Farouk Qaddoumi

Throughout his life, Palestine has always been Farouk Qaddoumi’s unwavering compass.  Born in the village of Jinsafut in 1931, Qaddoumi (Abu Lotf) attended primary and secondary schools in Jaffa  (before the Nakba) , then graduated from the American University in Cairo, where he was an activist.
Qaddoumi joined the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party and travelled between Saudi Arabia, Libya and Kuwait.  During that time he met Yasser Arafat and with others, cofounded the Fatah movement. Qaddoumi became known in Fatah as a thinker and a leader. He was elected to its Central Committee and was in charge of popular organizations. He later became a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization and was the head of its political department .
Following the Declaration of Independence of the State of Palestine, the PLO Central Council elected Yasser Arafat as head of state, and Farouq Qaddoumi was appointed foreign minister, a position he held for many years.
In all platforms, meetings and arenas of struggle, he was recognized as a tenacious and competent defender of the rights of his people and their just cause. He opposed the Oslo agreement but continued to struggle alongside his companion and leader, Yasser Arafat, working for the sake of Palestine and serving its people.

 

Nayef Hawatmeh

The Palestinian-Jordanian-Bedouin, Nayef Hawatmeh, Secretary-General of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was born in the city of Al-Salt in 1938. He attended schools in Amman, then halted his studies in medicine at Cairo University to focus on political and national activism. He later resumed his studies in philosophy, psychology, and sociology at Beirut Arab University. Hawatmeh was an early member of the Arab Nationalist Movement, which arose in direct response to the defeat of the Arabs and the Nakba in Palestine in 1948.
An active, distinguished member of the Arab Nationalist Movement, Hawatmeh traveled between Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Iraq, where he was arrested and persecuted for his national political views and activities. After the 1967 War, he devoted himself to the heated battlefield against the Israeli occupation. 
In  1969, Hawatmeh declared the independence of the nationalist democratic left movement under the name of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine that became a main faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which assumed leadership as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. 
Hawatmeh  was an avid proponent of national unity and stalwart defender of the rights and advancement of the Palestinian people. Along with Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian leadership, he was the first to propose the interim program for national action .
Hawatmeh has written and published many intellectual and political books  on nationalist Palestinian Arab  issues, to which he has dedicated his life.