The Arab Thought Forum (; also known as Al-Multaqa) was a

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

civil society organization active in the fields of politics, development, and the arts.

Background

Arab Thought Forum was founded in Jerusalem in 1977 and was closely affiliated with the National Guidance Committee; it was also generally considered supportive of the

PLO The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO; ) is a Palestinian nationalist coalition that is internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinian people in both the occupied Palestinian territories and the diaspora. ...

.Mattar, Philip. ''Encyclopedia of the Palestinians : Encyclopedia of the Palestinians (Revised Edition)'', Infobase Learning, 2005, 53. The Forum aimed to "resist relations of dependence imposed by Israel on the Palestinian economy." It also sponsored one of the first literature festivals in the West Bank. In later years, its areas of focus have been described as including "the future of Jerusalem, democratization and nation building, and development." Leading figures in the original formation of the Forum included Mahdi Abd al Hadi and Ibrahim Dakkak. Haydar Abd Al Shafi was another prominent member.{{Cite web , title=Haydar Abd al-Shafi - Politicians (1919 - 2007) , url=https://www.palquest.org/en/biography/14593/haydar-abd-al-shafi , access-date=2023-12-10 , website=Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question – palquest , language=en

References

Palestinian organizations Civic organizations Politics of Palestine