Emil Habibi

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Portrait of Emil Habibis

Emil Habibi ( Imīl Ḥabībī Arabic إميل حبيبي, Hebrew אמיל חביבי; * August 29, 1922 in Haifa ; † May 2, 1996 in Nazareth ) was a Palestinian - Israeli writer , journalist and politician of the Israeli Communist Party (Maki) and the New Communist List (Rakach) .

Politician

Habibi grew up in a Protestant family in Haifa and lived in Nazareth from 1956 until his death . In 1940 he joined the Palestinian Communist Party , founded in 1923, but left them with others in 1943 because of disagreements over the national question with the majority of the Shmuel Mikunis party and founded the National Liberation League in Palestine . When the Arab League re-established the Arab High Committee in 1946, the Liberation League did not join as it called for democratic elections. The Liberation League strove for national unity, because only in this way did it consider a victory over the British colonial power possible.

In 1947, the Liberation League approved the partition plan when the USSR suddenly advocated it. The Liberation League explained its stance by stating that the two alternatives, a Jewish state on the one hand or an affiliation with Jordan on the other, were worse. It was therefore the only Arab party in Palestine to support the partition plan. The Liberation League accused the Arab League and the Arab High Committee of participating in anti-Jewish provocations such as the Kfar Etzion massacre. In September 1948 Emil Habibi wrote in a flyer that the Palestinians did not want the Arab armies to invade. The Liberation League blamed the Arab League and the Arab High Committee for the loss of Palestine.
After the Palestine War, the Liberation League united with the parts of the Palestinian Communist Party that formed the Israeli Communist Party after the state was founded. Among other things, this meant that Habibi was able to bring family members who had fled to Lebanon back to Haifa after Jewish party friends had campaigned for him with Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion . From 1951 to 1959 and again from 1961 to 1972 he was a member of parliament in the Knesset - initially as a member of the Israeli Communist Party, then from 1965 on the New Communist List, the political regrouping mainly supported by Palestinian Israelis after the party split.

After retiring as a member of parliament, he was editor-in-chief of the party newspaper al-Ittiḥād until 1989 . In that year he was removed from office and expelled from the party because he campaigned for reforms in the party against the position of the executive committee. Habibi later sharply criticized Saddam Hussein and the PLO .

plant

Habibi made his first literary steps in the party newspaper al-Ittiḥād . There he wrote under the pseudonym "Juhajna", the name of his daughter.

After leaving the Knesset, his first and most famous novel, The Peptimist , was published in 1974 . The main character of the book is Said the Hapless, from the Peptimist family. Peptimist, a word created by the author, combines the opposites optimist and pessimist. Said reveals his life in the form of a letter to the reader and reports on his life and his attitude to everyday political life. Unlike many of his Palestinian compatriots, Said is not being driven out of Israel, but serves the Israeli secret service, always on the search for his identity and the identity of his people. His father inherited his service as a spy in the Israeli secret service, but the main protagonist of the book feels torn between the two societies and cultures.

In 1985 The Valley of the Djinns appeared , which begins with a gigantic traffic jam in Haifa.

In 1991 Saraja, the demon child appeared . The folk tradition about Saraja, which is held captive by a child eater , is given a modern interpretation by Habibi.

Most important works:

  • Sudāsiyyat al-ayyām al-sittah . 1969.
  • al-Waqāʾiʿ al-ġarbīya fi ʾḫtifāʾ Saʿīd Abi-ʾn-Naḥs al-mutašāʾil . 1974.
    • German translation by Ibrahim Abu Hashhash: The Peptimist or of the strange incidents around the disappearance of Said the hapless. Basel: Lenos, 1995; ISBN 3-85787-630-1 .
  • Kafr Qāsim . 1976.
  • Lakʿ bin Lakʿ . 1980.
  • Ḫurāfiyyat Sarāyā bint al-ġūl . 1991.
    • German translation by Nuha Forst: Sarâja, the demon child. A late autumn storytelling from Palestine. Basel: Lenos, 1998; ISBN 3-85787-249-7 .
  • Iẖṭīya .
    • German translation by Hartmut Fähndrich and Edward Badeen: Das Tal der Dschinnen. Basel: Lenos, 1998; ISBN 3-85787-640-9 .
  • With Yoram Kaniuk , German translation by Anna Schwarz and Michael von Killisch-Horn: The Land of Two Promises . Munich: List, 1997, ISBN 3-471-79351-8 .

Awards

Emil Habibi was awarded the PLO's Al Quds Prize in 1990 for his complete literary works .

In 1992 Emil Habibi became the first Palestinian to receive the Israel Prize for Arabic Literature. As he was politically in sharp crossfire at this time and was accused of treason by his former comrades, this recognition by the Israeli establishment was a thorn in their side. There was also rejection on the Zionist side. In protest against the award to Habibi, Juval Ne'eman returned the award he had received in 1969.

literature

Saleh Srouji: Emil Habibi - an Arab man of letters from Israel. The Palestinian’s search for the self under aggravated conditions, reflected in his work up to 1985 . Augsburg: Wissner, 1993; ISBN 3-928898-17-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://he.scribd.com/doc/102341202/Between-National-Liberation-and-Anti-Colonial-Struggle-The-National-Liberation-League-in-Palestine/  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / he.scribd.com  
  2. ↑ http://1948war.tumblr.com/page/7/
  3. ↑ http://jpress.org.il/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin_TAU.asp?From=Archive&Skin=TAUHe&BaseHref=DAV/1948/09/15&EntityId=Ar00101&ViewMode=HTML/
  4. ^ Emil Habibi, website of the Israeli parliament, accessed on January 10, 2018 (English)
  5. ↑ http://www.palestine-family.net/index.php?nav=6-14&cid=25-283&did=981&pageflip=1/
  6. ↑ a b Admin: Emil Habibi. Retrieved on March 28, 2018 (German).
personal data
SURNAME Habibi, Emil
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ḥabībī, Imīl; إميل حبيبي (Arabic); אמיל חביבי (Hebrew)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Palestinian-Israeli writer, journalist and politician
DATE OF BIRTH August 29, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Haifa
DATE OF DEATH May 2, 1996
Place of death Nazareth