George Habash, known with affection as al-Hakim, the doctor, came to the end of his life without reaching his dream of Palestinian liberation. He was born in Lyd, Palestine in 1925 and saw al-Nakba first-hand as volunteer medical staff, then as a displaced Palestinian.  After dedicating his life to the Palestinian cause, he was celebrated as a hero by many Palestinians and considered a threat by Israel. 

George Habash

Habash became a leader in the struggle for national freedom while living outside Palestine, employing tactics and an ideology considered terrorism by the Israelis and many in the West.  He continued to participate in Palestinian politics even after leaving the group he founded, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

George Habash, who many consider the innovator of airplane hijackings, explained that such tactics were important for calling attention to the suffering of the Palestinians. He said: “For decades world opinion has been neither for nor against Palestinians. It simply ignored us. At least the world is talking about us now.”

His second life aspiration was Arab unity.  Before he founded the PFLP in 1964, he co-founded the Arab National Movement in 1953.  It worked to advance the goals of pan-Arabism, which swept the Arab world with a promise of state integration and greater popular unity.

Though neither dream came to fruition in his life, he never wavered in his passion, giving talks and holding meetings until the end. 

Many obituaries characterized him as an extremist for his views and advocacy of violent tactics.  To a people subject to extreme oppression and state-sanctioned violence, his message had much resonance. Others, such as victims of PFLP violence, see him as a terrorist.

A journalist for Time wrote about meeting Habash and asking him how he, as a doctor, could order the use of violence. He responded: “All the time I was believing from the bottom of my heart and brain that I am fighting for a righteous cause. The Israelis took our country because they are powerful, and that is why we have to attain power, because justice without power means nothing. Certain [terrorist] operations would make Palestinians themselves feel that they can do something, which would make all the world stop and say, ‘Oh, what is this?’”

As Palestinian journalist Lamis Andoni wrote, condemning him as “a terrorist misses an important point: Habash was a product of the generation of the Nakba or catastrophe as Palestinians refer to the 1948 creation of the state of Israel. After his life was shattered by the violent dispossession of his homeland, Habash was determined to fight back.”

Palestinians carry a mock coffin during a symbolic funeral for George Habash, the founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) at al-Yarmouk camp near Damascus, January 29, 2008.REUTERS

In a 1998 interview, he discussed the memorable events of his youth that gave him his political leanings.  He was in elementary school during the Great Rebellion of 1936-39, in which Palestinians rose up against the British mandatory authorities in control of Palestine and the Zionists.  He recalled “the anti-British demonstrations and strikes organized by the Palestinian nationalists and slogans like ‘Down with colonialism!’ and ‘Down with the Balfour Declaration!’”

During al-Nakba, or Israel’s founding at the expense of the Palestinians, he described the scene in his hometown:  “Air raids had the population terrorized, and the town was overflowing with refugees from the surrounding areas that had been attacked by the Zionist gangs.”

During the assault, his sister died from typhoid, which the family claimed could have been prevented with proper medical care.  Three hours after burying her near their house, according to Habash, “Jewish fighters stormed the house, screaming: ‘Out! Out! Get out!’” At the Zionist checkpoint outside of town, he witnessed Zionist soldiers kill his neighbor who had refused to be searched.

His family ended up in Ramallah, then settled in Amman.

His politics were about more than Palestine.  He and the PFLP were inspired by anti-colonial movements around the world.  Colonialism, for the colonized, was a brutal form of external control.  Fighting colonialism cost millions of lives in places like Algeria, Vietnam and India.

This gave way to his embrace of Marxism in the 1960s.  He expanded his anti-colonial outlook to consider the national struggle for Palestine as part of a broader fight for social justice, especially in response to the systematic inequity inherent to capitalism. This set him against Israel, the West, and Arab governments, which he saw as “lackeys of imperialism.”

After the Arab defeat in 1967, the PFLP turned to armed struggle.  This created many enemies for Habash and the PFLP.  Yet, they remained important in Palestinian politics.  Habash stepped down as the head of the PFLP in 2000 for health reasons.

As the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) turned towards a two-state solution and sought negotiations with Israel, Habash protested.  He argued, according to Palestinian journalist Lamis Andoni, that they “should not be begging for the acceptance of their enemies, that the Palestinians’ over-eagerness to be included would come at a very high price in the form of gradual compromise of their national rights.”

As a vocal critic of the Oslo process, his criticisms bore out in reality.  This was nothing for him to celebrate.  Towards the end of his life, he was upset about the fissures between Fatah and Hamas, as well as the U.S. occupation in Iraq.

Though many disparaged his idealism, he was also hailed as “the conscience of the Palestinian revolution.”  As an important figure in Palestinian history, Palestinians will decide where his shadow ends.