Shafiq al-Hout, also spelled Shafik al-Hut (Arabic: شفيق الحوت; 13 January 1932 – 2 August 2009), was a Palestinian politician and writer.
[5] While at the university, he said many people attempted to influence his political beliefs, including George Habash of the Arab Nationalist Movement and Communists who favored an alliance with Soviet Union.
[2] Afterward, al-Hout decided to shift his focus to the AUB's campus where Ba'athists, other Arab nationalists, and Communists campaigned for support.
[3] After graduating from the AUB, he took up the profession of being a teacher in Beirut's al-Maqassed School, but the administration disliked the discussions he frequently held with the students on the subject of the Palestinian cause, and eventually removed him from his post.
[4] Membership in the PLF increased steadily and according to al-Hout, by 1964 it included "newcomers from the refugee camps in Lebanon, Kuwait, Syria, Jordan, Amman, the West Bank, as well as people belonging to the different Palestinian classes, ranging from simple workers to teachers and engineers."
[4] He formed an alliance with Ahmed Shukeiri, the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and attended the first conference by the Palestinian National Council (PNC) in Jerusalem in May 1964, becoming an original founder.
[4] Al-Hout was appointed representative and head of the organization's office in Lebanon in 1965, then joined the PLO's Executive Committee, during its first meeting in July 1966.
[6] Because of internal and external struggles in the PLO, he abdicated his position in the PLO-EC and his post as head of the PLF in the summer of 1968, leaving the latter group leaderless.
[4] In retaliation for publishing editorials critical of Syrian policy, gunmen from the pro-Syrian faction as-Sa'iqa attacked the Beirut offices of PLO newspapers.
[4] In response to the 1993 Oslo Accords signed by Yasser Arafat, al-Hout resigned from his post in August 1993 in the PLO-EC along with Palestinian cultural chief Mahmoud Darwish and discontinued to represent the PLO at the UNGA.
[4] Al-Hout strongly advocated that all of historical Palestine belonged to the Palestinians, in one state, rejecting the two-state solution agreed on in the accords.
[5][12] After a funeral service at al-Imam Ali mosque in Tariq al-Jdeideh, Lebanon, al-Hout's body was carried to the Martyrs of the Palestinian Revolution cemetery in the Shatila refugee camp.
[13] Attendees at the funeral procession included Lebanon's former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, Lebanese MPs Alaaeddine Terro, Walid Jumblatt and Imad al-Hout.
Also attending was the representative of Mahmoud Abbas in Lebanon, Asaad Abdel Rahman, former deputy speaker Elie al-Firzili, the head of the Journalists' Union Melhem Karam, an Amal delegation headed by the president of Amal's political bureau Jamil Hayek, and a Hamas representative in Lebanon, Ali Baraka.