Fuad Habash Ansara: A forgotten pioneer of the Palestinian cause in Chile

When Fuad Habash Ansara arrived in Chile in September 1960, the Palestinian community already had solid roots.

Predominantly Christians from Bethlehem, Beit Jala, and Beit Sahour, the majority had left Palestine between 1885 and 1940, escaping economic instability and forced conscription during the Ottoman Empire, or fleeing British colonial rule.

They worked as peddlers, established businesses and set up cultural institutions, including a football team, Palestino, and a social club, both of which exist to this day.

Habash belonged to a minority that arrived after the Nakba, or catastrophe, with visceral memories of Zionist militia violence.

In 1963, he co-founded the Palestinian Liberation Front (FRELIPA) alongside Chilean-Palestinian poet Mahfúd Massís. The group also had its own political magazine, Palestine, Martyred Homeland, edited by both Habash and Massís, and a radio program, Voice of Palestine, directed by Habash alone.

Three years later, he was elected Secretary in Arabic of the new Committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) in Chile, although an official office was not established until years later, during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, in 1978.

“Habash facilitated the relationship between militant Palestinian movements that had been created in Chile and the national movement in Palestine,” explained Professor Ricardo Marzuca, a historian in the Center of Arab Studies at the University of Chile, to The New Arab.

As a result, “he played an important role in catalysing the community's commitment to the Palestinian cause,” he told TNA.

What follows is the story of Fuad Habash Ansara, a man whose life, beyond his name, warrants at least a few words.

It began in Palestine

Born to a Christian family in Jerusalem on 25 July 1925, Habash studied languages in Palestine and Lebanon (reportedly speaking Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish) before becoming a teacher, according to a 1973 interview in Mundo Arabe, an old Chilean newspaper founded by Arab immigrants in the 1930s.

As a student, in 1948, he participated in fighting between Zionist militias and Palestinian resistance fighters in the Musrara neighbourhood of Jerusalem, a site of intense battle given its strategic location just beyond the Old City walls.

According to a news report in La Nacion, he was also the cousin of George Habash, founder and first secretary-general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Although the extent of their connection is unclear (they were likely distant cousins according to relatives, not first-cousins as the La Nacion article suggests) they tread a shared path.

In 1956, Habash found himself in Jordan where he was sentenced to 19 years at Al-Jafr prison for opposing the Jordanian government. Before its closure in 2006, Al-Jafr had a long history of holding Palestinian fedayeen, including Abu Ali Mustafa, a prominent member of the Arab National Movement (ANM) and the PFLP.

Upon early release in 1960, Habash set off, venturing to join his brothers, who had left years earlier, on the other side of the world.

Long-distance nationalism

The ideology of pan-Arabism was already circulating in Chilean society in the mid-20th century, represented by the National Arab Union of Chile (UNACh), which, founded in 1958, was “dedicated solely and exclusively to such matters for our beloved and distant homeland, which is for us one and indivisible”.

The subsequent creation of FRELIPA in October 1963 sought to centralise the Palestinian cause in a pre-existent culture of long-distant nationalist fervour.

“FRELIPA will fight until the definitive reclamation of Palestine for the Arabs is achieved,” read an official declaration, published in the first edition of Palestine, Martyred Homeland, in March 1964.

“Therefore, we do not recognise, for any reason whatsoever, any change to the map of the land of Palestine after May 15, 1948, which we consider an indestructible unity.”

Furthermore, “the fact that [FRELIPA] was directed by Habash and Massís facilitated the understanding and dissemination of the Palestinian cause in Chilean society, fundamentally in intellectual sectors,” explained Marzuca.

But public reception was mixed.

“I found [Habash] to have a charmingly curious character,” Patricio Hales Dib, a Chilean former congressman of Palestinian and Jordanian descent, told TNA. He did not always cohere with Habash’s tone, which he described as “somewhat aggressive,” but “was moved by the passion that drove him to spread his ideas, to obtain financial support, to promote his program and cause.”

After all, “he was the only voice of public expression in the Palestinian community at a time when nobody was talking about Palestine”.

Yet, “in spite of their efforts, these activists only formed a small group and had a limited influence among the Palestinian community,” wrote Cecilia Baeza, cofounder of RIMAAL, a network of researchers on the links between Latin America and the Middle East.

“While a majority was not really interested by political issues in Palestine anymore, the most powerful businessmen were frankly frightened by the communist and anti-imperialist dimension of this Palestinian nationalism,” Baeza added.

“The rest of the Arab immigrants in the 1960s wanted to maintain the respectability that our grandparents had earned. In other words, a slightly more sober demeanour,” Dib told The New Arab. “So there was resistance against him, but there was also respect.”

The rise and fall of pan-Arabism

In any case, Fuad Habash was not deterred.

“Like the nationalist movements of the time in the Arab world and the Palestinian national movement, FRELIPA promoted the vision of the Palestinian cause and the liberation of the Arab world as embedded in the emancipation of the peoples of the Third World,” wrote Ricardo Marzuca in his paper, 'The Rise of Pan Arabism in the Arab World and its Impact on Arab Communities in Chile'.

“FRELIPA's vision was thus embedded in a notion of Arabism as a cultural expression that crystallized into a political project promoting Arab unity and the indispensable liberation of Palestine for its full realization,” he continued.

The magazine Palestine, Martyred Homeland regularly expressed support for the United Arab Republic (UAR), led by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, a key proponent of Pan-Arabism. In fact, in July 1965, to mark the 13th anniversary of the Egyptian Revolution, Nasser was heralded as an "illustrious leader” and “the architect of a destiny whose course is dictated by the citizenry.”

But beyond any one man, the magazine’s carefully archived pages reveal a belief that nationalist movements and independence struggles in other Arab nations were precedent to liberation in Palestine itself: “Today Syria commemorates its independence,” read an editorial signed by Habash in April 1964, marking the 18th anniversary of French colonial withdrawal. “Tomorrow it will be Arab Palestine.”

But today “solidarity doesn't exist like it did during the era of Pan-Arabism,” said Nelson Hadad, a Chilean-Palestinian lawyer and former ambassador to Iraq, Jordan, and Egypt. Back then, “the central cause, the sacred cause of the Arabs, was Palestine,” and so, he told The New Arab, “there was greater unity even with the Arab embassy accredited in Chile, which supported Palestine. Conditions have now changed. Not everyone supports Palestine as they once did.”

Correcting the narrative

“Habash was an example,” said Hadad, who recalls listening to the radio program, Voice of Palestine, as a young man. “He was an example of struggle. He was an example of conviction.”

A solitary man by all accounts, his fortitude and fury over the plight of his people was palpable for those who knew him and evident from the work he left behind.

Yet, when you search for the name Fuad Habash Ansara online, none of this appears.

The first result is an article published by the Jewish Telegraph Agency (JTA) in May 1974. Beneath the headline, “Colombia Expels Arab Terrorist,” his "propaganda efforts” are described as “frequently antisemitic,” although evidence to attest those claims does not appear.

In actuality, upon reading Palestine, Martyred Homeland, one finds the following evidence to the contrary: “throughout history, the blood tie that identifies the Arab with the Jew has prevailed,” read a declaration from October 1964. “Any conflicts that have occurred have always been due to Zionist elements, who exploit both Jews and non-Jews.”

Following the dissemination of some 21 editions, publication ceased in April 1967, just two months before the Naksa, or setback, in which Israel occupied the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. The Voice of Palestine continued until at least 1983, promoting Arab unity, condemning Zionism, and supporting the PLO.

There is little to no information about the last ten years of his life until his death on 27 June 1994. He left behind a wife, two daughters, and a contribution to a movement that persists to this day.

For “Zionism constitutes a social danger allied to the darkest imperialism,” read the official declaration of Palestine, Martyred Homeland. “And against this danger, Palestine, the martyred homeland, will fight to the end.

Ana Maria Monjardino is an independent journalist and writer from London

Follow her on X: @ammonjardino

Edited by Charlie Hoyle