The year was 1964. A bald man came to visit us in Jerusalem; he
called my father "uncle." I had never before met the man. The
following day, my father asked me to accompany him to our house in
Jericho to help him with some people he had invited to lunch. My
father swore me to secrecy concerning everything I would hear and
see. I was surprised to find that the guest who was at our house
the previous day was leading the discussion and that the rest of
the guests were a number of notables from Jerusalem. Among them
were Dr. Daoud al-Husseini and Ishaq al-Duzdar, both former members
in the Jordanian parliament; Omar Al Khatib current Palestinian
Ambassador to Jordan; Rassem al-Khalidi the former governor of the
Central Saudi Bank; the financier Abdel Rahman al-Kaloti; Yasser
Abu Saud, and, of course, my father, Tawfiq Abu Saud who was a
professor at Birzeit College. They were all arrested a few months
after that meeting.
Two months after the 1967 War, the same man visited us and he was
accompanied by Fahmi al-Hammouri. My father asked me to prepare
coffee and close the back door. I did get the gist of the
conversation, but I recognized the man when I heard him a few
months later addressing a student union seminar in Cairo; he was
presented to us as the new president of the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO) - Yasser Arafat.
It was amidst the turbulence of the Buraq (Wailing Wall) uprising
of 1929 that Arafat was born in the Abu Saud house, which was
located in the Fakhria Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. He had
a spacious vaulted room with windows that overlooked the Dome of
the Rock, the Aqsa Mosque and the Wailing Wall. His mother, Zahwa
Abu Saud - known as Umm Jamal - had traveled to Jerusalem from
Cairo to give birth among her family, in keeping with the tradition
of the time and because she felt lonely in Egypt. The child's
mother named him "Yasser" according to an agreement she had with
her cousin to call both their newborns Yasser - the same Yasser Abu
Saud who attended the 1964 meeting at our house.
Also following tradition, 40 days after giving birth, Zahwa left
her family and went back with her children to Cairo. She had moved
there with her husband Abdel Ra'uf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini a
few years earlier, after he had sold his grain shop in Khan el-Zeit
Street in the Old City of Jerusalem. Basically, they went to Cairo
to follow up on an inheritance from the Damardash Waqf (endowment),
which was one of the largest endowments in Egypt, and Abdel Ra'uf
al-Qudwa eventually became the trustee.
However, Zahwa visited Jerusalem with her children regularly every
summer. Her last summer trip was in 1933 when she gave birth to her
son Fathi. She died as a result of a sudden illness a few months
after she returned to Cairo. Salim, Arafat's maternal uncle, and
Raji his cousin, traveled to Cairo to attend the funeral. They took
Yasser and Fathi, Zahwa's youngest sons, back with them to
Jerusalem, while Jamal, In'am, Mustafa and Khadijeh stayed with
their father in Egypt.
The young Yasser and his brother Fathi lived for more than two
years in the care of their uncle Salim. The latter had not been
blessed with any children, so he looked after them as if they were
his own, and they played with the rest of the Abu Saud children in
the quarter; their playground was often the courtyard of the Haram
al-Sharif (Temple Mount).
A Political Family
The Abu Saud family was quite active in the politics of the day. At
that time, Sheikh Hassan Abu Saud played a prominent role in the
events that fueled the Buraq (Wailing Wall) revolt. He was the
founder of Rawdat al-Ma'aref School in Jerusalem and was one of the
close associates of the Mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, head of the
Islamic Higher Council (al-majles) in Jerusalem - they all
accordingly came to be known as majles. Dr. Hussam Abu Saud, on the
other hand, was one of the major pillars of the opposition
(al-mo'aradah), which was led by Ragheb al-Nashashibi. The children
were constantly exposed to political discussions and arguments
between the council's followers and the opposition. These arguments
made an indelible impression on their minds, which was further
deepened by the 1936 strike and the revolt that broke out
thereafter. The strike, however, had a very negative effect for the
children, as their uncle Salim was among the many who lost their
job in the wake of the events. To alleviate the load on his
relative, Abdel Ra'uf al-Qudwa sent back for his children. Also,
Yasser had by then reached school age, and to enter first grade he
needed a birth certificate. This was easier to acquire in Cairo
than in Jerusalem, due to the strike. His father, who from the
outset did not like the name Yasser, got him an Egyptian birth
certificate with the name Mohammad. Later Arafat himself used both:
Mohammad/Yasser.
The fact that their father had married an Egyptian woman after
their mother's death increased the attachment of Yasser and his
siblings to their maternal uncle's family. Salim, for his part, had
grown extremely fond of them, and they, in turn, remained faithful
to him as is obvious by the letters they wrote him. Yasser visited
his uncle on many occasions and especially during the summer
holidays, so he developed a tight relationship with Jerusalem. The
family also owned a plot of land in Ras el-'Amud, a small part of
which Yasser and his brothers and sisters inherited. He loved his
plot of land with its panoramic view of Jerusalem; it was a great
source of pride for him.
Whenever Sheikh Hassan Abu Saud visited Cairo, he would always go
see his cousin Zahwa's children. He was often sent by the Mufti who
regularly consulted with the Egyptian leadership at the time, and
the sheikh always received Egyptian and Arab leaders in his salon
in Egypt. But the British banished Sheikh Hassan to the Seychelles
Islands for six months during the World War II; later he was
allowed to return only to Egypt and not to Palestine. This was at
the beginning of 1946; the children who were then in Cairo, among
them Yasser used to meet at his table every Friday. He had
befriended the sheikh's children, and they would all race to offer
coffee to the sheikh's guests so they could overhear some of the
leaders' talk and then brag about it in front of their friends.
Arafat had always considered Sheikh Hassan his spiritual
father.
There is no doubt that Yasser Arafat's childhood and youth were
important stages in his life. All the anecdotes and memories had an
obvious impact on the formation of his character and were a fertile
ground for the development of his national and religious stances.
They also paved the way for the emergence of his leadership
disposition.
An Active Youth
As a young man, Yasser, along with Musa Abu Saud, Sheikh Hassan's
eldest son, participated in 1947 in a weapons purchasing campaign
to provide the Palestinian resistance fighters with arms. Their
main source was the debris of German weapons left behind in the
Egyptian desert after the Battle of Alamein. In fact, this was the
main topic of a conversation I had with the late president one
month before he passed away.
In 1957, after the Suez War, in which Arafat took part as an
Egyptian reservist, his older brothers and sisters, in an effort to
put a stop to his political involvement, asked their cousin Raji
Abu Saud, who was working in the public works department in Kuwait,
to seek an appropriate position for their brother. He had by then
graduated as an engineer, so he obtained a position in the public
works department in Kuwait and lived with his cousin, but this
could never make him forget his love for his country or his
enthusiasm for politics and resistance. On the contrary, it was in
Kuwait that the establishment of Fateh was initiated, and it was
from there that he and his companions led the movement.
A Caring Relation
Yasser Arafat remained proud of the fact that his maternal uncles
came from Jerusalem and that he was born and spent part of his
childhood there. So, when he came back to Palestine after the Oslo
Accords, he met with Abu Saud family members regularly. He took
care of them, tried to solve their problems and asked after
everyone, old and young. He especially looked after Tharwat Abu
Saud in her old age. She was the wife of his cousin Raji, in whose
house he had lived during his stay in Kuwait. Upon learning of his
death, this old woman fell off her chair and died a couple of days
later.
Arafat's love for Jerusalem never waned. He ate its sesame bread
with olive oil and thyme at breakfast all his life. He loved its
domed houses, the sound of the muezzin (Muslim call to prayer) from
its minarets, and the smell of incense from its churches. He loved
above all its rich history. Unfortunately, he was not allowed into
the city after his return, except one stormy night when he was
traveling from Bethlehem to Jordan after having attended the
Christmas midnight mass. The stormy weather prevented him from
using his plane, so he went to the bridge via Jerusalem and had the
chance to breathe in its air, albeit for a very brief moment - a
moment pregnant with a thousand memories.
He had always wished to be buried in Jerusalem. Although this has
been denied him (for now), I am sure Jerusalem will always remain
with him, as he will always remain with us.