Farouq Qaddumi (Abu Lutf)

Farouq Qaddumi (also known as Abu Lutf) was Secretary-General of Fatah’s central committee and the PLO’s political department in Tunisia.

Qaddumi was born in Nablus, moved with his family to Jaffa, and then fled back to Nablus during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence. In 1954, he moved to Egypt to study at Cairo University and joined the Baath party. Qaddumi, a petroleum engineer by trade, also worked for ARAMCO in Saudi Arabia.

In 1960, Qaddami joined Fatah in the United Arab Emirates, and by 1969, he had become a major member of the PLO and the head of its political department in Damascus. After being part of an attempted uprising in Fatah against Yasser Arafat in 1983, Qaddami joined sides and connected with the Palestinian leader, eventually being named to the Fatah Central Committee.

A member of the PLO’s political department in the 1990s, Qaddami strongly opposed the signing of the Oslo Accords and showed his displeasure by remaining in Tunisia when the rest of the PLO leaders were granted the right to return to the Palestinian territories. Though sidelined from the major Palestinian politics of the next few decades due to his displacement, Qaddumi remained for some time a player in Fatah.

Upon Arafat’s death, Qaddumi constitutionally succeeded him to the position of Fatah chairman. Finding himself again in a position of power, he began wrestling for control of the ideologically diverse movement and the PLO, pitted against PLO chairman and Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas. Mud-slinging between the factions was intense, with Qaddumi trying to claim primacy for the PLO (which formally delegates power to the PA). Among other things, Qaddumi denied that the PA had a right to call its government members ministers or open embassies abroad.

While most of the struggle was carried out behind the scenes, the PA – then still in control of the Gaza Strip – suppressed an attempt by al-Qaddumi to organize an armed militia outside of the Authority’s control in the Strip. Al-Qaddumi issued a decree to expel all Fatah members who cooperated with the PA, but this was declared unlawful by Fatah’s central committee, along with his styling himself "president" of the movement.

As head of the PLO’s political department, Qaddumi was primarily responsible for foreign representation. However, Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad reorganized the PLO embassies, removing Qaddumi loyalists from ambassadorial posts. Abbas redirected foreign contacts to pass through the PA’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Al-Qidwa, Ziad Abu Amr, and Riad Al-Maliki, which infuriated Qaddumi.

In 2009, Qaddoumi accused Abbas of involvement in Arafat’s alleged poisoning, leading to Qaddoumi’s removal from his positions within the PLO and Fatah. They reconciled later, but Qaddoumi’s age, health issues, and distance from the political scene kept him out of the spotlight in his later years.

Qaddumi died in Amman, Jordan, on August 22, 2024, at 93.

Sources: Palestine Facts. 
Wikipedia.
“Arafat Ally Qaddoumi Dies: Opposed Oslo, Refused to Return,” Asharq Al Awsat, (August 23, 2024).

Photo: Gotfryd, Bernard, photographer, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.