Palestinian’s arrest schocks Arabs, Israelis

Ann Peters, United Press International, Jerusalem

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“JERUSALEM (UPI) — Arab and Israeli moderates expressed shock and criticism at the arrest of a leading pro-PLO Palestinian who was given up to six months’ administrative detention for allegedly coordinating the nearly 8-month-old Palestinian uprising.

Faisal Husseini, 48, the leading spokesman in the West Bank for the mainline Fatah movement of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was arrested Sunday during an early morning raid at his home in East Jerusalem, the third time he was put in administrative detention in less than two years.

Police also raided Husseini’s Arab Studies Society and ordered it closed for one year, with a police spokesman saying the organization had served ‘to promote (Fatah’s) aims and attain the objectives of the uprising.’

Husseini, who has been out of prison for less than two months, also was accused of inciting and coordinating the nearly 8-month-old uprising in the Israeli-occupied territories. But police refused to give any specific examples of Husseini’s involvement.

‘I was shocked, really, when I heard the news in the morning,’ said Radwan Abu Ayyash, a prominent Palestinian journalist who also was recently released from administrative detention. ‘I think it is not fair. It shows that they do not want to deal with the moderates.’

Israeli elder statesman Abba Eban, who said he did not personally know Husseini, criticized the excessive use of administrative detention in his case, saying: ‘I much prefer that if anyone transgresses the law, then people should have their day in court. ... It’s like a Turkish party. They are out and in and in and out.’

Palestinian and Israeli sources said Husseini’s detention, during which he can be held initially without charge or trial for up to six months, shows that the government fears moderate Palestinians who envision a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

‘The road to peace is being obstructed by detentions, human rights obstructions,’ said Hanna Siniora, editor of the Palestinian newspaper Al Fajr. ‘(Husseini) should be encouraged instead of jailed.’

While some observers have argued that Husseini is merely PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat’s mouthpiece on the West Bank, others — including the Israeli government — believe he coordinates PLO activity in the occupied territories. It is the third time in less than two years Husseini has been placed under administrative detention.

For five years before his jail terms he was forbidden outside his home from sunset to dawn and had to report to police weekly… Husseini, the son of Palestinian war hero Abdel Kader el-Husseini who was killed in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, was released June 9 from nine months’ administrative detention.

Under Emergency Security Regulations dating from the time of the British Mandate over Palestine, the military can detain anyone for up to six months without charge or trial. The detention order can be renewed… East Jerusalem merchant Mustafa Abu-Zahara also was placed under administrative detention Sunday.”

Context added by this archive

The archive already holds the death of Abdel Kader el-Husseini in April 1948 and the funeral that thirty thousand people attended. This is his son, arrested for the third time in two years under regulations inherited from the British Mandate. “Schocks” is the paper’s.

Cite this clipping

"Palestinian’s arrest schocks Arabs, Israelis," Kilgore News Herald, 1 August 1988, p. 1. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1988-023. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1988-023

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Security reasons, and what they were given for