Khalil al-Wazir

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Khalil al-Wazir
October 10, 1935(1935-10-10) – April 16, 1988

Portrait of Khalil al-Wazir
Nickname Abu Jihad (Father of the Struggle)
Place of birth Ramla, British Mandate of Palestine
Place of death Tunis, Tunisia
Allegiance Palestine Liberation Organization
Service/branch Fatah
Battles/wars Battle of Karameh
Black September in Jordan
First Intifada
Relations Intissar al-Wazir (wife)

Khalil al-Wazir (Arabic: خليل الوزير‎), also known by his kunya "Abu Jihad" (Arabic: أبو جهاد — father of the struggle) (October 10, 1935–April 16, 1988), was a Palestinian military leader and founder of the secular political party Fatah. As a top aide of the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat, al-Wazir had considerable influence in Fatah's military activities, eventually becoming the commander of Fatah's armed wing al-Assifa. The Israeli government and the majority of the Israeli people considered him to be a high-ranking terrorist for masterminding the killings of Israelis,[1] while the majority of the Palestinians viewed him as a martyr who died resisting the Israeli occupation.[2]

Al-Wazir became a refugee as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and began leading a minor fedayeen force in the Gaza Strip. In the early 1960s he established connections between Communist regimes and prominent third-world leaders with Fatah and founded Fatah's branch in Algeria. He played an important role in the 1970-71 Black September clashes in Jordan, by supplying surrounded Palestinian fighters with weapons and aid, but they were eventually forced out by the Jordanian Army.

Prior to and during Israel's 1978 invasion of Lebanon — where he fled to after his expulsion from Jordan — he masterminded numerous attacks inside Israel against both civilian and military targets. After he was exiled from Lebanon with the rest of the Fatah leadership, al-Wazir settled in Tunis. From his base there, he started to form and organize youth committees in the Palestinian territories, which eventually became the backbone of the Palestinian forces in the First Intifada. However, he did not live to command the uprising; In 1988, he was assassinated at his home in Tunis by Israeli commandos.

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[edit] Early life

Khalil al-Wazir was born in the city of Ramla, British Mandate Palestine in 1935 to a Muslim grocer.[3][4] Him and his family fled the city as a result of Israel's capture of the area during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, becoming refugees in the Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. In Bureij, he completed his secondary education.[5] While in high school, al-Wazir, began leading a small group of fedayeen in raids behind Israeli lines in the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula.[3]

In 1954, he came in contact with and eventually befriended Yasser Arafat in Gaza. During his time in Gaza, al-Wazir became a member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.[6] He was briefly imprisoned by Egyptian authorities for his membership with the organization (the Muslim Brotherhood was banned in Egypt). He received military training in Cairo, while studying architectural engineering at the University of Alexandria in 1956,[2] although he did not graduate. Al-Wazir was detained in 1957 and expelled to Saudi Arabia for his raids against Israel.[3] He later found work as a teacher in Kuwait in 1959,[6] and remained there for four about years.[2]

[edit] Formation of Fatah

Al-Wazir's residence in Kuwait, allowed him to reestablish ties with Arafat, Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyad) and other Palestinians he met in Egypt. Al-Wazir and his comrades founded Fatah, a secular Palestinian nationalist guerrilla group, sometime between 1959-60.[7] Al-Wazir moved to Beirut after being put in charge of editing the newly-formed organization's monthly magazine Filastinuna, Nida' al-Hayat, as he was, according to Said Aburish, "the only one with a flair for writing".[7]

He settled in Algeria in 1962, after a delegation of Fatah leaders including Arafat and Farouk Kaddoumi, were invited there by President Ahmed Ben Bella. Al-Wazir remained there, opened a Fatah office and military training camp in Algiers and was included in an Algerian delegation to Bejing. During his visit, he presented Fatah's ideas to the leaders of the People's Republic of China and thus inaugurated Fatah's good relationship with the Chinese. He also toured other East Asian countries, establishing relations with North Korea and the Viet Cong.[8] Al-Wazir supposedly "charmed Che Guevara" during his speech in Algiers.[7] With his guerrilla credentials and his contacts with arms-supplying nations, he was assigned the role of recruiting and training fighters, thus establishing Fatah's armed wing al-Assifa (the Storm).[5]

[edit] Syria and post-Six-Day War

Al-Wazir settled in Damascus, Syria, in 1965, in order take advantage of the ruling Ba'ath party's militant stance against Israel. On May 9, 1966, he and Arafat were detained by Syrian police loyal to Hafez al-Assad after an incident where a pro-Syrian Palestinian leader, Yusuf Orabi was thrown out of the window of a three-story building and killed. Al-Wazir alongside Arafat, was either discussing possibilities of uniting Fatah with Orabi's faction, the Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Palestine or winning Orabi's support against his and Arafat's rivals within the Fatah leadership. An argument occurred, eventually leading to Orabi's murder, however al-Wazir and Arafat had already left the scene shortly before the incident. According to Aburish, Orabi and Assad were "close friends" and Assad appointed a panel to investigate what happened. The panel found both Arafat and al-Wazir guilty but, the current President of Syria Salah Jadid pardoned them.[7]

After the defeat of the Arab states in the 1967 Six-Day War, leading Palestinian guerrilla organizations that participated in the war or were backed by any of the involved Arab states, such as, the Arab Nationalist Movement led by George Habash, the Palestine Liberation Army and several other guerrilla factions within the Palestine Liberation Organization lost considerable influence among the Palestinian population, propelling Fatah to become the dominant faction in the PLO. Fatah gained 33 of 105 seats in the Palestinian National Council (PNC) (the most seats allocated to any guerrilla group), thus strengthening al-Wazir's position. During the Battle of Karameh in March 1968, he and Salah Khalaf assumed important command posts of Fatah fighters against the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), which developed his credentials as a skilled military strategist.[9] This eventually led to him taking command of al-Assifa, holding major positions in the PNC,[4] and the Supreme Military Council of the PLO. He was also put in charge of guerrilla warfare operations in the occupied Palestinian territories as well as, inside Israel.[5]

[edit] Black September and the Lebanese Civil War

Yasser Arafat and al-Wazir meet Gamal Abdel Nasser upon arrival in Cairo to attend first emergency Arab League summit, 1970
Yasser Arafat and al-Wazir meet Gamal Abdel Nasser upon arrival in Cairo to attend first emergency Arab League summit, 1970

During the Black September clashes in Jordan, al-Wazir supplied the encircled Palestinian forces in Jerash and Ajlun with arms and aid but,[10] nevertheless the conflict was waning in Jordan's favor. After Arafat and thousands of Fatah fighters retreated to Lebanon upon advancing Jordanian forces, al-Wazir negotiated an agreement between King Hussein and the PLO's leading organizer, calling for better Palestinian conduct in Jordan.[11] Then, along with the other PLO leaders, he relocated to Beirut.[10]

Al-Wazir did not play a major role in the Lebanese Civil War, primarily helping strengthen the Lebanese National Movement, the PLO's main ally in the conflict.[10] During the fall of the Tel al-Zaatar camp to the Lebanese Front and the subsequent massacre by Christian forces, Abu Jihad blamed himself for not organizing a rescue effort.[12] When Israel besieged Beirut in 1982, al-Wazir, in contradiction with the views of the PLO's leftist members and Salah Khalaf, proposed pulling out of Beirut. Al-Wazir's proposal was ignored by Arafat, but eventually PLO forces were defeated and expelled from Lebanon, most of the leadership relocating to Tunis.[13]

During his stay in Lebanon, al-Wazir was responsible for coordinating high-profile military operations including allegedly masterminded the Savoy Operation in 1975, in which eight Fatah militants raided and took hostages in the Savoy hotel in Tel Aviv, killing eight of them as well as three soldiers during the rescue operation. Seven Fatah militants were also killed.[14]

[edit] Establishing movement in the Palestinian territories

Dissatisfied at the decisive defeat of Palestinian forces during the 1982 Lebanon War, al-Wazir concentrated on establishing a solid Fatah base in the Palestinian territories. In 1982, he began to sponsor youth committees there, that eventually became the embryonic organization that later ignited the First Intifada in December 1987. The Intifada, began as an uprising of Palestinian youth against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The word Intifada in Arabic is literally translated as "tremor", however, it is generally used to describe an uprising or revolt.[15]

The first stage of the Intifada was a response to an incident at the Erez checkpoint where an Israeli military vehicle hit a group of Palestinian laborers, killing four of them. However within weeks, upon consistent requests by al-Wazir, the PLO attempted to direct the uprising, which lasted until 1992–93. Al-Wazir had been assigned by Arafat the responsibility of the Palestinian territories within the PLO command and according to biographer Said Aburish, had "impressive knowledge of local conditions" in the Israeli-occupied territories, apparently knowing "every village, school, and large family in Gaza and the West Bank". He provided the uprising with financial backing and logistical support, thus becoming its "brain in exile". Al-Wazir activated every cell he had set up in the territories since the late 1970s in an effort to back the stone-throwers that formed the backbone of the Palestinian fighters, but also, to use it as an opportunity to reform the PLO.[15] According Yezid Sayigh, al-Wazir believed that the Intifada should not have been sacrificed to Arafat solely for use as a diplomatic or political tool.[16]

[edit] Assassination

Main article: Tunis Raid
Al-Wazir with Arafat in Tunis, 1988
Al-Wazir with Arafat in Tunis, 1988

Al-Wazir was assassinated at close range in his home at 2 a.m. UTC on April 16, 1988 at the age of 53. According to Aburish, he was shot with over 150 bullets in the presence of his wife and son Nidal,[15] however other sources suggest over 70 bullets.[2] Al-Wazir is widely believed to have been assassinated by an Israeli commando team, reportedly ferried from Israel by boat, aided ashore by Mossad agents. Israel accused al-Wazir for escalating the violence of the Intifada which was raging at the time of his assassination.[15]

In 1997, a revelation came in a Maariv newspaper report on the execution of al-Wazir. The report claimed that Ehud Barak led a seaborne command center that oversaw al-Wazir's assassination. However, Israel has never officially taken responsibility for his killing and government spokesman Moshe Fogel and aides to Barak declined to comment on the issue. According to the report, Barak, who was then a deputy military chief, coordinated the planning by the Mossad, as well as, the army's intelligence branch, the air force, navy and the elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit. Barak ran the assassination operation from a command center on a navy missile boat off the shore of Tunis, Maariv said. Mossad intelligence agents watched al-Wazir's home for months before the raid.[17] The United States Department of State condemned his murder as an "act of political assassination".[1]

[edit] Personal life

Al-Wazir married his cousin Intissar al-Wazir and had five children with her. His sons are Jihad, Bassem and Nidal, his two daughters are Iman and Hanan al-Wazir.[2] His wife returned to Gaza following the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO and in 1996 became the first female minister in the Palestinian National Authority.[18] After Hamas' takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007, Palestinians raided al-Wazir's home, reportedly stealing his personal belongings.[19]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Chomsky, Noam (January 1996). A Painful Peace: That's a fair sample. Z-Magazine. Retrieved on 2008-02-12.
  2. ^ a b c d e The Fallen Prince -16 Years of the Assassination of Abu Jihad International Press Center. 2004-04-16
  3. ^ a b c Cobban, Helena (1984). The Palestinian Liberation Organisation: People, Power, and Politics. Cambridge University Press, p.8. ISBN 0521272165. 
  4. ^ a b Khalil al-Wazir Biography: Article abstract ENotes Incorporate
  5. ^ a b c Palestine Biography: Khalil al-Wazir Shashaa, Esam, Palestine History.
  6. ^ a b Aburish, Said K. (1998). From Defender to Dictator. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, pp.28. ISBN 1-58234-049-8. 
  7. ^ a b c d Aburish, Said K. (1998). From Defender to Dictator. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, pp.40-67. ISBN 1-58234-049-8. 
  8. ^ Cobban, Helena (1984). The Palestinian Liberation Organisation: People, Power, and Politics. Cambridge University Press, pp.31-32. ISBN 0521272165. 
  9. ^ Aburish, Said K. (1998). From Defender to Dictator. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, pp.73-85. ISBN 1-58234-049-8. 
  10. ^ a b c "Encyclopedia of the Palestinians (Facts on File Library of World History)". Phillip Mattar 1. (2000). Facts on File.  Excerpt provided by palestineremembered.com al-Wazir, Khalil
  11. ^ Aburish, Said K. (1998). From Defender to Dictator. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 109-133. ISBN 1-58234-049-8. 
  12. ^ Aburish, Said K. (1998). From Defender to Dictator. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 154-155. ISBN 1-58234-049-8. 
  13. ^ Aburish, Said K. (1998). From Defender to Dictator. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 174-176. ISBN 1-58234-049-8. 
  14. ^ Terrorist Suicide Operation Analysis: Savoy Operation GlobalSecurity, 2005-04-27
  15. ^ a b c d Aburish, Said K. (1998). From Defender to Dictator. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, pp.203-210. ISBN 1-58234-049-8. 
  16. ^ Sayigh, Yezid (1997). Armed Struggle and the Search for State, the Palestinian National Movement, 1949-1993. London: Oxford University Press, pp.618. ISBN 0198296436. 
  17. ^ Ackerman, Gwen (1997-07-04). Barak Assassination of Abu Jihad. Associated Press. Hartford Web Publishing. Retrieved on 2008-02-12.
  18. ^ The PA Ministerial Cabinet List November 2003: Biography of PA Cabinet Jerusalem Media and Communication Centre
  19. ^ Looters raid Arafat's home, steal his Nobel Peace Prize Khaled Abu Toameh The Jerusalem Post. 2007-06-16 Retrieved on 2008-02-22

[edit] External links

[edit] Further reading

  • Amos, John. Palestinian Resistance. New York: pergamon Press, 1980. ISBN 0-08-025094-7
  • Cobban, Helena. The Palestinian Liberation Organization. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984. ISBN 0-521-27216-5
  • Hart, Alan. Arafat. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992. ISBN 0-253-20516-6
  • Yusuf, Samir. Abu Jihad. Cairo: al-Markaz al-Misri al-Arabi, 1989.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalil_al-Wazir"
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