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In these trying circumstances, in these days of defection from the sound national course and the manifest right of our people and our Arab nation, at a time when loyalty to the nation’s free people has grown scarce, a time of forfeiting what is ours, disunity, failure of resolve and surrender to enemies, a time of relinquishing rights to sovereignty over the land, I present the Grand Mufti of Palestine as an example for generations freed from the inhibitions of fear and aspiring to freedom and independence. Shame, disgrace and the curse of history upon the tyrants, the falsifiers and those who surrender.

Finally, as I present to the esteemed reader this book, which I compiled from scattered papers that had almost disappeared and were decades old, and which I labored to preserve, my further concern for their preservation has led me to resolve to publish them, so that the flame of struggle may remain alight, God willing.

I can only record my gratitude and pride in the efforts of all the brothers who encouraged me to undertake this work or contributed to its completion, foremost among them my brother, friend and fellow struggler Dr. Talal Naji, and those who contributed their much-appreciated efforts to the arduous and lengthy preparation of this book. I single out my friend, the researcher Hamid Majid al-Rubayʿi, and the engineer Fuad Yusuf.

God is the ultimate aim.

Abd al-Karim al-Umar

Secretary of the Executive Bureau

of the Arab Higher Committee for Palestine

Damascus, 5 July 1999