Faisal Husseini
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Faisal Abdel Qader Al-Husseini (Arabic: فيصل عبدالقادر الحسيني) (July 17, 1940 - May 31, 2001) was a Palestinian politician who was considered a possible future leader of the Palestinian people.
Husseini was born in Baghdad son of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni, commander of local Arab forces during the siege of 1948 and grand-nephew of the Haj Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the leader of the Palestinian Arabs in the war. He studied in Cairo, Baghdad, Damascus. He was a founding member of the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) in 1959;
Husseini went to work for the PLO upon its establishment in Jerusalem as deputy manager of the Public Organisation Dept, a post he filled from 1964 to 1965. He later received military training at the Damascus Military College after which he joined the Palestinian Liberation Army in 1967.
In 1979, Husseini founded and became chairman of the Arab Studies Society,
In the 1980s, he was repeatedly placed under house and city arrest and was imprisoned several times.
In 1982, he became a member of the Supreme Muslim Council in Jerusalem. Subsequently he served as a Palestinian spokesperson, head of the Jerusalem National Council/Palestine, head of Palestinian delegation to the Middle East Peace Conference, head of the Fatah faction in the West Bank, and Palestinian Authority Minister without Portfolio,
His last post was Palestinian Authority Minister for Jerusalem Affairs for which he was based in East Jerusalem. He died while trying to mend relations between the Kuwaiti government and PLO which were broken at the time of the 1991 Gulf War.
Husseini was considered a pragmatist by journalists. He taught himself to speak Hebrew and regularly appeared in radio and television shows in Israel to explain the Palestinians' point of view.
Following Husseini's death, Israeli police seized his headquarters, the Orient House. The police made public papers indicating that Husseini had registered land deeds in his own name that were entrusted to his care by Palestinians living abroad.
