Please join the Palestinian & Arab Community at Widdi Catering Hall to commemorate and honor the life and work of Al Hakim, Dr. George Habash.
Sunday, February 3rd, 2008
2:00 p.m.
Widdi Catering Hall
5602 6th Ave (Corner of 56th & 6th Ave)
Sunset Park, Brooklyn, NY
Subway – N/R to 59th Street
Al-Awda NY & NYCDP Statement in Memory of Dr. George Habash
We admirers of Dr. George Habash in New York celebrate the life of this Palestinian revolutionary, who died of a heart attack on January 26, 2008, at age 82. Born in 1925 in al Lydd, George Habash experienced the Nakbe. He studied medicine yet devoted himself to the necessary task of organizing Arab resistance to the Zionist occupation of Palestine. Thus, he cofounded the Arab Nationalist Movement in 1951.
The defeat of 1967 made clear the need for revolutionary organization and popular leadership in peoples’ movements. The new Arab regimes failed while struggles in Vietnam, Cuba and China succeeded. Understanding this, Dr. Habash founded the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and served as its general secretary until 2000.
Habash, lovingly known as Al-Hakim, inspired more than the adoration of members of his party. During the ’70s, his leadership brought the Palestinian masses the understanding, pride, and determination to gather their strength. The struggle for liberation that began early in the 20th century against British colonialism became a revolutionary war against Israel-Britain’s implanted machine adopted by the U.S.
From the beginning he promoted principles of continuous study, personal discipline, living connection to the refugee camps and sacrifice and devotion to the cause. These were accompanied by political analysis that clearly identified the enemies of the Palestinian people; the Zionist state and international Zionist organizations, world imperialism headed by the U.S. and supported by Arab regimes and Arab reaction.
Through bloody September in Jordan in 1970 and the resistance in Gaza through the siege of Beirut in 1982, from the Intifada of 1987 to the treachery of Oslo, he never wavered from the goal of the total liberation of Palestine and the right of all its sons and daughters to return to their homes and land. Inspired by this leadership, mass organizations for the right to return developed in many parts of the world.
Dr. Habash understood the necessity of international struggle and identified the liberation of Palestine as key to the liberation of the entire Arab world. He saw the Palestinian people’s struggle as one with that of oppressed people everywhere.
To remember his analysis and to enrich its fabric with our work is to truly honor George Habash. He is with us today as we struggle, a mountain of Palestine.
In the words of Al Hakim, “The oppressed and starving of the world shall be victorious.”
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition – New York
New York Committee to Defend Palestine
