Statesman
In 1977, he was elected to the Palestine National Council (PNC); he remained on the council until 1991. His work under the auspices of UNESCO to establish a Palestine national open university in Beirut was cut short by the 1982 Lebanon War (in which Israel invaded Lebanon); he returned to Northwestern. With Edward Said, he met in April 1988 with United States Secretary of State George Shultz. Said would write in his obituary for Abu-Lughod, "We told him that the Palestinian people were prepared to coexist with Israel if their self-determination was insured by a Middle East peace plan. What was needed was a mode of sharing and coexistence between two national communities in historic Palestine."
Read more about this topic: Ibrahim Abu-Lughod
Famous quotes containing the word statesman:
“That is Gladstone, the greatest statesman that ever lived. I intend to be a statesman, too.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“A politician is a man who understands government and it takes a politician to run a government. A statesman is a politician who’s been dead ten or fifteen years.”
—Harry S. Truman (1884–1972)
“A statesman is an easy man,
He tells his lies by rote;
A journalist makes up his lies
And takes you by the throat;
So stay at home and drink your beer
And let the neighbours vote.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)