Khaled Yashruti (1937 in

Akko Acre ( ), known locally as Akko ( he, עַכּוֹ, ''ʻAkō'') or Akka ( ar, عكّا, ''ʻAkkā''), is a city in the coastal plain region of the Northern District of Israel. The city occupies an important location, sitting in a natural harb ...

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 ...

– 1970 in

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...

) was a

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 ...

political activist and a leading member of the PLO.

The Right wing of Fatah

Beyond the Bagdad-oriented Ba'ath Party-linked

Arab Liberation Front Arab Liberation Front ( ar, جبهة التحرير العربية ''Jabhet Al-Tahrir Al-'Arabiyah'') is a minor Palestinian political party, previously controlled by the Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party, formed in 1969 by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and then hea ...

(ALF), there were some high-ranking members of

Fatah Fatah ( ar, فتح '), formerly the Palestinian National Liberation Movement, is a Palestinian nationalist social democratic political party and the largest faction of the confederated multi-party Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and ...

itself who were heavily influenced by the original/non-Marxist

Pan-Arab Pan-Arabism ( ar, الوحدة العربية or ) is an ideology that espouses the unification of the countries of North Africa and Western Asia from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea, which is referred to as the Arab world. It is closely c ...

doctrine of the Ba'ath. These people rejected the Soviet Union and Arab states close to it (The pro-Syrian Ba'ath, Algeria, Libya and South Yemen). They resented Yasser Arafat's rapprochement with Moscow and the PLO's progressive drift towards "third-worldist" leftwing rhetoric. They were viewed as the "conservative" rightwing of Fatah. Many were members of the Galilean/Northern Palestinian aristocracy (such as Khaled Yashruti's father, who was the hereditary Shaykh of the

Shadhiliyya The Shadhili Order ( ar, الطريقة الشاذلية) is a tariqah or Sufi order of Sunni Islam founded by al-Shadhili in the 13th century and is followed by millions of people around the world. Many followers (Arabic ''murids'', "seekers") ...

Sufi Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, ...

brotherhood in pre-1947 Palestine). Most had studied in the US or at the American University of Beirut in the late 1950s.

Involvement in the PLO

Khaled Yashruti progressively became their leader in the mid-1960s, and became a member of the PLO leadership in 1968, two years before Fatah's commanders were expelled to Lebanon from Jordan. Yashruti's faction had the backing of the Al-Bakr/

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...

Ba'athist government in Baghdad and was generally favorable to US involvement in the

Middle-East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europea ...

as a counterweight to the growing influence of the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

and

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 ...

. In parallel to his political activities, Khaled worked as a civil engineer and real estate entrepreneur in Lebanon. He died in 1970 in an accident- a huge crane fell on him while he was inspecting construction works in downtown Beirut. Some Palestinian and Lebanese journalists argued this was not an accident, but murder.

External links

''“Another Battle of Beirut ”'' (Time Magazine, May 14, 1973)

''“The Shadhiliyya Zawiyat ”''

''“The Palestinian Fedayeen”'' (Declassified CIA Report, 1971)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yashruti, Khaled 1937 births 1970 deaths Arab Liberation Front politicians Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Lebanon Region politicians Fatah members Members of the National Command of the Ba'ath Party Palestinian Arab nationalists Palestinian Sunni Muslims