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Ahmad al-Shukeiri أحمد الشقيري
1st Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization
In office May 1964 – December 1967
Succeeded by	Yahya Hammuda
Personal details
Born	(1908-01-01)1 January 1908 Tebnine, Ottoman Empire
Died	26 February 1980(1980-02-26) (aged 72) Amman, Jordan
Nationality	Palestinian

Ahmad al-Shukeiri (January 1, 1908 – February 26, 1980) (Template:Lang-ar) also transcribed al-Shuqayri, Shuqairi, Shuqeiri, Shukeiry, Shukayri, Shukairy, etc.), was the first Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, serving in 1964–67.

Early life

Shukeiri was born in Tebnine, south Lebanon then Ottoman Empire to a Turkish mother and a Palestinian father, As'ad Shukeiri (1860–1940) (who was elected to the Ottoman Parliament in 1908 and 1912). Ahmad acquired the Turkish language from his mother. After studying law in the British law college in Jerusalem, he became a prominent lawyer in British-Palestine and a member of the Independence Party. In 1945 he went to Washington, D.C. to establish a Palestinian office and in 1946 joined the Arab Higher Committee.

Political career

Shukeiri was a member of the Syrian delegation to the United Nations from 1949 to 1951. He then became assistant Secretary General for the Arab League from 1950–56, Saudi ambassador to the United Nations from 1957 to 1962. Shortly after Shukairy in November 30, 1962, has praised, saluted militant, anti-Jewish and neo-Nazi storm troop gang, he was subsequently fired from UN post.

At the 1964 Arab League summit (Cairo), he was given a mandate to initiate contacts aimed at establishing a Palestinian entity.

Chairman of the PLO

In May 1964, he was elected the first Chairman of the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization). He resigned in December 1967 in the aftermath of the Six-Day War in June. His enemies and opponents used him as a scapegoat. From May 28 to June 2, 1964 Shukeiri and 396 nominated representatives from Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the Gaza strip, Egypt, Qatar, Kuwait, Libya and Iraq attended a Palestinian Conference (The First Palestinian National Council in East Jerusalem). Delegates wore badges carrying a map of Palestine and inscribed "We shall return". The Times reported that following an introductory address by King Hussein of Jordan, Shukeiri told delegates that "Palestinians had experienced 16 years' misery and it was time they relied on themselves and liberated Palestine from the Israelis". The conference announced the establishment of the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian Arabs. Shukeiri and his colleagues also announced the formation of the Palestinian National Fund, and at the Second Arab Summit Conference in Alexandria in September 1964 of a military wing, the Palestine Liberation Army. Shukeiri was succeeded as Chairman of PLO by Yahya Hammuda in December 1967.

It has been widely reported at the timethat Shukeiri called to throw the Jews into the sea. Moshe Shemesh, from what he concluded in his article Did Shuqayri Call for ' Throwing the Jews into the Sea'? ...At the same time, his statement "in my estimate none of them would remain alive" obviously sounded like the intention to destroy or liquidate the Jews and that their fate was sealed. It certainly lent credibility to the claim that he had called for throwing the Jews into the sea. Swiss journalist J. Kimche reported: Mr Shukairy claims that when in his days of glory he publicly advocated the liquidation of Israel and “sweeping of the Jews into the sea”, he reflected the accepted official Arab outlook, an outlook that was changed only by the outcome of the war on 1967. Mr Shukairy is indignant that such extremism should be fathered on him alone.

Later life

Between 1968 and 1979, Shukeiri wrote more than twenty books dealing with the Palestinian cause and the Arab Unity. He died on February 26, 1980, aged 72 in Amman.

Notes

1. PALESTINE FACTS, Personalities - Chronological Listing, 1880-1920 Archived 2005-11-28 at the Wayback Machine, PASSIA.org
2. Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates..., By United States Congress, 1965, Volume 111, Part 12, p.15916
3. Edy Kaufman, ‎Yoram Shapira, ‎Joel Barromi: Israeli-Latin American Relations, 1979, p.87. Ahmed Shukairy. then head of the Saudi Arabian delegation, openly praised the Argentine Nazi group Tacuara. The Argentine delegate expressed dismay.
4. Facts, Volumes 15-17, p.424, Anti-defamation League of B'nai B'rith, 1963. In 1962 at the U.N., Shukairy even went so far as to praise the militant , anti-Jewish and neo-Nazi storm troop gang in Argentina known as Tacuara.
5. Recall of Arab Delegate from U.N. is Sought; ‘saluted’ Tacuara, JTA, December 3, 1962
6. Chile Rebukes Arab Delegate at U.N. for ‘saluting’ Tacuara Group, JTA, December 4, 1962
7. Israel’s Relations with Non-arab Lands in Middle East Irk Arabs, JTA, September 12, 1963. Mr. Shukairy was fired from his UN post by the Saudi Arabian Government last winter, after some Arab representatives felt he had gone too far in the diatribes against Israel by calling upon the UN to encourage formation of anti-Semitic organizations similar to the Tacuara movement in Argentina.
8. Moshe Shemesh, "Did Shuqayri Call For ‘Throwing the Jews into the Sea?’" Israel Studies, Summer 2003, p. 70
9. P.L.O., Set Back in Lebanon, Told by Allies to Compromise, by Henry Tanner Special to The New York Times. The New York Times, Dec 10, 1976. "Ahmed Shukairy, a firebrand orator who was forever exhorting the Arabs to throw the Jews into the sea."
10. The Progress-Index from Petersburg, Virginia, June 13, 1967, p.4: Palestine Liberation Group Badly Mauled. By Michael Goldsmith, Beirut, Lebanon (AP). The Arab defeat in the Middle East war leaves a big question mark over the future of the Pafestine Liberation Organization and its firebrand leader -leftist Ahemd Shukairy. Shukairy narrowly escaped capture by Israeli forces in Jerusalem and many of his "Liberation Army" are now prisoners of the Israelis. "We will wipe Israel off the face of the map and no Jew will survive," Shukairy declared two days before the war broke out June 5. He vowed to lead the vanguard of his troops into the Israeli sector of Jerusalem and set up a "purely Arab government" there for all of Palestine.
11. Moshe Shemesh, Israel Studies, 2003, p.78
12. The New Middle East, Issues 16-39, 1970, p.4

References

• 'Arab Move To Free Palestine: "16 Years Of Misery"', From Our Correspondent, The Times, Saturday, 30 May 1964; pg. 7; Issue 56025; col D.
• Connell, Dan (2001). Rethinking Revolution: New Strategies for Democracy & Social Justice. The Red Sea Press. ISBN 1-56902-145-7
• 'Mr Ahmed Shukeiri', Obituary, The Times, Wednesday, 27 February 1980; pg. 16; Issue 60561; col H.
• Arieh Avneri, The Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land-Settlement and the Arabs 1878-1948 (London: Transaction Books, 2002) p. 233.
• Encyclopaedia Palaestina, Micropaedia, 1st volume, page 98-100.

External links

• Biography of Ahmad Al-Shukairy

• 1908 births
• 1980 deaths
• People from Bint Jbeil District
• Palestinian people of Turkish descent
• Palestinian jurists
• Arab emigrants to Mandatory Palestine
• Palestinian politicians
• Palestine Liberation Organization members
• Permanent Representatives of Saudi Arabia to the United Nations
• Palestinian refugees
• Bandung Conference attendees
• Palestinian Arab nationalists