- Hani Al Hassan
Hani al-Hassan (1939-) was a leader of the
Fatah organization and member of thePalestinian Authority Cabinet and thePalestinian National Council . He was born inHaifa in northern modern-dayIsrael .Biography
He spent time as a refugee in Yarmouk camp, near
Damascus , where he organized anIslam ist slate, Shabab al-Aqsa, to compete in student elections. He joined theMuslim Brotherhood in early 1950s. He went on to study engineering in the late 1950-60s inWest Germany (Darmstadt &Munich ), where he worked through theGeneral Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) in Europe, and acted as Fatah’s main Europe link after he merged his own commando group to Fatah in 1963 until 1967. He also served as President of GUPS from 1962. He served as regional head inJordan briefly in early 1970, then asSalah Khalaf ’s deputy in Rasd. From 1974, he acted as a political aide toYasser Arafat , an ambassador toTehran , and an ambassador toAmman from 1982. He retains good ties to theGulf States . He became a member of Fatah-Central Committee in May 1980. He was critical of the leadership's stance towardsIraq after August 1991, and at Oslo, but returned toGaza Strip in November 1995, and became the chief political adviser to Arafat as well as PLO-CC member & head of thePalestinian National Council foreign relations committee. He was appointed as Interior Minister on 29 October 2002.Mahmoud Abbas attempted to drop him from the PA cabinet, and despite Arafat's resistance, he was replaced in April 2003. He is slated to act as Arafat's national security adviser.Following Hamas' takeover of Gaza in June 2007, Hassan caused a major row in Fatah by giving an interview on Al-Jazeera in which he said that there had been no conflict between Hamas and Fatah but rather a conflict between loyal Palestinians in both camps and a small minority in Fatah who were preparing a coup to overthrow Hamas with American backing. He made it clear that he was referring essentially to the followers of Muhammad Dahlan. Hassan's statement was quickly rebutted by an official Fatah spokesman who portrayed Hassan as endorsing a Hamas coup.
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