[1][2][3] He is remembered as a leading figure in Jerusalem public life, particularly after the onset of Israeli occupation of the West Bank.
[3][4] Among his most notable legacies are the reconstruction of the Al-Aqsa Mosque after it was burned in 1969 and his leadership in the development of key Palestinian educational and intellectual institutions as well as unions and political organizations.
[3] He supervised the construction of Tira College for Girls in the city of Ramallah and then an agricultural school in Shawbak.
[3] He then founded his own company with a partner that worked on a number of other projects, including in Jericho, Ramallah, Azariyya, and Jerusalem.
[6] The committee included mayors and a spectra of the Palestinian national movement and arose specifically in the wake of the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt.
[3][5] He contributed to the formation of a number of leading Palestinian civil society organizations such as the Higher Council of Education and the Arab Thought Forum, which he chaired from 1978 to 1992.
[9][5] In addition to his general activism against occupation and in support of Palestinian rights, Dakkak has been characterized as a "radical socialist.