Husseini: A voice of moderation

Husseini dreamed of a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem

JERUSALEM -- Faisal Husseini was born in Baghdad, Iraq, on July 17, 1940, his prominent Palestinian family having been forced into exile by its resistance to British rule over Palestine.

But his father, legendary Arab military leader Abdel Kader, later returned to the area and was killed fighting in the 1948 war that accompanied the creation of the Jewish state of Israel.

Husseini then grew up in Cairo and underwent military training in Iraq and Syria, returning to Jerusalem just before the 1967 Mideast war, when Israel captured and annexed the whole city as its "undivided and eternal capital" -- an action not recognized internationally.

It remained Husseini's lifelong dream to see the creation of a Palestinian state with its capital in the East Jerusalem area and he was one of the very early members of the outlawed Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1960s.

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By the late 1980s, with his distant relative Yasser Arafat in exile, he had emerged as a leading Palestinian spokesperson and defended the first Intifadah in 1987.

Asked by Israeli peace activists how he could defend the uprising while being a leading advocate for dialogue, the Associated Press reported Husseini as saying: "We are not friends. We are enemies working for peace so that we can be friends someday."

Jailed without trial a few months before the uprising began, Husseini spent a total of three years in Israeli jails and four years under house arrest.

But a moderate voice and a strong believer in peace, in 1991 he led a Palestinian delegation to meet former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker to lay the groundwork for the launching of peace talks between the PLO and Israel.

'Dignity is non-negotiable'

In the next few years he was increasingly sidelined from international manoeuvring, with Arafat's return from exile among other things, and concentrated on strengthening the Palestinian foothold in East Jerusalem -- of which many saw him as de facto mayor.

In 1991, he turned the Orient House, a former hotel owned by his family, into the unofficial PLO headquarters in East Jerusalem and there over the years he greeted a steady stream of international dignitaries, including foreign ministers.

A welcome guest on Israeli talk shows, diplomatically explaining Palestinian claims to Jerusalem in the Hebrew he had polished in jail, Husseini would also lead confrontations with Israeli security forces on the streets.

Last September, he was among Palestinians present at Jerusalem's sacred Haram as-Sharif, or Temple Mount to Jews, when unrest accompanied the visit of Ariel Sharon, now Israel's prime minister.

The clashes, fuelled by anger over deadlocked peace negotiations with Israel, were right at the start at the latest Palestinian uprising which has so far claimed at least 500 lives -- the vast majority of them Palestinian.

In an opinion piece for the International Herald Tribune in November, Husseini tried to explain the reasons behind the uprising.

"We, as Palestinians, have learned to live with many injustices during the past 52 years, and we have made many compromises in our pursuit of peace but our human dignity is non-negotiable."

Palestinians felt "utterly betrayed" after being pressured by Israel and the United States at a Mideast summit last year into making "unacceptable" concessions, he said.

At the same time, Husseini continued to reach out to Israelis.

Moshe Amirav, an Israeli hard-liner-turned-peace activist, said Husseini's last words to him after a meeting a few months ago were: "Moshe, the dialogue has to continue."

Husseini is survived by his wife, Najat and his adult daughter, Fadwa and son, Abdel Kader.