Henri Curiel (13 September 1914 – 4 May 1978) was a left-wing political activist in Egypt and France. Born in

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

, Curiel led the communist

Democratic Movement for National Liberation The Democratic Movement for National Liberation (, abbreviated حدتو, HADITU, , abbreviated M.D.L.N.) was a communist organization in Egypt from 1947 to 1955. HADITU was led by Henri Curiel. The movement followed the line of the National Democ ...

until he was expelled from the country in 1950. Settling in France, Curiel aided the Algerian Front de Libération Nationale and other

national liberation Wars of national liberation, also called wars of independence or wars of liberation, are conflicts fought by nations to gain independence. The term is used in conjunction with wars against foreign powers (or at least those perceived as foreign) ...

causes, including in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

and Latin America. In 1978 Curiel was assassinated in Paris; his murderer has never been identified.

Biography

Early life and family

Curiel was born in Cairo to an

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

Sephardic Jewish Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendant ...

family. He became an Egyptian citizen in 1935. His brother

Raoul Curiel Raoul Curiel (born 23 June 1913, Cairo, Egypt; d. 23 February 2000 Paris, France) was a French archaeologist, egyptologist and orientalist. Early life and education Curiel was born into a prosperous Jewish family in Cairo, the son of Daniel ...

became a respected

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

and

numismatist A numismatist is a specialist, researcher, and/or well-informed collector of numismatics, numismatics/coins ("of coins"; from Late Latin , genitive of ). Numismatists can include collectors, specialist dealers, and scholar-researchers who use coi ...

, specializing in

Central Asian studies Central Asian studies is the discipline of studying the culture, history, and languages of the region of Central Asia. The roots of Central Asian studies as a social science discipline goes to 19th century Anglo-Russian Great Game. During the 19th ...

. A cousin was Eugenio Curiel, a physicist and

anti-fascist Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were op ...

militant who was murdered in Italy in 1945. Another cousin was the noted British

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

spy

George Blake George Blake ( Behar; 11 November 1922 – 26 December 2020) was a Espionage, spy with Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and worked as a double agent for the Soviet Union. He became a communist and decided to work for the Minist ...

. In an interview with Jean Lesieur, published in the French magazine ''L'Express'' on 21 Feb 1991, the latter said that the older Curiel had been influential as a communist in shaping his political views, as Blake met him as a teenager. His son is the French journalist

Alain Gresh Alain Gresh (born 1948 in Cairo, Egypt) is a French communist party leader and journalist. He is the former editor of '' Le Monde Diplomatique''. He writes articles mainly on the Islamic world and the Arab world. Alongside his career, he is a P ...

, who was born in Cairo in 1948 and grew up in Paris.

Political career in Egypt

In 1939 Curiel, his brother Raoul and Georges Henein launched ''

Don Quichotte ''Don Quichotte'' (''Don Quixote'') is an opera in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Caïn. It was first performed on 19 February 1910 at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo. Massenet's ''comédie héroïque'', like many dramatiz ...

'', a French language Communist weekly. In 1943 he founded the communist Egyptian Movement for National Liberation (HAMETU) which in 1947 became the

(HADETU). He was repeatedly arrested, along with many other communists. Despite his Egyptian citizenship, he was forced to emigrate in 1950. The Democratic Movement for National Liberation was an active participant in the 1952 revolution led by the free officers and

Gamal Abdel Nasser Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein (15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was an Egyptian military officer and revolutionary who served as the second president of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. Nasser led the Egyptian revolution of 1952 a ...

. The revolutionary council and the free officers had many members from HADETU; the most eminent of these were Khaled Mohy el din, Yousef Sedeek and Ahmed Hamroush. Curiel settled in France and led a circle of Jewish communist emigres from Egypt known as the "Rome Group".

Anti-colonial activism in Paris

Curiel worked for the Jeanson network which supported the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) during the

Algerian War The Algerian War (also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence) ''; '' (and sometimes in Algeria as the ''War of 1 November'') was an armed conflict between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (Algeri ...

(1954–62). He was arrested by the French security services in 1960. Curiel was a founder of "Solidarité", a support group for various anti-colonial and opposition movements in the

Third World The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the Southern Cone, NATO, Western European countries and oth ...

(in particular Africa and Latin America), such as the

African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the 1994 South African general election, fir ...

(ANC). In 1976 he initiated contacts with

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 ...

i and

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 ...

representatives willing to negotiate a mutual recognition. Several meetings, later known as the "Paris talks", were organized. Under the chairmanship of

Pierre Mendès France Pierre Isaac Isidore Mendès France (; 11 January 190718 October 1982) was a French politician who served as prime minister of France for eight months from 1954 to 1955. As a member of the Radical Party, he headed a government supported by a c ...

, they included Issam Sartawi, adviser to

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 ...

; and

Uri Avnery Uri Avnery (, also transliterated Uri Avneri; 10 September 1923 – 20 August 2018) was a German-born Israeli writer, journalist, politician, and activist, who founded the Gush Shalom peace movement. A member of the Irgun as a teenager and a vet ...

and Mattityahu Peled, members of the Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace (ICIPP). On 21 June 1976, Georges Suffert published an article in ''

Le Point ''Le Point'' () is a French weekly political and conservative news magazine published in Paris. It is one of the three major French news magazines. ''Le Point'' was founded in 1972 by former journalists of ''L'Express'' and quickly rose to be ...

'' reporting Curiel as the "head of the terrorist support network", connected with the

. He was put under house arrest in

Digne Digne-les-Bains (; Occitan: ''Dinha dei Banhs''), or simply and historically Digne (''Dinha'' in the classical norm or ''Digno'' in the Mistralian norm), is the prefecture of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte ...

, an administrative measure that was lifted once the accusation was demonstrated to be untrue."Henri Curiel, citizen of the third world"
'' Le Monde diplomatique'', April 1998 An American

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

report from 1981 (a Special National Intelligence Estimate) said that Curiel's organization "has provided support to a wide variety of Third World leftist revolutionary organizations", including "false documents, financial aid, and safehaven before and after operations, as well as some illegal training in France in weapons and explosives." The authors further comment that his group's "association with non-communist and nonviolent leaders, including clergymen, has tended to cloak the nature and extent of its operations."''Soviet Support for International Terrorism and Revolutionary Violence: Special National Intelligence Estimate'' (1981). p. 23. Available at

Assassination

Henri Curiel was assassinated in Paris on 4 May 1978. Two far-right groups ( OAS and the Charles Martel Group) claimed responsibility, but the case is still unsolved. Police and journalistic investigations suggest other suspects: *

Jean-Pierre Maïon Jean-Pierre or Jean Pierre may refer to: People * Karine Jean-Pierre b.1977, White House Deputy Press Secretary for President Joe Biden 2021- * Jean-Pierre, Count of Montalivet (1766–1823), French statesman and Peer of France * Eugenia Pierre ( ...

, a French criminal linked to the SDECE and the OAS, who worked as an informant for Lucien Aimé-Blanc, may have killed Henri Curiel on behalf of a Spanish death squad *

Abu Nidal Sabri Khalil al-Banna (; May 1937 – 16 August 2002), known by his ''Pseudonym, nom de guerre'' Abu Nidal ("father of struggle"),; translates it as "father of the struggle". was a Palestinian fedayeen, Palestinian militant. He was the founde ...

group (it allegedly later shot Issam Sartawi), allegedly commissioned by the

South African Bureau of State Security The Bureau for State Security (; also known as the Bureau of State Security (BOSS)) was the main South African state intelligence agency from 1969 to 1980. A high-budget and secretive institution, it reported directly to the prime minister on its ...

(because of Curiel's aid to the ANC) Henri Curiel is buried at

Père Lachaise Cemetery Père Lachaise Cemetery (, , formerly , ) is the largest cemetery in Paris, France, at . With more than 3.5 million visitors annually, it is the most visited necropolis in the world. Buried at Père Lachaise are many famous figures in the ...

, Paris. Curiel's work in promoting dialogue between 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. ...

and left-wing Israelis was continued throughout the 1980s by the ''Comité Palestine et Israël Vivront'', headed by Sorbonne lecturer Joyce Blau – Curiel's close associate and fellow Egyptian exile.The archives of the ''Comité Palestine et Israël Vivront'' are deposited at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterda

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In fiction

Henri Curiel appears in several parts of the 1982

spy thriller Spy fiction is a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device. It emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intrigues between the major powers, and the establishment of modern intelli ...

''Shadow of Shadows'' by Ted Allbeury, whose plot is focused on

. Allbeury takes at face value the assertions of Curiel having been a KGB agent, and assumes that for some time in the 1950s Curiel was Blake's KGB contact – for which there is no historical proof of any kind.

Notes

References

* Georges Suffert, "Le patron des réseaux d'aide aux terroristes", ''Le Point'', 21 June 1976 * Roland Gaucher, ''Le Réseau Curiel ou la subversion humanitaire,'' Jean Picollec, 1981 * Jean-Marie Domenach, "Trois ans apres: L'affaire Curiel. 1. La preuve ne doit pas apparaitre". ''Le Monde'', 16 mai 1981. 2." Espion et terroriste, certes pas". ''Le Monde'', 17–18 mai 1981. * Gilles Perrault, ''Un homme à part'', Bernard Barrault, 1984 * Gilles Perrault, "Henri Curiel, citizen of the third world". ''Le Monde Diplomatique'' online, English edition, 1998/04/13, http://mondediplo.com/1998/04/13curiel * Alain Gresh, ''The PLO: The Struggle Within: Towards an Independent Palestine'', London: Zed Books, 1985 * Jacques Hassoun, "La vie passionnée d'Henri Curiel", ''Revue d'études palestiniennes'', 1998 * ''Recherches Internationales, Crise et avenir de la solidarité internationale''. "Hommage à Henri Curiel", n° 52–53, 1998 * Charles Enderlin, ''Paix ou guerres. Les secrets des négociations israélo–arabes 1917–1995'', Stock, Paris, 2004 * Alexandre Adler at the AJOE Congress, 6 March 2006 * Lucien Aimé-Blanc, Jean-Michel Caradec'h, ''L'Indic et le Commissaire'', Plon, 2006 * Jonathan C. Randal, "French Socialists Start Digging Into Overtones of Curiel Killing," ''International Herald Tribune'', 24 August 1981

External links

The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry – Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora

Inventory of the papers of the EGYPTIAN COMMUNISTS IN EXILE (ROME GROUP)

Uri Avnery
"The silent idealist"] '' Le Monde diplomatique'', April 1998
BASE DE DONNEES SUR LES ACTES TERRORISTES

''Spies Encyclopedia'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Curiel, Henri 1914 births 1978 deaths Politicians from Cairo Jewish socialists Egyptian people of Italian-Jewish descent Egyptian Sephardi Jews French people of Egyptian-Jewish descent French people of Italian-Jewish descent 20th-century French Sephardi Jews Assassinated activists Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery Assassinated Jews Assassinated Egyptian journalists Egyptian people murdered abroad People murdered in Paris Deaths by firearm in France People murdered in 1978 20th-century Egyptian writers Egyptian magazine founders Egyptian emigrants to France Egyptian socialists French socialists