Birth: NULL/NULL/1931 Death:NULL/NULL/2009
Born in Tiberias in 1931 to a Christian family (Syrian father and Palestinian mother); received his early education at the Zion School in Jerusalem; attended high school in Sidon, southern Lebanon, from 1946-49 (when Tiberias fell in 1948, his family was forded to flee and settled in Lebanon); studied History at the AUB from 1949-53, graduating BA; worked as a teacher of Arab History at the AUB from 1956-57; also served as editor-in-chief of At-Tali’a paper in Beirut from 1956-59; went to the UK in 1959 and continued his studies in History and Political Studies at Cambridge University, earning a PhD in 1964; worked as Professor of Oriental Studies at Cambridge; was in charge of the Cambridge Arabic-English Dictionary from 1964-66; then moved to Beirut, where he became Director of the PLO Research Center from 1966-76; was editor-in-chief of its monthly magazine Shu’un Filastiniyyah (Palestinian Affairs) from 1971-81; has been subject to three Israeli assassination attempts, causing sever injuries, incl. one on 19 July 1972 which left him blind; is a Right of Return activist; serves on the Consultative Board of the Beirut-based Baheth Center for Studies since its establishment in 2002; received an honorary award at the Beirut International Book Exhibition in Dec. 2004; has authored numerous articles, essays, and books, incl. Sectarian Lebanon (Arabic, 1955), The Arab Idea in Egypt (1959), The Hashemites and the Palestinian Problem (Arabic, 1966), and Towns of Occupied Palestine (1968); was the editor-in-chief of the Palestinian Encyclopedia (Arabic, 1984). He passed away in 2009.
