George Habash

George Habash
جورج حبش
General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
In office
December 1967 – July 2000
Succeeded byAbu Ali Mustafa
Personal details
Born(1926-08-01)1 August 1926[1][2]
Lydda, Mandatory Palestine
Died26 January 2008(2008-01-26) (aged 81)
Amman, Jordan
NationalityPalestinian
Political partyPopular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Other political
affiliations
Arab Nationalist Movement (1951–1967)
Alma materAmerican University of Beirut
Religious backgroundGreek Orthodox Christian

George Habash (Arabic: جورج حبش, romanizedJūrj Ḥabash; 1 August 1926 – 26 January 2008) was a Palestinian politician and physician who founded the Marxist–Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).[3][4]

Habash was born in Lydda, Mandatory Palestine in 1926. In 1948, while a medical student at the American University of Beirut, he went to his home town of Lydda during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, when the city's Arab Palestinian population including his family were driven out in what became known as the Lydda Death March that led to the death of his sister.[5] In 1951, after graduating first in his class from medical school, Habash worked in Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan and ran a clinic in Amman. He later relocated to Syria and Lebanon.

In 1967, after being sidelined in the Palestine Liberation Organization by Yasser Arafat, he founded the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a leftist movement which opposes the existence of Israel and advocates for a single democratic and secular state in the entire region. In the 1970 Dawson's Field hijackings, Habash masterminded the hijackings of four Western airliners to Jordan, which led to the Black September conflict, and his subsequent exile to Lebanon. He remained opposed to a two-state solution even after the PLO signed the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993. He resigned as secretary general of the PFLP due to ill health in 2000, and died after a heart attack in 2008.

He was also known by his kunya as "Al-Hakim" (Arabic: الحكيم, romanizedAl-Ḥakīm, lit.'The Wise Man' or 'The Doctor').

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference bearer was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ ذكرى ميلاد حكيمُ الثورة وضميرُها.. القائد المؤسّس جورج حبش [The Anniversary of the Birth of the Hakim of the Revolution and its Consciousness, the Founding Leader George Habash]. Al-Hadaf (in Arabic). 1 August 2023. Archived from the original on 1 August 2023.
  3. ^ Hirst, David (27 January 2008). "George Habash". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 June 2024.
  4. ^ "George Habash: A Profile From the Archives". Jadaliyya جدلية.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Khazziha was invoked but never defined (see the help page).