[4] El Asmar left Israel in 1972 after he was released from prison[6] and settled in the USA becoming a US citizen in 1981.
[1] After he completed his graduate studies in England he worked as the managing editor of the daily newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat.
[11][12] El Asmar was arrested by the Israeli forces and put under administrative detention in Ramlah and Damon prisons in 1969.
[6] While there, he was visited by US lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who presented himself as a civil rights activist researching an article on administrative detention.
[14] A subsequent issue of the magazine published letters from El Asmar himself, lawyer Felicia Langer, and civil rights activist Israel Shahak noting Dershowitz's many factual errors and rebutting his "outright distortions".