Zuheir Mohsen

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Zuheir Mohsen (b. 1936, d. 1979) was a Palestinian leader of the as-Sa'iqa faction of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) between 1971 and 1979.

Contents

1 Background
2 Relations with Syria
3 Trouw interview
4 References

Background

Born in Tulkarm in what was then the Palestine mandate, Mohsens family was displaced in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. As a refugee in Jordan, Mohsen was active in the Ba'th Party while working as a teacher, but eventually left the country after being targeted by the authorities for his political activities. After living in Qatar and Kuwait, he moved to Syria in 1967. He quickly became involved in the power-struggle within the Syrian branch of the party on the side of military strongman Hafez al-Assad. After al-Assad's "Corrective Revolution" in 1970, when the former President Salah Jadid and his supporters were purged from the party, Mohsen was appointed head of as-Sa'iqa, which had been formed by the Syrian authorities some years earlier to absorb the Palestinian refugees living in Syria.

As head of as-Sa'iqa, he led the organization during the early years of the civil war in Lebanon, in close co-ordination with the Syrian Army, later the Arab Deterrent Force. Based in West Beirut, he gained a reputation for personal corruption. He was assassinated in Cannes, France, on July 15, 1979, leaving a casino. Thomas L. Friedman describes him as

...an armchair revolutionary if there ever was one. He was known in Beirut as Mr. Carpet, because of all the Persian carpets his men had stolen during the Lebanese civil war. When the rigors of leading the revolution became to much for him, Mohsen would split to an apartment he kept on the famous La Croisette Promenade in Cannes, probably the most expensive stretch of real estate on the French Riviera.^{[#endnote_friedman]}

Some sources claim Mohsen led the Palestinian assault on the Lebanese town Damour in early 1976, which ended in a massacre of Christian civilians.^{[#endnote_damour]}

Relations with Syria

Zuheir Mohsen is generally regarded as a Syrian marionette, since as-Sa'iqa was both created, financed and managed by Damascus, as the Palestinian branch of the Syrian Ba'th Party. It is not an independent organization, and widely seen as the Syrian regime's Palestinian mouthpiece. The organization's loyalty to Syria extended even to the point of attacking the PLO on Damascus's order during the Lebanese Civil War. In its political statements, the faction has always faithfully echoed the Syrian positions, including during Mohsen's time as Secretary-General.

Mohsen rejected the PLO's "Palestinization" of the conflict, instead on ostensibly pan-Arab grounds championing Syrian leadership of the Palestinian movement. Hafez al-Assad repeatedly promoted Zuheir Mohsen as a leadership candidate for the PLO, especially in times of conflict with Yassir Arafat. When al-Sa'iqa joined a Syrian military offensive against PLO in 1976, during the Lebanese Civil War, his family home in Tulkarm on the West Bank was picketed by angry Palestinians.

There was little support for his ambitions within the PLO or among Palestinians, and his influence was based mainly on the military strength of as-Sa'iqa, in its turn dependent on Syrian support. But, even though he was at times expelled from the PLO, the organization always seemed ready to accept him back, since his participation was a condition for Syrian cooperation. As-Sa'iqa was well armed in comparison with other Palestinian factions, and Mohsen headed the important military affairs department in the PLO's executive committee.

Trouw interview

Zuhair Mohsen is widely known for having made the following statement in a March 1977 interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw:

The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.

This was in line with his pan-Arab Ba'thist views, but completely at odds with the PLO charter, and several pro-Israeli commentators have raised the quote, arguing that it disproves the genuineness of Palestinian nationalism (and the need for a Palestinian state). In fact, Mohsen's opinion reflected only an extreme minority opinion within the PLO and in Palestinian society - namely that of as-Sa'iqa, which was of course also that of Syria.

References

↑ Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem (HarperCollins Publishers, 1998, 2nd ed.), p. 118
↑ See for example [this page]

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