Abu Maher Yamani dead

A giant of Palestinian/Arab struggle has died.  Abu Maher Al-Yamani a veteran leader of the Movement of Arab Nationalists and of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine has died in Beirut.  This was a unique struggle: a giant in the contemporary history of Palestinian struggle.  A man who lived in Beirut but refused to allow the Lebanese scene to corrupt him as it has corrupted many leaders of the Palestinian resistance movement.  For years, he was chosen as the PFLP's representative in the Executive Committee of the PLO: and that enraged Arafat.  Because Arafat favored representative that he could buy and sell.  Not with Abu Maher.  This man used to ride his bike during the Lebanese civil war: he said that gasoline is precious and that it should be left for the fighters.  I last saw Abu Maher maybe in 2005 when he introduced me to a Palestinian audience in Beirut.  He told me privately that a volume of his memoirs would not be published until after his death because it may cause embarrassments due to its treatment of internal matters in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.  I offer my condolences to his family.  Why does the young radical Arab generation know about Che but not about Abu Maher Al-Yamani?  I wonder.