Ilan Halevi

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Ilan Halevi
Born
Georges Alain Albert

(1943-10-12)12 October 1943
Lyon, France
Died10 July 2013(2013-07-10) (aged 69)
Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine, France
NationalityFrench,
Palestinian
Other namesAlain Albert; Alan Albert; Georges Levin[1]
Occupation(s)Journalist, activist, politician, writer
Notable workThe Crossing (1964);
Face à la guerre (2003);
Allers-retours (2005)
Political partyFatah

Ilan Halevi Arabic: إيلان هاليفي; Hebrew: אִילָן הַלֵּוִי; born Georges Alain Albert in France; 12 October 1943 – 10 July 2013)[2] was a French-Palestinian Jewish pro-Palestinian journalist and politician, and one of the very few high-ranking Jewish members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). He was a member of the Palestinian delegation in the 1991–93 negotiations in Madrid and Washington, and was Assistant Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Palestinian Government.[3]

Writing in both French and English, he was also a novelist and the author of non-fiction books. His publications innclude The Crossing (1964), Face à la guerre (2003), and Allers-retours (2005).

Biography[edit]

George Papandreou, Nabeel Shaath, Halevi and Moustafa Ajouz

Background[edit]

He was born to a Jewish family in Lyon, France, in 1943, "under a false name ... in a post-office that was a Resistance hide-out", as his older brother Marc Albert has confirmed.[1] After the death of their father, Henri Levin, (who had been born in Poland to Russian-Jewish parents),[4] his mother Blanche married Emile Albert and he adopted her four children.[1] (Some sources mistakenly state that his father was a Yemeni Jew whose family had settled in Jerusalem at the beginning of the 20th century;[5] according to Halevi's brother Marc, when Halevi went to Israel "he obtained a passport with the testimony of a Yemenite residing there – the reason that this origin is sometimes given as his.")[1]

Literary beginnings[edit]

In the early 1960s, he had work published in the literary journals Les Temps modernes and Présence Africaine. With Ellen Wright, widow of African-American writer Richard Wright, as his literary agent, Halevi had his first novel, The Crossing, published in 1964 in the United States, under the name Alain Albert.[1] It was favourably reviewed, described by Lillian Smith in The Saturday Review as "a brilliant, mind-smacking account of a young man's journey from nowhere to hell....a fresh way of looking at the multileveled agony of the walled-in young."[6]

Political life[edit]

Following visits to Africa, including to Mali and Algeria,[1] in 1965, at the age of 22, Halevi moved to Israel.[1][7] He is quoted as having said: "I came to Israel because in Algeria I discovered the importance of the Palestinian problem. I sat there in coffee houses, I heard people, I spoke with intellectuals and I understood that the Palestinian question preoccupies the people of the Arab world. It is really in the center of their obsessions. I decided I want to study this reality up close and from the inside…I wanted to study the Israeli reality."[8] Halevi joined the Palestinian resistance movement and Fatah in particular after the 1967 Arab–Israeli war,[2] and subsequently became a prominent member of the PLO. He was the PLO's representative in Europe and to the Socialist International since 1983,[3] former PLO vice-minister of Foreign Affairs, and participated in that capacity in the Madrid Conference of 1991. He was also a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, elected in 2009,[9] and served as an adviser to Yasser Arafat.[10][11]

According to Hanan Ashrawi (in This Side of Peace), in the early 1970s, Halevi was a member of Ma'avak (Struggle), a "small, radical Israeli anti-Zionist group". In the wake of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and subsequent shift of Palestinian activism into the Occupied Territories, he switched his activity to groups which included Israelis and Palestinians working together against the occupation, and helped secure permission for Bashir Barghouti, a Palestinian activist and member of the Jordanian Communist Party's governing council, to return to the West Bank.

Halevi was a critic of Zionism and wrote several books on the subject. He was a founding member of the Revue des Études palestiniennes (Palestinian Studies Review) in 1981. Halevi lived in Paris, France, and the West Bank (his apartment in Ramallah was destroyed during Operation Rampart in 2002),[1] and described himself as "100% Jewish and 100% Arab."[12] In a 2011 interview, he said: "My father fought against the Nazi occupation of France as a Communist. I follow in the tradition of my parents in the fight for freedom and justice, even for oppressed Jews. Given a second chance, I would live my life exactly the same way. In my 45 years as a member of the PLO, I have always been accepted as a Jew."[13]

Halevi was awarded the Medal of Distinction for his role in support of the Palestinian struggle by President Mahmoud Abbas.[2]

Death and legacy[edit]

Halevi died in Clichy, France, on 10 July 2013 at the age of 69.[14][15][16] His funeral took place in Paris at the crematorium of Père Lachaise Cemetery.[17]

In April 2019, it was announced that through an initiative of President Abbas a new street in the city of Al-Bireh would be named in honour of Ilan Halevi, a decision described by Hanan Ashrawi as "a tribute to a person of courage and principle".[18][19]

Private life[edit]

Halevi was married four times, to Giliane Defort (divorced; one son, who died in 2002), Hava (a daughter and a son), Catherine Lévy (a daughter and a son), and Kirsten Maas (a son).[1]

He was a gifted jazz musician, who learned English from American musicians in France.[1]

Writings[edit]

Books[edit]

  • Alain Albert, The Crossing (novel), New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1964; London: Heinemann, 1965. French translation by Georges Levin as La traversée, Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1965.
  • Sous Israël, la Palestine, Paris: Le Sycomore, 1978; Minerve, 1987.
  • Israël, de la terreur au massacre d'Etat, Paris: Papyrus, 1984.
  • Question juive: la tribu, la loi, l'espace, Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1981. Translated into English by A. M. Berrett as A History of the Jews: Ancient and Modern, London: Zed Books, 1987, ISBN 978-0862325329. Published in German as Auf der Suche nach dem gelobten Land: Die Geschichte der Juden und der Palastma-Konflikt, Hamburg: Junius, 1986. Reissued as Jewish Question: Tribe, Law and Space, Syllepse Editions, 2016.[20]
  • Face à la guerre. Lettre de Ramallah, Paris: Sindbad/Actes Sud, 2003, ISBN 978-2742745630.[21]
  • Allers-retours, Paris: Flammarion, 2005, ISBN 978-2082103398.[22] A semi-autobiographical novel critical of Israel and its policies toward the Palestinians.
  • Du souvenir, du mensonge et de l'oubli: Chroniques palestiniennes. Paris: Actes Sud, 2016. ISBN 978-2-330-07057-1.[23]

Selected articles[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Margaret Busby, "Ilan Halevi: Jewish author, journalist and politician who rose to prominence in the PLO" (obituary), The Independent, 25 July 2013.
  2. ^ a b c "Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA - Ilan Halevy, Jewish member of Fatah, Dead at 70". Archived from the original on 28 October 2013. Retrieved 11 July 2013.
  3. ^ a b "Ilan Halevi" at Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.
  4. ^ Farouk Mardam-Bey, "Ilan Halevi: Palestinian Jew and Citizen of the World, 1943–2013" Archived 2019-09-24 at the Wayback Machine, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 43, No. 4, Summer 2014, pp. 67–70. DOI: 10.1525/jps.2014.43.4.67.
  5. ^ Anne Brunswic, Welcome To Palestine: Chronicles of a Season In Ramallah, Translated by Kenneth Casler, 2008, p. 159. Actes Sud, 2004.
  6. ^ Lillian Smith, "From Nowhere to the End of Night", The Saturday Review, 4 April 1964, pp. 39–40.
  7. ^ According to his brother Marc Albert, in the Independent obituary: "When he went to Israel, he obtained a passport with the testimony of a Yemenite residing there – the reason that this origin is sometimes given as his."
  8. ^ Ofer Aderet, "Ilan Halevi, Jewish member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, dies in Paris", Haaretz, 10 July 2013, quoting Nitza Erel in Matzpen – Conscience and Fantasy (2010).
  9. ^ Elhanan Miller, "Palestinians: Yes to Jews, no to settlers in our state", The Times of Israel, 27 January 2014.
  10. ^ Elior Levy, "Arafat's Jewish-Palestinian adviser passes away", Ynetnews, 10 July 2013.
  11. ^ "United Nations International NGO Meeting and European NGO Symposium on the Question of Palestine", Palais des Nations, Geneva, 29 August–1 September 1994. Archived 16 October 2019 at the Wayback Machine.
  12. ^ Marina da Silva, "Aller retours" review, Le Monde Diplomatique, July 2005, p. 26.
  13. ^ Igal Avidan, "Interview with the Jewish Palestinian Politician Ilan Halevi | With One Foot in the UN", Qantara.de, 6 December 2011.
  14. ^ Denis Sieffert, "La mort d’Ilan Halevi", Politis.fr, 10 July 2013.
  15. ^ Emmanuel Riondé, "La mort d’Ilan Halevi - Disparition d’une grande figure du mouvement national palestinien", Regards.fr, 11 July 2013.
  16. ^ Jean-Pierre Perrin, "Ilan Halevi, l'âme en paix", Libération, 10 July 2013.
  17. ^ Houria Bouteldja, "Repose en Paix cher Ilan Halevi", Journal de zine BENSRHIR, 14 July 2013.
  18. ^ Adam Rasgon, "West Bank city to name a street after late Jewish member of Fatah", Times of Israel, 30 April 2019.
  19. ^ "Palestinians to name occupied West Bank street after Jewish man", The National, 30 April 2019.
  20. ^ Michel Warschawski, "Ilan Halevi: In memoriam" Archived 25 February 2017 at the Wayback Machine, AIC, 14 October 2016.
  21. ^ Ilan Halevi, Face à la guerre at Actes Sud.
  22. ^ Francois Feugas, "Allers Retours" (review), Association France Palestine Solidarité, 22 August 2005.
  23. ^ Ilan Halevi, Du souvenir, du mensonge et de l'oubli: Chroniques palestiniennes (November 2016) at Actes Sud.

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

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