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Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 2008, page 18 In Memoriam Dr. George Habash (1925-2008)By Andrew I. Killgore
DR. GEORGE HABASH, founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) died in Amman, Jordan on Jan. 26, 2008. Born into a Greek Orthodox Christian family in Lydda, Palestine, he attended an incomplete secondary school in his home town, moving to Jerusalem to finish his high school education. He returned to Lydda, where he taught for two years. In 1944 he entered the American University of Beirut (AUB), where he studied medicine and became a top student, applying himself arduously to his studies. Politics was the furthest subject from his mind. In his senior year of medical school, however, he started attending a small closed cultural circle run by Dr. Constantine Zurayk (later an acting president of AUB). But because this was June 1948, when the Zionists were causing existential worries for the Palestinians in Lydda, Habash’s cultural-political activities were foreshortened. Defying his family’s urging that he remain in Beirut, he returned to Lydda—just as Zionist terrorists began hustling Palestinians out of their homes with great violence, including murder. It was this brutality—now called ethnic cleansing—that turned Habash into an Arab nationalist. After he graduated from AUB in 1951 with a degree in medicine, Dr. Habash went to work in Palestinian refugee camps in Amman. In 1952 he founded the Arab Nationalist Movement, which later spun off into several parties in various countries. Wanted by Jordan for his political activities, he fled to Damascus, where he was imprisoned several times for political reasons. Gradually Dr. Habash evolved from focusing on pan-Arab to Palestinian issues. He believed Palestinians should embrace the Marxist-Leninist revolution. In 1957 he and Abu Ali Mustafa founded the PFLP, of which he served as secretary-general until the year 2000. Known as “Al-Hakim” (the wise one, also Doctor), Habash was a Palestinian icon who was very highly regarded by Palestinians and Arabs generally. Dr. Habash and his wife, Hilda, a Palestinian, had two children. Andrew I. Killgore is publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. |
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