Prominant palestinian lawyer and first president of the PLO.
Ahmad Al-Shukairy was born in Tebnin, in the south of Lebanon, where his father
Sheikh As’ad Al-Shukairy was banished because of his opposition to the policies
of the Ottoman rule during the reign of the Sultan Abdul Hameed.
Ahmad moved as a child to the city of Toulkarm in Palestine to live with his
mother. In 1916, he moved to Akka where he completed his primary school
education. He then proceeded to Jeruslem to complete his secondary
schooling in 1926. Then he joined the American University in Beirut,
but was expelled the following year by the French Mandatory Power in Lebanon,
due to his participation in addressing a demonstration organized by the Arab
students at the AUB in memory of the 6th of May. At that point, he
returned to Palestine and joined the Institute of Law in Jerusalem, studying at
night and working during the day at a newspaper called Mir’at Alshark “Mirror
of the East”.
After he graduated from the Institute of Law, he worked and
trained at the office of the distinguished lawyer Awni Abdul Hadi who was one
of the founders of the Istiklal party “the Independence party” in
Palestine. During this period, he met many of the leaders of The Great
Syrian Revolution who found refuge in Palestine, including Shukry Al-Quwatly,
Riyadh Al-Sulh, Nabih Al-Athmeh and Adel Arsalan.
In the nineteen twenties and thirties, Palestine had lived
consecutive revolutions. The Great Palestinian Revolution (1936 – 1939)
was the most important one of all. Al-Shukairy became actively involved in this
great nationalist movement and struggled against the British mandatory rule and
the Zionist infiltration into Palestine. He also defended prisoners and Arab
Palestinian revolutionists in the British courts. When the Revolution
ended, Al-Shukairy was persecuted by the British, and therefore had to leave
Palestine and move to Egypt. He returned to Palestine, in the early days
of World War II, and started his own law office in Akka. He specialized
in defending the nationalist militants and concentrated on the issues of the
threatened Palestinian territories. Al-Shukairy succeeded in saving many Arab
lands and preventing the Zionists from laying their hands on them.
When it was decided to establish the Arab Bureaus, headed by Musa Al Alami, in
foreign countries, Al-Shukairy was chosen in 1945 as the first director of the
Arab Media office in Washington, D.C. Later in 1946 he was appointed as
the head of The Central Arab Media Office in Jerusalem, where he resumed his
law practice. He remained in Palestine until he was forced in 1948 to
migrate to Lebanon and take refuge with his family in Beirut.
The Syrian Government decided to make use of Al-Shukairy’s
growing experience in foreign policy. He was therefore appointed as a
member of the Syrian delegation to the United Nations (1949 – 1950). Soon
after, Al-Shukairy was nominated to become the Assistant Secretary General for
the Arab League in Cairo, Egypt, and he remained in office until the year
1957. Al-Shukairy was then appointed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as
minister of state for the United Nations affairs. During his extensive
work at the United Nations between 1949 and 1963, Al-Shukairy was always a
dedicated, strong and eloquent advocate of the Palestinian cause as well as
other Arab nationalist issues, especially those concerning Morocco, Tunisia and
Algeria.
After Al-Shukairy returned from the United Nations in 1962, he
was chosen by the heads of the Arab states to represent Palestine in the Arab
League, following the death of the previous representative, Ahmed Hilmi Abdul
Baki. The decision was made in the 1st Arab Summit held in
January 1964 to entrust Al-Shukairy, as the Palestinian representative, to
start contacts for establishing the Palestinian Entity. Al-Shukairy
accomplished his mission with excellent results. He toured the Arab
countries, where Palestinians had taken residence, and presented to them his
proposals for the National Charter as well as the by-laws of establishing the
Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). The preparatory committees
were chosen, and these in turn nominated their representatives to the
Palestinian Conference, which was held in Jerusalem between May 28 - June 2,
1964. The Conference was entitled The First Palestinian National Council
for the Liberation Organization. The Conference elected Ahmed Al-Shukairy
as its president and announced the establishment of the Palestinian Liberation
Organization. It approved the by-laws and National Charter of the PLO,
and elected Al-Shukairy as Chairman of the Executive Committee. He was
delegated the task of choosing the 15 members of the Executive Committee.
The Conference also decided to mobilize the Palestinian people and establish
the Palestinian National Fund.
Al-Shukairy presented his report to the Second Arab Summit Conference
(September1964) on the establishment of the PLO as the Palestinian
Entity. His report explained the organizational aspects of the PLO and
its goal to achieve the mobilization of the Palestinian people in their
struggle for liberating their homeland. Al-Shukairy also presented the members
of the Executive Committee of the PLO and urged the Summit to pledge financial
support for the Organization. Al-Shukairy devoted himself to the tasks of
the Executive Committee in Jerusalem. These included the establishment of
PLO disciplines and departments as well as representative offices in Arab and
Foreign states, and above all the creation of the military body, named the
Palestinian Liberation Army. At the end of the second Palestinian
National Council (Cairo, May 31- June 4, 1965), Al-Shukairy presented the
achievements of the Executive Committee. He then submitted his resignation and
the Council accepted it. His presidency of the Executive Committee was
immediately renewed and this granted him the right to choose its members once
again.
After the Israeli invasion of June 1967, major changes affected
both the Arab and the Palestinian fronts, and differences of opinion arose
among the Executive Committee. Al-Shukairy, therefore, submitted his
resignation to the Palestinian people in December 1967.
From this point onward, Al-Shukairy declined any official position and directed
his efforts towards writing. He alternated his residence between Cairo in
winter and Lebanon in summer.
His house was never void of Palestinian and Arab visitors, who
exchanged opinions on various Arab and international issues. Al-Shukairy
always argued that political bargaining would not liberate Palestine, and that
armed struggle was the only means towards liberation. He also stressed
that Arabs should try to curtail the American imperialist support to Israel and
its Zionist plans to contain the Arab Nation and destroy its resources.
Furthermore, Al-Shukairy emphasized that oil could be used as a weapon to fight
imperialism.
The Camp David Agreement, the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty, and the
normalization of relations between Egypt and the Zionist state were considered
by Al-Shukairy as high treason towards the Arab and Palestinian cause.
He, therefore, left Cairo for Tunisia in 1979. He spent several months
there until a chronic illness, aggravated by disppointment, required his
transfer to the Hussein Medical Center, in Amman, where he died on the 26th
of February 1980. He was buried upon his request in the cemetery of Abu
Obaida, one of Prophet Muhammad’s companions, in the Jordan Valley, only a
stone’s throw from his beloved homeland: Palestine.
Al-Shukairy had left a number of valuable books,
speeches and publications on various Arab and Palestinian issues.
