Bassam Abu Sharif

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Bassam Abu Sharif (born 1946) is a former senior adviser to the late Yasser Arafat and press officer of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Formerly a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Abu Sharif was dubbed the "face of terror" by Time Magazine for his role in the Dawson's Field hijackings in 1970, when the PFLP hijacked Pan Am, Swissair, and TWA flights — a fourth pair of hijackers on an El Al flight were overpowered by security guards and passengers — and blew them up in the Jordanian desert, triggering King Hussein's expulsion of the PLO from Jordan, which became known as Black September.

He lost four fingers, and was left deaf in one ear and blind in one eye, when a bomb exploded in his hands in Beirut, Lebanon in 1972, which he attributes to a letter-bomb attack by the Mossad. [1]

Writing in the Palestinian newspaper al-Quds in April 2005, Abu Sharif called for a "popular peaceful uprising" of Palestinians to prevent Israel from annexing any land in the West Bank.

[edit] Works

• Bassam Abu-Sharif and Uzi Mahnaimi. The Best of Enemies: The Memoirs of Bassam Abu-Sharif and Uzi Mahnaimi, 1995. ISBN 0-316-00401-4
• ______________________________. Tried by Fire, 1996. ISBN 0-7515-1636-8

[edit] References

• "The face of terrorism, then and now" by John Cooley, New Perspectives Quarterly, September 1996 (subscription required)