Ilan Halevi

He was born to a Jewish family in Lyon, France, in 1943, "under a false name ... in a post-office that was a [[French Resistance|

Resistance]] hide-out", as his older brother Marc Albert has confirmed.Margaret Busby, [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/ilan-halevi-jewish-author-journalist-and-politician-who-rose-to-prominence-in-the-plo-8732579.html "Ilan Halevi: Jewish author, journalist and politician who rose to prominence in the PLO" (obituary)], The Independent, 25 July 2013. After the death of their father, Henri Levin (who had been born in Poland to Russian-Jewish parents),Farouk Mardam-Bey, [https://jps.ucpress.edu/content/43/4/67 "Ilan Halevi: Palestinian Jew and Citizen of the World, 1943–2013"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190924011432/https://jps.ucpress.edu/content/43/4/67 |date=2019-09-24 }}, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 43, No. 4, Summer 2014, pp. 67–70. DOI: 10.1525/jps.2014.43.4.67. his mother Blanche married Emile Albert and he adopted her four children. (Some sources mistakenly state that his father was a Yemeni Jew whose family had settled in Jerusalem at the beginning of the 20th century;Anne Brunswic, [http://www.annebrunswic.fr/IMG/pdf/Welcome_to_Palestine_5.pdf Welcome To Palestine: Chronicles of a Season In Ramallah], Translated by Kenneth Casler, 2008, p. 159. Actes Sud, 2004. according to Halevi's brother Marc, when Halevi went to Israel "he obtained a passport with the testimony of a Yemenite residing there – the reason that this origin is sometimes given as his.")

He is also known by other names, such as Alain Albert; Alan Albert; Georges Levin.

In the early 1960s, writing as "Alan Albert", he had work published in the literary journals Les Temps modernes and Présence Africaine, notably discussing both the Algerian war of independence and the system of racial oppression in the American South in his 1962 essay "“Study in Brown (II): De la Mentalité Coloniale".Allyson Tadjer, [https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?params=/context/history_diss/article/1048/&path_info=Tadjer_Allyson_M_201505_PhD.pdf "Triangulating Racism: French and Francophone African Reactions to the African American Freedom Movement (1954-1968)]". Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2015, pp. 35, 39–46. doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/7286532 With Ellen Wright, widow of African-American writer Richard Wright, as his literary agent, Halevi had his first novel, The Crossing, published in 1964 in the United States, under the name Alain Albert. It was favourably reviewed, described by Lillian Smith in The Saturday Review as "a brilliant, mind-smacking account of a young man's journey from nowhere to hell....a fresh way of looking at the multileveled agony of the walled-in young."Lillian Smith, "From Nowhere to the End of Night", The Saturday Review, 4 April 1964, pp. 39–40.

file:Συνάντηση με τους Παλαιστίνιους (5896985678).jpg, Nabeel Shaath, Halevi and Moustafa Ajouz|left]]Following visits to Africa, including to Mali and Algeria, in 1965, at the age of 22, Halevi moved to Israel.According to his brother Marc Albert, in the Independent obituary: "When he went to Israel, he obtained a passport with the testimony of a Yemenite residing there – the reason that this origin is sometimes given as his." He is quoted as having said: "I came to Israel because in Algeria I discovered the importance of the Palestinian problem. I sat there in coffee houses, I heard people, I spoke with intellectuals and I understood that the Palestinian question preoccupies the people of the Arab world. It is really in the center of their obsessions. I decided I want to study this reality up close and from the inside…I wanted to study the Israeli reality."Ofer Aderet, [http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/ilan-halevi-jewish-member-of-the-palestine-liberation-organization-dies-in-paris.premium-1.535053 "Ilan Halevi, Jewish member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, dies in Paris"], Haaretz, 10 July 2013, quoting Nitza Erel in Matzpen – Conscience and Fantasy (2010).

Halevi joined the Palestinian resistance movement and Fatah in particular after the 1967 Arab–Israeli war, and subsequently became a prominent member of the PLO. He was the PLO's representative in Europe and to the Socialist International since 1983, former PLO vice-minister of Foreign Affairs, and participated in that capacity in the Madrid Conference of 1991. He was also a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, elected in 2009,Elhanan Miller, [http://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinians-yes-to-jews-no-to-settlers-in-our-state/ "Palestinians: Yes to Jews, no to settlers in our state"], The Times of Israel, 27 January 2014. and served as an adviser to Yasser Arafat.Elior Levy, [http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4403567,00.html "Arafat's Jewish-Palestinian adviser passes away"], Ynetnews, 10 July 2013.[https://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/AB271161791D22A98525621C005FC6E9 "United Nations International NGO Meeting and European NGO Symposium on the Question of Palestine"], Palais des Nations, Geneva, 29 August–1 September 1994. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191016171548/https://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/AB271161791D22A98525621C005FC6E9 |date=16 October 2019 }}.

According to Hanan Ashrawi (in This Side of Peace, 1996), in the early 1970s, Halevi was a member of Ma'avak (Struggle), a "small, radical Israeli anti-Zionist group". In the wake of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and subsequent shift of Palestinian activism into the Occupied Territories, he switched his activity to groups which included Israelis and Palestinians working together against the occupation, and helped secure permission for Bashir Barghouti, a Palestinian activist and member of the Jordanian Communist Party's governing council, to return to the West Bank.

Halevi was a critic of Zionism and wrote several books on the subject. He was a founding member of the Revue des Études palestiniennes (Palestinian Studies Review; 1981–2008).{{cite web|url=https://jewishcurrents.org/july-10-a-jewish-member-of-the-plo|title=July 10: A Jewish Member of the PLO|author=Lawrence Bush|website=Jewish Currents|date=9 July 2015|access-date=27 November 2024}}{{cite web|url=https://all4palestine.com/ModelDetails.aspx?gid=7&mid=2490&lang=en|title=Academic Figures {{!}} Elias Sanbar|website=all4palestine.com}} Halevi lived in Paris, France, and the West Bank (his apartment in Ramallah was destroyed during Operation Rampart in 2002), and described himself as "100% Jewish and 100% Arab."Marina da Silva, [http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2005/07/DA_SILVA/12716 "Aller retours" review], Le Monde diplomatique, July 2005, p. 26. His 2005 book Allers-retours has been called "a fictionalized autobiography",{{cite web|url=https://agencemediapalestine.fr/blog/2013/07/10/hommage-a-ilan-halevi/|title=Tribute to Ilan Halevi|publisher=Agence Média Palestine|date=10 July 2013|access-date=27 November 2024}} and was described in a review as "an immense and confusing collage populated by more than four hundred characters, some real, others inspired by real people, still others totally fictional (a table of characters specifies the fictional status of each one and recalls who he is in the story and possibly what his links are with other characters). With a bit of luck and if you are attentive, you will then hear, in the middle of this concert, a voice that will whisper to you both hot and cold, infinite belonging and exile, hope and doubt, laughter and tears, back and forth: it is there, the autobiographical truth. Finally, perhaps?"{{cite web|url=https://www.france-palestine.org/Allers-Retours|title=Round trips|author=Francois Feugas|publisher={{ill|France-Palestine Solidarity Association|fr|Association France Palestine Solidarité}}

|website=france-palestine.org|date=22 August 2005|access-date=27 November 2024}}

In a 2011 interview, Halevi said: "My father fought against the Nazi occupation of France as a Communist. I follow in the tradition of my parents in the fight for freedom and justice, even for oppressed Jews. Given a second chance, I would live my life exactly the same way. In my 45 years as a member of the PLO, I have always been accepted as a Jew."Igal Avidan, [https://en.qantara.de/content/interview-with-the-jewish-palestinian-politician-ilan-halevi-with-one-foot-in-the-un "Interview with the Jewish Palestinian Politician Ilan Halevi | With One Foot in the UN"], Qantara.de, 6 December 2011. In The Jerusalem Quarterly he was characterised as "a true revolutionary internationalist".{{cite magazine|url=https://www.palestine-studies.org/sites/default/files/jq-articles/JQ_55_Farewell_to_Ilan_Halevi_0.pdf|title=Farewell to Ilan Halevi|magazine=Jerusalem Quarterly|number=55|page=105|access-date=29 November 2024}}

For his role in support of the Palestinian struggle, Halevi was awarded the Medal of Distinction by President Mahmoud Abbas.Lazar Berman, [https://www.timesofisrael.com/ilan-halevi-jewish-senior-plo-member-dies-at-70/ "Ilan Halevi, Jewish senior PLO member, dies at 70"], The Times of Israel, 10 July 2013.

Halevi died in Clichy, France, on 10 July 2013 at the age of 69.Denis Sieffert, [http://www.politis.fr/La-mort-d-Ilan-Halevi,23081.html "La mort d’Ilan Halevi"], Politis.fr, 10 July 2013.Emmanuel Riondé, [http://www.regards.fr/web/La-mort-d-Ilan-Halevi,6910 "La mort d’Ilan Halevi - Disparition d’une grande figure du mouvement national palestinien"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141222230457/http://www.regards.fr/web/La-mort-d-Ilan-Halevi,6910 |date=2014-12-22 }}, Regards.fr, 11 July 2013.Jean-Pierre Perrin, [http://www.liberation.fr/monde/2013/07/10/ilan-halevi-l-ame-en-paix_917451 "Ilan Halevi, l'âme en paix"], Libération, 10 July 2013. His funeral took place in Paris at the crematorium of Père Lachaise Cemetery.Houria Bouteldja, [http://abc10.unblog.fr/2013/07/14/repose-en-paix-cher-ilan-halevi/ "Repose en Paix cher Ilan Halevi"], Journal de zine BENSRHIR, 14 July 2013.

Halevi's last book, Islamophobie et judéophobie. L'effet miroir, written in the final months of his life, was posthumously published in 2015,{{cite web|url=https://www.syllepse.net/islamophobie-et-judeophobie-_r_25_i_637.html|title=Islamophobia and Judeophobia

|publisher=Éditions Syllepse|location=Paris|access-date=1 December 2024}}{{cite web|url=https://bruxelles-panthere.thefreecat.org/?p=2515|title=Islamophobie et judéophobie – L'effet miroir|website=Bruxelles Panthères|date=18 June 2015|access-date=1 December 2024}} and in 2016, a collection of his essays and columns, entitled Du souvenir, du mensonge et de l'oubli: Chroniques palestiniennes, was produced in tribute to him by Actes Sud in collaboration with the Institute of Palestine Studies.{{cite book|url=https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1649502|title=Du souvenir, du mensonge, et de l'oubli : Chroniques palestiniennes|publisher=Institute for Palestine Studies|access-date=1 December 2024}}

In April 2019, it was announced that through an initiative of President Abbas a new street in the city of Al-Bireh would be named in honour of Ilan Halevi, a decision described by Hanan Ashrawi as "a tribute to a person of courage and principle".Adam Rasgon, [https://www.timesofisrael.com/west-bank-city-to-name-a-street-after-late-jewish-member-of-fatah/ "West Bank city to name a street after late Jewish member of Fatah"], Times of Israel, 30 April 2019.[https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/palestinians-to-name-occupied-west-bank-street-after-jewish-man-1.855606 "Palestinians to name occupied West Bank street after Jewish man"], The National, 30 April 2019.

Halevi was married four times, to Giliane Defort (divorced; one son, who died in 2002), Hava (a daughter and a son), Catherine Lévy (a daughter and a son), and Kirsten Maas (a son).

He was a gifted jazz musician, who learned English from American musicians in France.

• Alain Albert, The Crossing (novel), New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1964; London: Heinemann, 1965. French translation by Georges Levin as La traversée, Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1965.
• Sous Israël, la Palestine, Paris: Le Sycomore, 1978; Minerve, 1987.
• Israël, de la terreur au massacre d'Etat, Paris: Papyrus, 1984.
• Question juive: la tribu, la loi, l'espace, Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1981. Translated into English by A. M. Berrett as A History of the Jews: Ancient and Modern, London: Zed Books, 1987, {{ISBN|978-0862325329}}. Published in German as Auf der Suche nach dem gelobten Land: Die Geschichte der Juden und der Palastma-Konflikt, Hamburg: Junius, 1986. Reissued as Jewish Question: Tribe, Law and Space, Syllepse Editions, 2016.Michel Warschawski, [http://www.alternativenews.org/index.php/features-02/225-ilan-halevi-in-memoriam "Ilan Halevi: In memoriam"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170225111735/http://www.alternativenews.org/index.php/features-02/225-ilan-halevi-in-memoriam |date=25 February 2017 }}, AIC, 14 October 2016.
• Face à la guerre. Lettre de Ramallah, Paris: Sindbad/Actes Sud, 2003, {{ISBN|978-2742745630}}.Ilan Halevi, [http://www.actes-sud.fr/node/13970 Face à la guerre] at Actes Sud.
• Allers-retours, Paris: Flammarion, 2005, {{ISBN|978-2082103398}}.Francois Feugas, [http://www.france-palestine.org/Allers-Retours "Allers Retours" (review)], Association France Palestine Solidarité, 22 August 2005. A semi-autobiographical novel critical of Israel and its policies toward the Palestinians.
• Islamophobie et judéophobie. L'effet miroir, Paris: Éditions Syllepse, 2015. {{ISBN|9782849504635}}. Preface by Alain Gresh.Ilan Halevi, [https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Islamophobie_et_jud%C3%A9ophobie.html?id=XDghswEACAAJ&redir_esc=y Islamophobie et judéophobie. L'effet miroir], Éditions Syllepse, 2015 (vis Google Books).[https://www.association-belgo-palestinienne.be/islamophobie-et-judeophobie-leffet-miroir/ Islamophobie et judéophobie, l’effet miroir], Association belgo-palestinienne, 27 October 2015.

• Du souvenir, du mensonge et de l'oubli: Chroniques palestiniennes. Paris: Actes Sud, 2016. {{ISBN| 978-2-330-07057-1}}.Ilan Halevi, [http://www.actes-sud.fr/node/57194 Du souvenir, du mensonge et de l'oubli: Chroniques palestiniennes] (November 2016) at Actes Sud.

• [https://www.multitudes.net/Le-droit-du-peuple-palestinien-a/ "Le droit du peuple palestinien à lutter contre l’occupation"], Multitudes, 6, September 2001 {{in lang|fr}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20160304192036/http://www.voxnr.com/cc/tribune_libre/EpVVkyZkFpXuHnNMOW.shtml "Encore une fois à propos du sionisme et de l'antisémitisme"], voxnr.com, 10 June 2003. {{in lang|fr}}
• [https://www.cairn.info/publications-de-Ilan-Halevi--22940.htm Articles by Ilan Halevi] listed at Cairn.info

{{Reflist|30em}}

• Yezid Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993, Oxford University Press, 1999.
• Lutz Fiedler, Matzpen. A History of Israeli Dissidence, Edinburgh University Press, 2020, pp. 231–240.
• Nasri Hajjaj, [https://www.newarab.com/opinion/palestinian-jews-where-nationality-trumps-religion "Palestinian Jews: where nationality trumps religion"], The New Arab, 13 December 2014.

{{wikiquote}}

• Jean-Pierre Perrin, [http://www.liberation.fr/monde/2013/07/10/ilan-halevi-l-ame-en-paix_917451 "Ilan Halevi, l'âme en paix"], Libération, 10 July 2013 {{in lang|fr}}.

• [http://www.france-palestine.org/Avec-Ilan-Halevi-nous-venons-de "Avec Ilan Halévi, nous venons de perdre un ami de toujours"], Association France Palestine Solidarité (AFPS; 'France-Palestine Solidarity Association'), 10 July 2013.
• Pierre Haski, [http://www.rue89.com/2013/07/11/mort-dilan-halevi-intellectuel-engage-100-juif-100-arabe-244147 "Mort d’Ilan Halevi, intellectuel engagé, '100% juif et 100% arabe{{'"}}], Rue 89, 11 July 2013.
• Michel Warschawski, [https://archive.today/20130711140414/http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/politics/opinions/6734-ilan-halevi-1943-2013.html "Ilan Halevi (1943-2013)"], Alternative Information Center (AIC), 11 July 2013.
• Ben Lynfield (Jerusalem), [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/fatah-pays-tribute-to-ilan-halevi--an-israeli-jew-who-defected-to-the-plo-8704017.html "Fatah pays tribute to Ilan Halevi - an Israeli Jew who ‘defected’ to the PLO"], The Independent, 11 July 2013.
• [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10238250/Ilan-Halevy.html "Ilan Halevy" (obituary)], The Telegraph, 12 August 2013.
• Nicole Lapierre, [https://blogs.mediapart.fr/nicole-lapierre/blog/130713/ilan-halevi-meteque-generique "Ilan Halévi, métèque générique"], Vagabondages Sociologiques (blog), Mediapart, 13 July 2013. {{in lang|fr}}

• Ella Habiba Shohat, [https://web.archive.org/web/20160305002924/http://profiles.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/19428/a-voyage-to-toledo_twenty-five-years-after-the-jew "A Voyage to Toledo: Twenty-Five Years After the 'Jews of the Orient and Palestinians' Meeting"], Jadaliyya, 30 September 2014.

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