Nayef Hawatmeh (November 1938-) was a leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) who founded the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine in 1969. A Greek Catholic Christian, Hawatmeh was a Marxist-Leninist who was also a leader of the leftist Arab Nationalist Movement.
Biography[]
Nayef Hawatmeh was born in Salt, Transjordan to a Greek Catholic family of Palestinian descent. Hawatmeh became a leader of the left-wing Arab Nationalist Movement before joining the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in 1967. In 1969 he founded his own Marxist-Leninist terrorist group, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. This group was responsible for the 1974 Ma'alot Massacre, killing 25 schoolchildren and teachers. In 1993, he opposed the Oslo Accords, but in the late 1990s he became more conciliatory. In 1999 he met Yasser Arafat and shook hands with President Ezer Weizmann of Israel at the funeral of King Hussein I of Jordan, drawing strong criticism from Palestinians and Arabs. In 2004 he supported a two-state solution and called for a cessation of hostilities in the Second Intifada, and in 2007 he was allowed to enter the West Bank for the first time since 1967 in order to attend a PLO meeting.