After a long battle with illness the renowned Palestinian politician Farouk Al-Qaddoumi passed away in Amman, Jordan, at the age of 94, two months after the death of his wife, Nabila Al-Nimr. With his departure, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, aka Abu Mazen, becomes the last widely known founding member of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah) alive.

Abbas mourned the loss of an “exceptional national and historical figure who was instrumental in shaping the modern Palestinian revolution. I mourn the loss of Farouk Rafik Asaad Al-Qaddoumi [aka Abul-Lutf], a brother, friend and comrade in the relentless struggle for the Palestinian cause. Al-Qaddoumi’s absence leaves a void in Palestine, depriving it of a devoted, loyal man who selflessly served the land, its cause, and its people.” Abu Mazen reached out to Al-Qaddoumi’s sons, Rami and Lutf, to convey his condolences.

Fatah, which Al-Qaddoumi co-founded while graduating from the American University in Cairo in 1958 — alongside the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (Abu Ammar), Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyad), Khalil Al-Wazir (Abu Jihad), and Abu Mazen — also mourned his loss. Al-Qaddoumi contributed to Fatah’s publication Our Palestine, and had served on its Central Committee since 1965. He represented Fatah in Cairo, held the position of foreign relations officer, and later became its Central Committee secretary.

Hamas and other Palestinian factions also mourned Al-Qaddoumi’s passing, acknowledging “his opposition to all settlement and liquidation schemes aimed at undermining the Palestinian cause,” in the words of the Islamic Resistance Movement.

Abul-Lutf took the path of the resistance early on. At the time this meant “armed struggle,” a concept the Palestinian revolution borrowed from Marxist literature. As news surfaced regarding a potential agreement between the Palestine Liberation Organisation and Israel in Oslo, Norway, Al-Qaddoumi diverged from his colleague Abu Ammar, opposing the return to territories “under the jurisdiction” of the Palestinian Authority. In numerous press interviews during that period, he stated, “my life’s mission has been to grant the right of return to Palestinians, but not while Palestine remains under Israeli occupation.”

Abul-Lutf deemed the Oslo Accords defunct following the assassination of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. His disapproval of the Oslo Accords escalated to the extent that he advised Hamas not to participate in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections,  calling it a byproduct of Oslo. But Hamas, he believed, “lacked the requisite political acumen.”

Despite his disagreements with Arafat and Abbas, Al-Qaddoumi was, theoretically, the movement’s second-in-command. Following Arafat’s passing, Al-Qaddoumi threw his weight behind Abbas, out of concern for Fatah and the PLO’s potential dissolution.

According to Yasser Mahmoud, a Palestinian journalist residing in Jordan, “Al-Qaddoumi perceived, then, that his prospects of assuming leadership of the Palestinian Authority were slim, given that many in the organisation had transitioned into senior roles in the Ramallah authority and largely supported the Oslo Accords and negotiation-oriented strategies. This compelled him to align with Abu Mazen, playing a pivotal role in securing the presidency for Abu Mazen.”

Nevertheless, this stance did not deter Al-Qaddoumi from criticising Abbas; in 2009, he accused Abbas of colluding with Mohamed Dahlan in the poisoning of Arafat. These allegations provoked a response from the Fatah Central Committee and led to his removal from his position as head of the PLO’s political department during the 2010 Fatah Central Committee elections and later the formation of a new executive committee for the organisation.

However, Al-Qaddoumi and Abbas reconciled during two meetings — in Amman in 2010 and in Tunis in 2011. The meeting in Tunis took place when Abbas visited Al-Qaddoumi at his residence due to a health setback. Al-Qaddoumi’s old age, declining health, and distance from key decision-making centres kept him off the main stage.

Al-Qaddoumi was born in Nablus, in the southern West Bank, in 1930. His family lived in Nablus and Jaffa and remained in Palestine until 1967. “He was deeply affected by the 1948 War, which he witnessed during high school,” Mahmoud said. Although the war briefly interrupted his studies, he eventually pursued higher education in Cairo, studying economics and political science at the American University in Cairo. During his high school and university years, he was aligned with the Baathist movement but the emergence of president Gamal Abdel-Nasser and meeting his lifelong comrades Arafat and Khalaf led him to shift towards an Arab nationalist stance, gravitating to Egypt and its historic leadership.

“Al-Qaddoumi was in Egypt during the aggression against it by Britain, France, and Israel following Nasser’s decision to nationalise the Suez Canal, an event that strongly linked the West with Israel in his mind,” Mahmoud pointed out. Palestinian university youth established the Palestinian National Liberation Movement, Fatah, in 1965 in East Jerusalem, becoming a prominent entity in the PLO, recognised as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinians to this day. After taking several jobs in Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, Al-Qaddoumi dedicated himself to political work in Fatah, settling in Amman. Subsequently, he relocated with Palestinian movements to Beirut in 1970 before the majority of the leadership moved to Tunisia in 1983.

Al-Qaddoumi had opted to shuttle between Tunisia and Jordan, refusing to return to the land under occupation.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 29 August, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly