Abu Iyad
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,
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, death_cause =
Assassination Assassination is the willful killing, by a sudden, secret, or planned attack, of a personespecially if prominent or important. It may be prompted by political, ideological, religious, financial, or military motives. Assassinations are orde ...
, resting_place = Amman, Jordan , resting_place_coordinates = , nationality = , citizenship =
Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...
, education = , alma_mater = Al Azhar University
Ain Shams University , occupation =
Politician A politician is a person who participates in Public policy, policy-making processes, usually holding an elective position in government. Politicians represent the people, make decisions, and influence the formulation of public policy. The roles ...
, years_active = , known_for = , height = , title = , term = , predecessor = , successor = , opponent = , spouse = , partner = , children = 6 , party = Fatah , parents = , mother = , father = , relatives = , family = , awards = , website = , module = , module2 = , module3 = , module4 = , module5 = , module6 = , signature = , signature_size = , signature_alt = , footnotes = Salah Mesbah Khalaf (), also known as Abu Iyad () (31 August 1933 – 14 January 1991), was a Palestinian militant and the deputy chief and head of intelligence for the
Palestine Liberation Organization The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO; ) is a Palestinian nationalism, Palestinian nationalist coalition that is internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinians, Palestinian people in both the occupied Pale ...
. He was the second most senior official of Fatah after
Yasser Arafat Yasser Arafat (4 or 24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004), also popularly known by his Kunya (Arabic), kunya Abu Ammar, was a Palestinian political leader. He was chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 to 2004, Presid ...
. The United States and Israel believed him to have been a founder of the Black September Organization. Suspected of having helped the CIA to break up Abu Nidal's so-called " Abu Nidal Organization", Khalaf was assassinated by a member of that organization in 1991. Palestinians, and many onlookers, generally believe Abu Nidal was responsible for his death. Some believe the order came from Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Ira ...
.


Early life and education

Khalaf was born in northern
Jaffa Jaffa (, ; , ), also called Japho, Joppa or Joppe in English, is an ancient Levantine Sea, Levantine port city which is part of Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel, located in its southern part. The city sits atop a naturally elevated outcrop on ...
in 1933, close to Tel Aviv. His father, who came from Gaza, ran a grocery in Carmel Market, where half of his clients were Jewish and he spoke Hebrew, which his son also picked up from companions among Sephardic Jews. Salah had four siblings. One of his uncles was married to a Jew. He dates his first feelings of animosity towards Jews to an incident in 1945, when he was taunted by Jewish youths for being an Arab while riding over to visit relatives. They smashed his bicycle, and, on returning home, he learnt that Jewish friends had falsely reported that he had knifed Jews in Jaffa, at a time corresponding to the bicycle incident. He was arrested, aged 11, by British police, beaten up and sentenced to a year of house arrest. On expiry of the sentence, he joined the 'lion cubs' of the Al-Najjada militia founded by his school principal Muhammad Nimr al-Hawari, which inculcated a rejection of racism, bigotry, and parochial loyalism, and taught him how to retaliate to violence with violence. His family abandoned Jaffa by boat for Gaza on 13 May 1948, as part of a general flight inspired by news of the Deir Yassin massacre and a sense of Jewish military superiority. They fully expected to return as an expected tide in the fortunes of war changed, enabling the Arab armies to drive back to Zionists. He moved to
Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...
in the early 1950s, enrolling in the Dar al-Ulum teacher's college. There, in 1951, he became a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.


Collaboration with Arafat, role in the PLO

In 1951, Khalaf met
Yasser Arafat Yasser Arafat (4 or 24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004), also popularly known by his Kunya (Arabic), kunya Abu Ammar, was a Palestinian political leader. He was chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 to 2004, Presid ...
at the
al-Azhar University The Al-Azhar University ( ; , , ) is a public university in Cairo, Egypt. Associated with Al-Azhar Al-Sharif in Islamic Cairo, it is Egypt's oldest degree-granting university and is known as one of the most prestigious universities for Islamic ...
—where he studied literature—during a meeting of the General Union of Palestinian Students. He returned to Gaza in 1957 with a combined degree in philosophy and psychology, and a teacher's certificate from Ain Shams University, where he was assigned to teach at Al Zahra, a girls' school, a position that was, in his memoirs, allocated in order to make him a pariah in the city. The posting lasted six months, after which he was transferred to teach in a makeshift school for poor refugee boys in the Gaza desert. Responding to a call from Arafat, he left for
Kuwait Kuwait, officially the State of Kuwait, is a country in West Asia and the geopolitical region known as the Middle East. It is situated in the northern edge of the Arabian Peninsula at the head of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to Iraq–Kuwait ...
and, together with Arafat, Farouk al-Qaddum, Khaled al-Hassan, Abd al-Muhsin al-Qatan and Khalil Ibrahim al-Wazir, founded Fatah - a name meaning "Conquest" composed from the reversed initials of ''Harakat al-Tahrir al-Watani al-Filastini'' (Movement for the National Liberation of Palestine). He was accused by
Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
and the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
of having founded the Black September Organization. As a result, Khalaf was arrested by the Jordanians and then released after he appealed to his comrades to stop fighting and to lay down their arms. According to Said Abu Rish's biography of Yasser Arafat, Arafat had used the fact that Khalaf had negotiated with King
Hussein of Jordan Hussein bin Talal (14 November 1935 – 7 February 1999) was King of Jordan from 1952 until Death and state funeral of King Hussein, his death in 1999. As a member of the Hashemites, Hashemite dynasty, the royal family of Jordan since 1921, Hu ...
to deflect criticism from himself over the conduct of the fighting between Palestinian guerrillas and the Jordanian army in 1970–71, portraying Khalaf as weak. Some argue that the ridicule his mediation met with was a decisive factor in his turn towards tactics which were considered by his adversaries to be terroristic. Khalaf then felt the need to restore his reputation within the Palestinian community, and became one of the foremost advocates for the terror campaigns conducted by PLO fighters and others during the early 1970s. Christopher Dobson, who met Khalaf in Cairo at this time, described him as someone who would pass unnoticed in a crowd, while topping Israel's most wanted list. Khalaf met with the U.S. ambassador to Tunis as part of the U.S.-PLO dialogue, a contact that had been authorized by
James Baker James Addison Baker III (born April 28, 1930) is an American attorney, diplomat and statesman. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 10th White House chief of staff and 67th United States secretary ...
. He was a man "who had been instrumental in bringing about the shift of PLO policy toward greater pragmatism." Khalaf opposed Arafat's alliance with
Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Ira ...
, in so far as, he argued, one could not side with an occupying power when one was fighting in one's own country against an occupation. It was rumoured that he had openly expressed disagreement with the Iraqi leader in face to face meetings, and vouched to stay neutral during the Persian Gulf War in 1991.


Assassination

Khalaf is said to have helped the CIA in an operation to break up the Abu Nidal organization. Defectors who split off were given refuge in
Tunis Tunis (, ') is the capital city, capital and largest city of Tunisia. The greater metropolitan area of Tunis, often referred to as "Grand Tunis", has about 2,700,000 inhabitants. , it is the third-largest city in the Maghreb region (after Casabl ...
by the PLO. On 14 January 1991, Khalaf was assassinated in the Tunisian home of Abu Hol ( Hayel Abdul Hamid, the security head of Fatah), by a Palestinian guard, Hamza Abu Zaid who was a
plant Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with c ...
from Abu Nidal's group. Zaid shot Khalef in the head, along with Abul Hol and another PLO operative and an aide to Khalaf, Fakhri Al Omari. Palestinians generally reacted by blaming Abu Nidal for the murder, since he was backed by Iraq, and Zaid later confessed to being in contact with Nidal. While Seale considers Abu Nidal to certainly have been behind the murder, others think the order probably came directly from
Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Ira ...
. A funeral service was held for Khalaf and the other two PLO officials in Tunis with the attendance of Yasser Arafat. Another service was held in Amman where they were buried at the martyr's cemetery.


Personal life

Khalaf married his cousin on 13 July 1959. They had six children: three daughters and three sons.


Views of Zionism

According to Elizabeth Thompson, Khalaf regarded
Zionism Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...
as an ideology exploited by a political elite which manipulated memories of
Nazism Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During Hitler's rise to power, it was fre ...
in order to create a persecution complex among
Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...
s.


School naming

On 24 September 2016, the
Palestinian Authority The Palestinian Authority (PA), officially known as the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), is the Fatah-controlled government body that exercises partial civil control over the Palestinian enclaves in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, ...
named a school in Tulkarem after Khalaf. Tulkarem governor Issam Abu Bakr said that the school was named after "martyr Salah Khalaf in order to commemorate the memory of this great national fighter".


Accusations of involvement in Bologna massacre

An Italian public attorney and retired prosecutor—and former director of investigations into the loss of Itavia Flight 870— Judge Rosario Priore argued in a book that Abu Iyad had ordered two German terrorists linked to Venezuelan
Carlos the Jackal Ilich Ramírez Sánchez (; born 12 October 1949), also known as Carlos the Jackal () or simply Carlos, is a Venezuelan convict who conducted a series of assassinations and terrorist bombings from 1973 to 1985. A committed Marxist–Leninist, ...
to carry out the 1980
Bologna massacre The Bologna massacre () was a Terrorism in Italy, terrorist bombing of the Bologna Centrale railway station in Bologna, Italy, on the morning of 2 August 1980, which killed 85 people and wounded over 200. Several members of the neo-fascist ter ...
(for which three neo-fascists were convicted, including Valerio Fioravanti). The operation was ordered to avenge the break-up of the so-called "lodo Moro ", a secret agreement with which
Aldo Moro Aldo Moro (; 23 September 1916 – 9 May 1978) was an Italian statesman and prominent member of Christian Democracy (Italy), Christian Democracy (DC) and its centre-left wing. He served as prime minister of Italy in five terms from December 1963 ...
would have guaranteed the free transit of Palestinians guerrillas and terrorists to Italy. After the arrest of Abu Anzeh Saleh with some missiles destined to Palestinians in 1979, Abu Iyad decided to retaliate, using Czechoslovak explosive provided by Gaddafi's Libya. The explosives were destined to the reinforced walls of Trani's jail, in an action aimed to evade prison for Saleh. Abu Anzeh Saleh was liberated despite having taken less than two years in 1981. Former President of the Italian Republic Francesco Cossiga supported a similar thesis, but he accused George Habash instead of Abu Iyad.


See also

* List of Fatah members


References


Further reading

* ''My Home, My Land: A Narrative of the Palestinian Struggle'', Abu Iyad with Eric Rouleau, New York 1981, * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Khalaf, Salah 1933 births 1991 deaths Al-Azhar University alumni Assassinated Palestinian politicians Deaths by firearm in Tunisia Members of the Black September Organization Palestinian people murdered abroad Palestinian refugees People from Jaffa People murdered in Tunisia Palestinian people imprisoned by Jordan Central Committee of Fatah members Asian politicians assassinated in the 1990s Arab people in Mandatory Palestine Politicians assassinated in 1991