Faisal Husseini
The following is copied verbatum from the website http://www.fhf-pal.org/fcul1_e.htm
Faisal Abdel Qader Husseini was born in Baghdad on July 17, 1940 during his father's forced exile from Jerusalem. In 1944, his family moved to Mecca where they lived for one and a half years, and from there moved to Cairo where Faisal pursued his elementary and secondary education. His father Abdel Qader Al-Husseini was a leader in the armed struggle in Palestine and fell a martyr defending his homeland in the battle of Al-Qastal in 1948.
In 1958, Faisal Husseini joined the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM) and participated in the establishment of the General Union of Palestinian Students in Cairo in 1959. He was responsible for student affairs in the Palestine Government in Cairo, and later worked as an official in the Popular Organization Department of the PLO Jerusalem office in 1965. After the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem he became an active member in Fateh, the largest PLO faction. This early phase of his work enabled him to lead the political and nationalist struggle against the illegal Israeli occupation.
Faisal Husseini obtained his Bachelor degree from the Military College in Syria in 1967. He later organized a military camp for hundreds of volunteers at Kaifoun/ Lebanon in the wake of the 1967 defeat. He returned to Jerusalem in 1967 Crossing the River Jordan and settling in Jerusalem, his home and the home of his ancestors. He then started working with various Palestinian groups and factions which had come together to resist the occupation. Faisal Husseini was among the Palestinian nationalist pioneers who were detained by the Israelis directly after the war under the pretext that they were setting up military groups and possessing arms. He was sentenced to one year imprisonment on October 15, 1967.
Faisal Husseini moved between different professions in the period 1969-1979, he worked as a farmer in Jericho, an oil merchant, a hotel receptionist, a radiology technician, and a mobile vendor.
In 1979 Faisal Husseini, along with a small group of Palestinian intellectuals, founded the Arab Studies Society which was confronted by Israelis and closed several times. In 1981, he led the campaign to end the siege imposed by the Israeli forces on the Golan Heights. The Israeli authorities put him under administrative detention in Jerusalem from 1982-1987 which prevented him from furthering his studies as a historian in the Faculty of Arts at The Arab Beirut University which he had enrolled in 1977.
Faisal Husseini established the Palestine Center for Human Rights and "Confronting The Iron Fist" in 1987. He was among the most prominent leaders of the Intifada, and was detained once again that same year. His detention continued sporadically until 1989. Due to the closure of the Arab Studies Society during those years, Faisal Husseini operated out of his home from where he exercised his popular and official activities.
In 1991, Faisal Husseini led the preliminary talks for the Madrid Peace Conference with former US Secretary of State Mr. James Baker. In 1992 he set up headquarters for the Palestinian Delegation to the peace talks in what later became known as the 'Orient House'. Besides becoming somewhat of a center for the PLO in Jerusalem, the Orient House also encompassed the Arab Studies Society and developed to function as a main center to service the people of Jerusalem and thus contributed in a major way to anchor them in the city.
In 1995 Faisal Husseini received the responsibility for the Jerusalem Portfolio from the PLO. A year later he was elected by the Palestinian National Council as member of the Executive Committee of the PLO.
Faisal Husseini continuously confronted Israeli policies in Jerusalem and defended its Arab character all over the world. He led demonstrations to defend Holy Muslim sites such as Al-Haram Al-Sharif. He strongly opposed settlements in different regions, particularly in Abu-Ghneim. He also stood against the Israeli forces during the tunnel incidents in 1996. Faisal Husseini transferred Jerusalem into an effective capital for Palestinians and made the Orient House the official location for meeting officials and important personnel. He also undertook dozens of international tours to defend the case of Jerusalem and Palestine, and tried to direct a united Arab attention to Jerusalem. Fasial Husseini passed away during his visit to Kuwait on 31/5/2001 and was buried on 1/6/2001 in the courtyard of Al-Haram Al-Sharif beside his father and grandfather. On this day, Jerusalem was liberated with his farewell.
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Faisal Husseini wrote this prayer on the day of the first massacre at Al-Aqsa on October 8, 1990. Faisal was walking with his usual demeanor and pride, when something inside him made him stop. He felt a bullet whizzing his head, and so he evaded certain death.
New Birth
When that bullet whizzed by my head I knew it was not an accident. It was supposed, or expected to lodge in my head. It was an involuntary movement that I made to evade death, to face a new beginning. I continued to wonder if that bullet did not really strike me in the head. Has that bullet and the ones following it, really not killed me? I mean has it not killed the human being that lived in this body up till that moment. Has that human being died and I am now another one? That place was full of hatred and anger, of fears and doubts of the spirit of revenge thirsting for blood, of hurricanes that wreck human values. I was forced to breathe in all that with the tear gas that the police had fired in the holy place.
No, that human being that lied in my body for years did not die, but was born again, with a new will a new strength and a profound faith. It was a new birth, where things were more refined, clearer and more illuminated, with a light that guides and almost builds the pathway. All around me, moans were gunpowder congested noses and eyes. In the midst of this shifting atmosphere, gloomy with death and catastrophe, I began to prepare my plea and my prayer:
Oh God, the chest is replete with bitterness… do not turn that into spite.
Oh God, the heart is replete with pain… do not turn that into vengeance.
Oh God, the spirit is replete with fear… do not turn that into hatred.
Oh God, my body is weak… do not turn my weakness into despair.
Oh God, I your servant am holding the embers… so help me maintain my steadfastness.
Oh God, faith is love… Oh God faith is forgiveness… Oh God, faith is conviction…
Oh God, do not put of the flame of faith from my chest.
Oh God, we wanted for the Intifada a white one, so please protect it.
Oh God, we wanted freedom for our people, we did not want slavery to others.
Oh God, we wanted a homeland for our people to gather them, we did not want to destroy states of others, nor to demolish their homes.
Oh God, our people are stripped of all things, except their belief in their right.
Oh God, our people are weak except in their faith and in their victory.
Oh God, grant us conviction, mercy and tolerance in our ranks, and not make us war against ourselves
Oh God, turn the blood that was shed into light that will guide us and strengthen our arms, do not let it turn into fuel of hatred and vengeance.
Oh God, help us over our enemy so that we can help him deal with himself.
Oh God, this is my prayer to you… my invocation, so listen to it and grant us our supplication and guide us to the right path.
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