through the surrounding villages. Late at night, they arrived at Anata, a refugee camp located at the entrance to the city. Everything was quiet, lights were out, and no one was in the alleyways.
As they started down one of the alleys, a window creaked open above them.
"Who's there?" a man asked.
"Friends," Arafat answered.
"Do you need help?"
"Do you know where Abu Yousef lives?"
The man pointed to the house opposite his, closed the window, and then disappeared into the shadows of his home.
Abu Yousef, Arafat's maternal uncle, was taken completely by surprise to see Yasser Arafat among the group. He knew that Arafat had entered into the Occupied Territories but he had no idea his nephew would risk entering Jerusalem as well. Abu Yousef was only too aware of the dangers all around them.
"Are you ready, Abu Yousef? We will begin our resistance movement soon. I need you and your men to give your all when the time comes."
"We are all ready."
Arafat looked meaningfully at him. "Is it ready?"
Abu Yousef handed Arafat the Jerusalem ID card that he was going to need to cross through immigration out of Israel into Jordan. The photograph was of someone who looked like Arafat, but the personal details actually belonged to one of Abu Yousef 's other relatives. Arafat would leave alone across the Jordan River; most of the men who were with him would return to their own villages.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Arafat and the Dream of Palestine by Bassam Abu Sharif. Copyright © 2009 Bassam Abu Sharif. Excerpted by permission of Palgrave Macmillan.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Introduction
The Rise of Arafat
Events Leading up to Black September
Hijacked!
Arafat's Escape
Reagan's broken Promise
War and Pieces of Palestine
Steadfastness and Confrontation
Invasion
What Reagan Told Sharon
Walid Jumblatt's Message
A Close Call
Practical Solutions to Impractical Problems
The Soviet Invitation
The Storming of Beirut
Tension with Syria
A Dangerous Journey
Getting the Truth Out
'India Loves You'
A Terrorist in Buckingham Palace
The Handshake
Almost deported
Lost in Translation
Children of the Stones
A Political Bomb
The Abu Sharif Document
Give Peace a Visa
The Difference a Paragraph Can Make
The Ambassador's Lost Opportunity
The Power of an Embrace
Two Wagers
US Trap
Last Minute Modifications
Under Siege
The Final Farewell
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