Bassam Abu Sharif

Bassam Abu Sharif (born 1946) is a former senior adviser to the late Yasser Arafat and press officer of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Formerly a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Abu Sharif was dubbed the "face of terror" by Time Magazine for his role in the Dawson's Field hijackings in 1970, when the PFLP hijacked Pan Am, Swissair, and TWA flights — a fourth pair of hijackers on an El Al flight were overpowered by security guards and passengers — and blew them up in the Jordanian desert, triggering King Hussein's expulsion of the PLO from Jordan, which became known as Black September.

He lost four fingers, and was left deaf in one ear and blind in one eye, when a bomb exploded in his hands in Beirut, Lebanon in 1972, which he attributes to a letter-bomb attack by the Mossad. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/2072849.stm]

Within PFLP, he began to favor a reduced emphasis on armed struggle and closer cooperation with Fatah, the dominant PLO faction. As a result, he was removed from the PFLP Politburo in 1981, and demoted running external relations. In drawing closer to Fatah leader Yasir Arafat and meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, he was expelled from the PFLP in 1987. In a non-partisan role, he became an advisor to Arafat and was able to float some peace proposals based on a two-state solution and preparing Palestinians for the compromises made in Oslo. He returned to Ramallah in 1996 as a presidential advisor and often writing unofficial statements of the Palestinian position in the peace process.

In 1995, he co-authored the book Best of Enemies with Uzi Mahnaimi, an Israeli intelligence officer.

Writing in the Palestinian newspaper "al-Quds" in April 2005, Abu Sharif called for a "popular peaceful uprising" of Palestinians through massive nonviolent resistance to prevent Israel from annexing any additional land in the West Bank.

Bassam Abu Sharif has two children, Omar and Karma, from a previous marriage.

Works

*Bassam Abu-Sharif and Uzi Mahnaimi. "The Best of Enemies: The Memoirs of Bassam Abu-Sharif and Uzi Mahnaimi", 1995. ISBN 978-0-316-00401-5
*______________________________. "Tried by Fire", 1996. ISBN 978-0-7515-1636-4

References

* [http://www.highbeam.com/library/doc1.asp?fr=1&full=yes&docid=1P1:28116179&refid=ls_pub&skeyword=&teaser=&origurl=http://www.highbeam.com/library/doc3.asp?docid=1P1:28116179&refid=ls_pub&skeyword=&teaser= "The face of terrorism, then and now"] by John Cooley, New Perspectives Quarterly, September 1996 (subscription required)