Henri Curiel (13 September 1914 – 4 May 1978) was a left-wing political activist in Egypt and France. Born in

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medite ...

, Curiel led the communist Democratic Movement for National Liberation until he was expelled from the country in 1950. Settling in France, Curiel aided the Algerian Front de Libération Nationale and other national liberation causes, including in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

and Latin America. In 1978 Curiel was assassinated in Paris; his murderer has never been identified.

Biography

Early life and family

Curiel was born in Cairo to an Italian

Sephardic Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefa ...

family. He became an Egyptian citizen in 1935. His brother Raoul Curiel became a respected

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts ...

and

numismatist A numismatist is a specialist in numismatics ("of coins"; from Late Latin ''numismatis'', genitive of ''numisma''). Numismatists include collectors, specialist dealers, and scholars who use coins and other currency in object-based research. Alt ...

, specializing in

Central Asian studies Central Asian studies is the discipline of studying the culture, history, and languages of Central Asia. The roots of Central Asian studies as a social science discipline goes to 19th century Anglo-Russian Great Game. During the 19th century, Cen ...

. A cousin was Eugenio Curiel, a physicist and

anti-fascist Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were ...

militant who was murdered in Italy in 1945. Another cousin was the noted British

KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...

spy

George Blake George Blake ( Behar; 11 November 1922 – 26 December 2020) was a spy with Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and worked as a double agent for the Soviet Union. He became a communist and decided to work for the MGB while a pri ...

. In an interview with Jean Lesieur, published in the French magazine ''L'Express'' on Feb 21, 1991, the latter said that the older Curiel had been influential as a communist in shaping his political views, as Blake met him as a teenager. His son is the French journalist Alain Gresh, who was born in Cairo in 1948 and grew up in Paris.

Political career in Egypt

In 1939 Curiel, his brother Raoul and Georges Henein launched '' Don Quichotte'', a French language Communist weekly. In 1943 he founded the communist Egyptian Movement for National Liberation (HAMETU) which in 1947 became the Democratic Movement for National Liberation (HADETU). He was repeatedly arrested, along with many other communists. Despite his Egyptian citizenship, he was forced to emigrate in 1950. The Democratic Movement for National Liberation was an active participant in the 1952 revolution led by the free officers and

Gamal Abdel Nasser Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein, . (15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was an Egyptian politician who served as the second president of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. Nasser led the Egyptian revolution of 1952 and introduced far-re ...

. The revolutionary council and the free officers had many members from HADETU; the most eminent of these were Khaled Mohy el din, Yousef Sedeek and Ahmed Hamroush. Curiel settled in France and led a circle of Jewish communist emigres from Egypt known as the "Rome Group".

Anti-colonial activism in Paris

Curiel worked for the

Jeanson network The Jeanson network () was a group of French leftwing militants led by Francis Jeanson who helped Algerian National Liberation Front agents operating in the French metropolitan territory during the Algerian War. They were mainly involved in carry ...

which supported the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) during the

Algerian War The Algerian War, also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence,( ar, الثورة الجزائرية '; '' ber, Tagrawla Tadzayrit''; french: Guerre d'Algérie or ') and sometimes in Algeria as the War of 1 November ...

(1954–62). He was arrested by the French security services in 1960. Curiel was a founder of "Solidarité", a support group for various anti-colonial and opposition movements in the

Third World The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the ...

(in particular Africa and Latin America), such as the

African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a social-democratic political party in South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when the first post-apartheid election install ...

(ANC). In 1976 he initiated contacts with

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

i and

Palestinian Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...

representatives willing to negotiate a mutual recognition. Several meetings, later known as the "Paris talks", were organized. Under the chairmanship of

Pierre Mendès France Pierre Isaac Isidore Mendès France (; 11 January 190718 October 1982) was a French politician who served as prime minister of France for eight months from 1954 to 1955. As a member of the Radical Party, he headed a government supported by a co ...

, they included Issam Sartawi, adviser to

Yasser Arafat Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf al-Qudwa al-Husseini (4 / 24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004), popularly known as Yasser Arafat ( , ; ar, محمد ياسر عبد الرحمن عبد الرؤوف عرفات القدوة الحسيني, Mu ...

; and

Uri Avnery Uri Avnery ( he, אורי אבנרי, also transliterated Uri Avneri; 10 September 1923 – 20 August 2018) was an Israeli writer, politician, and founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement. A member of the Irgun as a teenager, Avnery sat for tw ...

and Mattityahu Peled, members of the Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace (ICIPP). On 21 June 1976, Georges Suffert published an article in ''

Le Point ''Le Point'' () is a French weekly political and news magazine published in Paris. History and profile ''Le Point'' was founded in September 1972 by a group of journalists who had, one year earlier, left the editorial team of '' L'Express'', ...

'' reporting Curiel as the "head of the terrorist support network", connected with the

. He was put under house arrest in

Digne Digne-les-Bains (; Occitan: ''Dinha dei Banhs''), or simply and historically Digne (''Dinha'' in the classical norm or ''Digno'' in the Mistralian norm), is the prefecture of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte ...

, an administrative measure that was lifted once the accusation was demonstrated to be untrue."Henri Curiel, citizen of the third world"
''

Le Monde diplomatique ''Le Monde diplomatique'' (meaning "The Diplomatic World" in French) is a French monthly newspaper offering analysis and opinion on politics, culture, and current affairs. The publication is owned by Le Monde diplomatique SA, a subsidiary com ...

'', April 1998 An American

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

report from 1981 (a Special National Intelligence Estimate) said that Curiel's organization "has provided support to a wide variety of Third World leftist revolutionary organizations", including "false documents, financial aid, and safehaven before and after operations, as well as some illegal training in France in weapons and explosives." The authors further comment that his group's "association with non-communist and nonviolent leaders, including clergymen, has tended to cloak the nature and extent of its operations."''Soviet Support for International Terrorism and Revolutionary Violence: Special National Intelligence Estimate'' (1981). p. 23. Available at

Assassination

Henri Curiel was assassinated in Paris on 4 May 1978. Two far-right groups ( OAS and the

Charles Martel Group The Charles Martel Group (, also ''Club Charles-Martel, Cercle Charles-Martel, Commando Charles-Martel'') was a French far-right anti-Arab terrorist organization which operated in the 1970s and 1980s. It was named after Charles Martel, the Fran ...

) claimed responsibility, but the case is still unsolved. Police and journalistic investigations suggest other suspects: * Jean-Pierre Maïon, a French criminal linked to the SDECE and the OAS, who worked as an informant for Lucien Aimé-Blanc, may have killed Henri Curiel on behalf of a Spanish death squad *

Abu Nidal Sabri Khalil al-Banna (May 1937 – 16 August 2002), known by his ''nom de guerre'' Abu Nidal, was the founder of Fatah: The Revolutionary Council, a militant Palestinian splinter group more commonly known as the Abu Nidal Organization ...

group (it allegedly later shot Issam Sartawi), allegedly commissioned by the

* South African Bureau of State Security (because of Curiel's aid to the

ANC The African National Congress (ANC) is a social-democratic political party in South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when the first post-apartheid election install ...

) Henri Curiel is buried at

Père Lachaise Cemetery Père Lachaise Cemetery (french: Cimetière du Père-Lachaise ; formerly , "East Cemetery") is the largest cemetery in Paris, France (). With more than 3.5 million visitors annually, it is the most visited necropolis in the world. Notable figures ...

, Paris. Curiel's work in promoting dialogue between the PLO and left-wing Israelis was continued throughout the 1980s by the ''Comité Palestine et Israël Vivront'', headed by Sorbonne lecturer Joyce Blau – Curiel's close associate and fellow Egyptian exile.The archives of the ''Comité Palestine et Israël Vivront'' are deposited at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterda

/ref>

In fiction

Henri Curiel appears in several parts of the 1982

spy thriller Spy fiction is a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device. It emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intrigues between the major powers, and the establishment of modern intellig ...

''Shadow of Shadows'' by Ted Allbeury, whose plot is focused on

. Allbeury takes at face value the assertions of Curiel having been a KGB agent, and assumes that for some time in the 1950s Curiel was Blake's KGB contact – for which there is no historical proof of any kind.

Notes

References

* Georges Suffert, "Le patron des réseaux d'aide aux terroristes", ''Le Point'', 21 June 1976 * Roland Gaucher, ''Le Réseau Curiel ou la subversion humanitaire,'' Jean Picollec, 1981 * Jean-Marie Domenach, "Trois ans apres: L'affaire Curiel. 1. La preuve ne doit pas apparaitre". ''Le Monde'', 16 mai 1981. 2." Espion et terroriste, certes pas". ''Le Monde'', 17–18 mai 1981. * Gilles Perrault, ''Un homme à part'', Bernard Barrault, 1984 * Gilles Perrault, "Henri Curiel, citizen of the third world". ''Le Monde Diplomatique'' online, English edition, 1998/04/13, http://mondediplo.com/1998/04/13curiel * Alain Gresh, ''The PLO: The Struggle Within: Towards an Independent Palestine'', London: Zed Books, 1985 * Jacques Hassoun, "La vie passionnée d'Henri Curiel", ''Revue d'études palestiniennes'', 1998 * ''Recherches Internationales, Crise et avenir de la solidarité internationale''. "Hommage à Henri Curiel", n° 52–53, 1998 * Charles Enderlin, ''Paix ou guerres. Les secrets des négociations israélo–arabes 1917–1995'', Stock, Paris, 2004 * Alexandre Adler at the AJOE Congress, 6 March 2006 * Lucien Aimé-Blanc, Jean-Michel Caradec'h, ''L'Indic et le Commissaire'', Plon, 2006 * Jonathan C. Randal, "French Socialists Start Digging Into Overtones of Curiel Killing," ''International Herald Tribune'', 24 August 1981

External links

The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry – Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora

Inventory of the papers of the EGYPTIAN COMMUNISTS IN EXILE (ROME GROUP)

Uri Avnery
"The silent idealist"] ''

'', April 1998
BASE DE DONNEES SUR LES ACTES TERRORISTES

''Spies Encyclopedia'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Curiel, Henri 1914 births 1978 deaths Politicians from Cairo Jewish socialists Egyptian people of Italian-Jewish descent Egyptian Sephardi Jews French people of Egyptian-Jewish descent French people of Italian-Jewish descent French Sephardi Jews Assassinated activists Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery Assassinated Jews Assassinated Egyptian journalists Egyptian people murdered abroad People murdered in Paris Deaths by firearm in France 1978 murders in France 20th-century Egyptian writers Egyptian magazine founders Egyptian emigrants to France 1970s murders in Paris