Palestinian revolutionary dies
Sakher Habash, the Palestinian revolutionary and intellectual who died on Sunday after a stroke aged 70, devoted the greater part of his life to the Palestinian struggle.
Known by his nom de guerre Abu Nizar, Habash was a founding member of the Fatah Party and although he supported the Oslo process of talks with Israel in the mid-1990s, he never rejected armed resistance. Violence, he argued, was a legitimate way for Palestinians to struggle for their rights.
To the end, like his lifelong compadre Yasser Arafat, Habash donned the revolutionary uniform.
In 2002, after the second intifada had broken out and Israeli forces invaded Ramallah, he even picked up arms one last time, and holed up in a building to repel the invading Israeli tanks.
He also cultivated other interests, was a prolific writer of both poetry and history, writing among other things a history of the Fatah movement, and became known as one of the party’s intellectuals.
“He was a multifaceted man,” said Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the executive committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. “He was an avid reader and writer. Every meeting we had, he would sit down and write a poem and send it to me afterwards.”
Habash regularly hosted members of every faction as well as community leaders at his home in Ramallah, and Palestinian unity was very much a priority for him.
“He was a unifier. He was very pleasant and very positive,” Ms Ashrawi said. “Even after he had his first stroke, his innate humanity always shone through. He was always looking for productive ways to solve problems.”
Perhaps as a result of his close reading of history, Habash had a sense of propriety. He made it his business to make sure that Palestinians who had been killed in fighting with Israel were remembered and pressured local authorities to name streets after them.
Read entire article at The American Task Force on Palestine
Known by his nom de guerre Abu Nizar, Habash was a founding member of the Fatah Party and although he supported the Oslo process of talks with Israel in the mid-1990s, he never rejected armed resistance. Violence, he argued, was a legitimate way for Palestinians to struggle for their rights.
To the end, like his lifelong compadre Yasser Arafat, Habash donned the revolutionary uniform.
In 2002, after the second intifada had broken out and Israeli forces invaded Ramallah, he even picked up arms one last time, and holed up in a building to repel the invading Israeli tanks.
He also cultivated other interests, was a prolific writer of both poetry and history, writing among other things a history of the Fatah movement, and became known as one of the party’s intellectuals.
“He was a multifaceted man,” said Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the executive committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. “He was an avid reader and writer. Every meeting we had, he would sit down and write a poem and send it to me afterwards.”
Habash regularly hosted members of every faction as well as community leaders at his home in Ramallah, and Palestinian unity was very much a priority for him.
“He was a unifier. He was very pleasant and very positive,” Ms Ashrawi said. “Even after he had his first stroke, his innate humanity always shone through. He was always looking for productive ways to solve problems.”
Perhaps as a result of his close reading of history, Habash had a sense of propriety. He made it his business to make sure that Palestinians who had been killed in fighting with Israel were remembered and pressured local authorities to name streets after them.