Jamal al-Husayni (1894–1982) (Arabic: جمال الحُسيني), was born in Jerusalem and was a member of the highly influential and respected Husayni family.

[1][2] Husayni served as Secretary to the Executive Committee of the Palestine Arab Congress (1921–1934) and to the Muslim Supreme Council.

He went to the Church of England school, St George's, where he was the first pupil to wear western-style clothes and where he became an enthusiastic player of the new sport – football.

On finishing his secondary education, aged eighteen, he entered the Syrian Protestant College in Beirut to study medicine.

At that time the Medical faculty was alive with debate about the status of Arabs under a Government based in Istanbul and dominated by Turks and Turkish.

During the time of Jamal's membership, al-Muntada al-Arabi were committed to the concepts of pan-Arabism and anti-Zionism and supported a new Greater Syrian nation under King Faisal.

His brother-in-law, Musa Alami, worked in the British administration and rose to become personal secretary to the High Commissioner.

Following the disturbances of 1921, also known as the Jaffa Riots, Jamal had a meeting with the High Commissioner, Sir Herbert Samuel, and issued a statement calling for calm.

[19] In 1929, just prior to the rioting over Zionist activity at the Wailing Wall, the deputy High Commissioner, H.C. Luke, organised a lengthy meeting between Arab and Jewish Agency leaders in attempt to calm the situation.

This was in his capacity as Secretary to the Supreme Muslim Council, an organisation which had been set up by the British, and was led by Hajj Amin Husseini, to whom he was related both through his father and mother.

In 1933 he published a series of anonymous articles in the Damascus newspaper Alif Ba in which he accused Awni Abd al-Hadi, leader of the new Independence Party, Istiqlal, of selling 40,000 dunum of land in Wadi Hawarith to the Jewish Agency six years earlier.

The notes indicate that Jamal argued that the committee had no influence over tribal leaders east of the Jordan and that the meeting should be ignored.

[30] Following the crushing of the al-Qassam insurgency the Wauchope administration put forward new proposals for a legislative council coupled with restrictions on land sales.

At the same time a four-man delegation, including Jamal, were given visas to go to London for meetings at the Colonial Office to find a way of ending the strike.

[32] Jamal, with his Pan-Arab views, advocated the dispersal of the Jews in Palestine across an independent, federated Arab World.

Jamal had some contact with the pacifist president of Jerusalem's Hebrew University, Judah Magnes, and was possibly involved in proposals that Magnus presented to David Ben Gurion in 1935.

Sharett, head of the Jewish Agency Political Department, is quoted as saying that Jamal, and his cousin Hajj Amin, were the only honest Palestinian leaders.

[35] In 1937, following the end of the general strike, Jamal attempted to open negotiations with American Zionists with the help of the Brith Shalom group.

Following these meeting both Jamal and Musa al-Alami agreed to the terms of the White Paper and both signed a copy of it in the presence of the Prime Minister of Iraq Nuri as-Said.

[42] On his continued attempt to escape the British he was taken prisoner at Ahwaz and interned in Southern Rhodesia where he was held until November 1945 when he was allowed to move to Cairo.

Two months later it was recognised by the newly created United Nations and Jamal travelled to Lake Success, New York, as the spokesman for Palestinian Arabs to the UN.

[56][57] Critics maintain that both Jamal and Amin al-Husayni failed to recognise the importance to the Haganah military operations at the beginning of 1948.

[62][63] According to Jordanian intelligence reports, in 1954 Jamal funded a group that failed in an attempt to sabotage an Israeli Air Force base in the Jezreel Valley.

The same source states that in July 1954 Jamal broke away from Amin al-Husayni and began working exclusively for the Saudis.