Dyab Abou Jahjah

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Dyab Abou Jahjah (Arabic: دياب أبو جهجه; born 24 June 1971) is an Arab political activist and writer who was active in Europe between 2001 and 2007. He is the founder and former leader of the Arab European League (AEL), a Pan-Arabist movement that supports the interests of Muslim immigrants in Europe.

Abou Jahjah was born and grew up in southern Lebanon in Hanin, near the Lebanese-Israeli border. He gained refugee status in 1996 and became a Belgian citizen through marriage to a Belgian woman, from whom he much later divorced. He is now married to a Belgian Muslim woman, Nabila Boujdaine of Moroccan origin, who was also on the electoral lists for his MDP party in 2004.^[1] N. Boujdaine is the sister of Saida from the book Saida, written by De Standaard journalist, Tom Naegels^[2] and is the partner in a new organisation, Safe Have Aid, established by Dyab Abou Jahjah and his brother.^[3]

Abou Jahjah has written several books, among them an autobiography entitled "Between Two Worlds - the Roots of a Freedom Fight" that sold 7,000 copies in Belgium and the Netherlands. He was also the subject of two political biographies, one written by Mohammed Benzakour^[4] and the other by Maroun Labaki, and a political analysis book written by the Belgian communist writer Ludo De Witte.^[5]

In 1991, at the age of 19, Abou Jahjah left Lebanon: "I wanted to go abroad like a lot of Lebanese young people".^[6] Abou Jahjah studied at Université catholique de Louvain (UCL) in Louvain la Neuve and obtained a master's degree in political science and International relations. After several odd jobs during his study time, including factory work and construction labour, he became the director of vzw Welkom, the Immigrant working body for the Belgian ABVV trade Union.^[7]

Abou Jahjah is a Social democrat and Muslim, although he later revealed that he is rather a Muslim by culture and agnostic on faith.^[8] He is an opponent of assimilation. He believes immigrants should be treated as full citizens who can keep their own culture, rather than being treated as guests. He sees the integration of Armenians in Lebanon as the ideal model. He has said that, "America's race laws are more advanced than here. I have relatives in Detroit and they are Arab-Americans but they feel American. I don't feel European. Europe needs to make its concept of citizenship inclusive to all cultures and religions.^{[citation needed]}

In 2000 Abou Jahjah founded the Arab European League in Antwerp, a city with a large Muslim population. In the 2003 election the Arab European League partnered with the Marxist-Leninist Workers' Party of Belgium to form the RESIST (electoral list), which failed to win any seats and soon dissolved.^[9][10] In 2004 he started the MDP, but this party didn't obtain any elected participants.^[11]

In 2001, Abou Jahjah founded the Sabra and Shatila committee, which brought a lawsuit against former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for his alleged role in the Sabra and Shatila massacre committed, in adjacent refugee camps, during the Israel-Lebanon war in 1982.^[12]

Abou Jahjah said of Arab reaction to the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks that "Most of us ... felt that day something that can not be described as joy, or as happiness, but rather as that sweet revenge feeling. We all had – except that small minority- a "what goes around comes around’" attitude", but he continued that "Now, almost two months after the eleventh of September, we see things clear(er). It is terrible how criminals can cause by their acts the misery for so many people, people of their own kind and people of their alleged enemy. How violence will breed violence that will breed more violence".^[13]

In his own column in the Belgian daily De Standaard,^{[14][better source needed]} he stated "We (Belgians with Arab roots) are predominantly negatively disposed towards homosexuals. This isn't because we're immigrants, but rather because we're men. The idea that another man could desire us sexually, is for most heterosexual men a nightmare that can render them aggressive."

Abou Jahjah considers democracy a strong means to an end. Sharia would be instated after a democratic process.^[15] Indeed, his messages are altogether mixed.^[16] Jahjah suggested in a televised debate that a similar attack was likely in the Netherlands. "It's logical," he said. "You make war with us, we make war with you."

Abou Jahjah was arrested and detained for several days in 2002 after he allegedly organized riots and called for violence. The riots broke out in Borgerhout, a district of Antwerp, after a 27-year-old Belgian-Moroccan was shot by his Flemish neighbor. He was acquitted from all charges on 21 October 2008.^{[citation needed]}

In the Netherlands, Abou Jahjah had a row with the late film director Theo van Gogh, who was known for his opposition to Islam. After van Gogh, who was supposed to be the moderator of a debate between him and Boris Dittrich, insulted Abou Jahjah by calling him "de pooier van de profeet" ("the prophet's pimp") in front of an audience of 1000 people, Abou Jahjah stormed out of the theater, with his bodyguards in tow and refused to continue considering that a moderator should be neutral and not insult the guests. His opponent that day Boris Dietrich declared his sympathy to his position and his dismay at the behavior of Van Gogh.^[17]

In July 2006 he announced that he would be going to Lebanon to help in whatever way he can defending his country against the attack by Israeli forces.^[18]

He wrote a book on the Israel-Lebanon war called "Diary Brussels Beirut".^[8]

Since 2007 Abou Jahjah left Belgium and resettled in Lebanon and focused on his management career as a CEO of a small BPO company, Jana SARL in Saida. He later confirmed in 2009 on his Facebook wall that he was "glad to be out of that shit-hole now".^[19]

In 2008, he became the international director of the IUPFP^[20] created in 2001 by Mollah Ali Akbar Mohtashamipur, a student, major compagnon and minister of Ayatollah Khomeini. He succeeded to organise a conference in the Belgian Parliament^[21] and infiltrated the British Parliament with the help of Jeremy Corbyn a few months later.^[22]

It was also in 2009, starting on August 15^[23] that he called on Facebook and in Arab language on his blog: "la valise ou le cercueil" (the suitcase or the coffin) for all Jews in Israel and "And resist the occupier and colonizer constantly and without hesitation, and by all means necessary and available, and the most important thing, the armed struggle – until his expulsion from our land for good and unconditionally."^[24]

He continued visiting Europe regularly to speak at meetings and media shows. The VRT, the Belgian-Flemish state television, was even accused of sympathising with him and promoting him after it became known that the TV station paid his airplane ticket and hotel costs to attend the Belgian talk show Phara.^[25] In 2008 a group of Flemish students videotaped an interview with him in which he was speaking in details about revolution in Egypt and elsewhere and expected it to happen within 5 years. Parts of the video were later shown on Belgian Television.^[26] Three young students from Arab origin in Belgium wrote that Abou Jahjah and his AEL were a chance to build a better understanding between communities, and that chance was missed.^[27]

During the year of 2002 Abou Jahjah was the most mentioned name in the Belgian media, exceeding reference of the prime minister and the king.^[28] He was played by the comedian Paul Groot [nl] in the Dutch comedy show Kopspijkers.^[29] He was also a main character in the best selling novel Los of writer Tom Naegels which was later filmed. Los (film) [nl] was directed by Jan Verheyen [nl].^[30]

Abou Jahjah was called by Roderiek van Grieken of a Dutch debating institute a "perfect pure talent" in debating.^[31] The linguist Professor C. Delantsheer wrote a chapter on Abou Jahjah's rhetoric in a book published by Cambridge university in 2007.^[32] He had also presented a paper on the power of metaphors in the discourse of Abou Jahjah and presented it to an academical congress in Sweden.^[33]

In 2003, he told New York Times that he had joined Hezbollah resistance against Israel and that he had some "military training" with Hezbollah and he was "proud" of it^[34]

"I had some military training, I'm still very proud of that".

In September 2013 Abou Jahjah returned to Belgium due to the dire security situation in Lebanon. He declared that for the time being he was choosing the security of his children over all other considerations. Upon his return, several opinion makers wrote articles welcoming him back. He declared that he will be founding a new movement, Movement-X, that will seek to defend equal rights and social justice. Less than 5 years later, the organisation that did receive support from several professors and public individuals, disappeared completely after their last message on the Internet.^[35]

In January 2017 De Standaard stopped his column, when Jahjah declared on the January 2017 Jerusalem vehicular attack, the "liberation of Palestine 'by any means necessary' needs to take place" as calling for violence is not compatible with the policy of the newspaper.^[36][37]

• Official website
• Dyab Abou Jahjah (in Dutch)
• Abou Jahjah, Dyab (8 March 2005). "The thirty-year war on terror". OpenDemocracy. Retrieved 27 March 2009.
• Bechler, Rosemary (March–April 2006). "Continental rift". New Humanist. Retrieved 27 March 2009.
• "Dyab Abou Jahjah". The Multicultural Netherlands. Retrieved 27 March 2009.
• Bechler, Rosemary (19 May 2004). "Everyone is afraid: the world according to Abou Jahjah". OpenDemocracy. Retrieved 27 March 2009.
• Hutchison, Geoff (13 January 2003). "Muslim militants on the rise in Europe". The 7:30 Report (transcript). ABC News (Australia). Retrieved 27 March 2009.
• Beattie, Meriel (3 April 2003). "A radical voice for Europe's Arabs". Crossing Continents, BBC Radio 4. BBC. Retrieved 27 March 2009.