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SARI NUSSEIBEH
Sari Nusseibeh (Sari Anwar Nusaybah): Academic;
Professor of Islamic Philosophy, President of Al Quds University,
former PLO representative in Jerusalem, co-author of the People's
Voice initiative to build grassroots support for a Two State
Solution. Married to Lucy Austin, daughter of British philosopher
J.L.Austin and founder of Middle East Nonviolence and Democracy (MEND);
4 children - sons Jamal, Absal and Buraq; daughter, Nuzha.
Born 12 February 1949, in Damascus. Lives in Abu Dis. His mother,
Nuzha Ghussein came from a landed Palestinian family, made refugees
from Ramle (near Tel Aviv) by the 1948 war. Father, Anwar Nusseibeh,
was a distinguished statesman, prominent in Palestinian and (after
1948) Palestinian-Jordanian politics and diplomacy.
Father's family were originally wealthy landowners in Jerusalem
area, with prestigious role in Jerusalem history. (Family traces
unbroken presence in Jerusalem back to at least 7th century. Since
the 12th century, when Salah al Din captured Jerusalem from the
Crusaders and returned it to Muslim rule, the Nusseibeh family held
the keys as custodians to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre). Lost
their lands to the Ottoman Turkish administration in the late
nineteenth century.
Comfortable childhood in family home on Nablus Road, opposite the
American Colony Hotel, in Jordanian-ruled Jerusalem; within blocks
of the green line, which left him with a strong awareness of the
artifical division of the city, and probably explains the emphasis
on porous borders and the open-ness of Jerusalem in his later
political initiatives. Studied PPE (Politics, Philosophy & Economics)
at Christ Church, Oxford. Graduated BA, 1971.
Describes himself on graduation as sick of being a poor student, and
more in search of a comfortable life than politics or confrontation.
Went to live with relatives in Abu Dhabi, where he worked for the
Abu Dhabi Oil Company and as a columnist the The Abu Dhabi News.
In 1974, won a scholarship to study for his doctorate at Harvard.
Graduated D.Phil in Islamic Philosophy, 1978. Contemporaries
remember him as inclined to scholarship rather than activism, and
not apparently seized with the Palestinian issue. (Nusseibeh too
describes himself as an essentially non-political person, drawn into
political issues by the unavoidable daily issues that arise out of
living under military occupation).
Returned to the West Bank in 1978 to teach at Birzeit University (where
he remained as Professor of Philosophy until the University was
closed for an extended period - 1988 to 1990 - during the first
intifada). At the same time, taught classes in Islamic philosophy to
Jewish students at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Through the
early 80's, helped to organize the teachers' union at Birzeit, and
served three terms as president of the union of faculty and staff
there. Also co-founder Federation of Employees in the Education
Sector for the entire West Bank.
In June 1987, he controversially suggested that the Palestinians
should recognize Israel, and that Israel should annex the Occupied
Territories, reunify the country, and give full citizenship to the
Palestinians in a single binational state. Told a Peace Now rally
that talking openly about annexation was the only way to bring home
to Israelis the fact that they had to choose between binationalism
or a two state solution: couldn't keep both the land and the Jewish
nature of Israel. Some of his early comments on the binational state
mirror closely the kind of discussion coming into prominence today.
Approached privately by Likud's Moshe Amirav in July 1987, with a
proposal to open dialogue between the Likud and the PLO on the West
Bank. Nusseibeh and Faisal Husseini thus became the first prominent
Palestinians to meet with the Israeli right. On 21 September 1987,
he was badly beaten on leaving Bir Zeit University (after delivering
a lecture on Tolerance!); presumably by elements of Fatah, angered
by his talking with the Likud. (Husseini was jailed for attending
the meeting, and Amirav expelled from the Likud).
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