Faisal Husseini

Faisal Husseini

Faisal Abdel Qader Al-Husseini (Arabic: فيصل عبدالقادر الحسيني‎) (July 17, 1940–May 31, 2001) was a Palestinian politician who was considered a possible future leader of the Palestinian people.

Husseini was born in Baghdad son of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni, commander of local Arab forces during the siege of 1948, grandson of Musa Kazim Pasha Al-Husseini Mayor of Jerusalem and a relative of Haj Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. He studied in Cairo, Baghdad, and Damascus. He was a founding member of the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) in 1959.

Husseini went to work for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) upon its establishment in Jerusalem as deputy manager of the Public Organisation Dept, a post he filled from 1964 to 1965. He later received military training at the Damascus Military College after which he joined the Palestinian Liberation Army in 1967.

In 1979, Husseini founded and became chairman of the Arab Studies Society.

Israel, from 1982–1987, repeatedly placed him under house and city arrest. He was imprisoned several times from April 1987–January 1989, but remained active in the Intifada.

In 1982, he became a member of the Supreme Muslim Council in Jerusalem. Subsequently he served as a Palestinian spokesperson, head of the Jerusalem National Council/Palestine, member and later head of the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid Middle East Peace Conference and subsequent talks, head of the Fatah faction in the West Bank, and Palestinian Authority Minister without Portfolio.

His last post was Palestinian Authority Minister for Jerusalem Affairs for which he was based in East Jerusalem. He died while trying to mend relations between the Kuwaiti government and PLO which were broken at the time of the 1991 Gulf War.

Husseini was considered a pragmatist by journalists. He taught himself to speak Hebrew and regularly appeared in radio and television shows in Israel to explain the Palestinians' point of view.