1. Kamal Fouad Jumblatt was a Lebanese politician who founded the Progressive Socialist Party.
43 Facts About Kamal Jumblatt
1. 2.
Kamal Jumblatt led the National Movement during the Lebanese Civil War.
3.
Kamal Jumblatt was a major ally of the Palestine Liberation Organization until his assassination in 1977.
4.
Kamal Jumblatt authored more than 40 books centred on various political, philosophical, literary, religious, medical, social, and economic topics.
5.
In September 1972, Kamal Jumblatt received the International Lenin Peace Prize.
6.
Kamal Jumblatt is the father of the Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and the son-in-law of the Arab writer and politician Shakib Arslan.
7.
Kamal Jumblatt was born on 6 December 1917 in Moukhtara.
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Kamal Jumblatt was born into the Jumblatt family, a prestigious Druze family originally from present-day Syria, whose members were traditional leaders of the Lebanese Druze community.
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In 1926, Kamal Jumblatt joined the Lazarus Fathers Institute in Aintoura, where he completed his elementary studies in 1928.
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Kamal Jumblatt achieved his high school diploma, having studied French, Arabic, science and literature, in 1936, and a philosophy diploma in 1937.
11.
Kamal Jumblatt then pursued higher studies in France, where he attended the Faculty of Arts at the Sorbonne University and obtained a degree in psychology and civil education, and another one in sociology.
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Kamal Jumblatt returned to Lebanon in 1939, after the outbreak of World War II and continued his studies at Saint Joseph University where he obtained a law degree in 1945.
13.
Kamal Jumblatt practised law in Lebanon from 1941 to 1942 and was designated the Official State Lawyer for the Lebanese Government.
14.
In 1943, at the young age of twenty-six years and following the unexpected death of Hikmat Joumblatt, he became the leader of the Kamal Jumblatt clan, bringing him into the Lebanese political scene.
15.
In September 1943 Kamal Jumblatt was elected to the National Assembly for the first time, as a deputy of Mount Lebanon.
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Kamal Jumblatt joined the National Bloc led by Emile Edde, thus opposing the rule of the Constitutional Bloc, headed by the then-President, Bechara El Khoury.
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Kamal Jumblatt's term was from 14 December 1946 to 7 June 1947, and he replaced Saadi Al Munla.
18.
Kamal Jumblatt began to believe that change through the Lebanese political system was impossible.
19.
Kamal Jumblatt officially founded the Progressive Socialist Party on 1 May 1949.
20.
In 1949, Kamal Jumblatt firmly opposed the execution of political leader Antoun Saadeh and held the government responsible for his assassination.
21.
Kamal Jumblatt regularly published articles in Al Anbaa, which was founded by him in 1951.
22.
In 1952, after the resignation of Bechara El Khoury Kamal Jumblatt's bloc nominated Camille Chamoun for the presidency.
23.
In 1953, Kamal Jumblatt was re-elected Deputy for the fourth time.
24.
Kamal Jumblatt founded the Popular Socialist Front in the same year and led the opposition against the new president, Camille Chamoun.
25.
Kamal Jumblatt supported Egypt against an attack by Israel, France, and the United Kingdom in the Suez War of 1956, while Chamoun and parts of the Maronite Christian elite in Lebanon tacitly supported the invasion.
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In 1957, Kamal Jumblatt failed for the first time in the parliamentary elections, complaining of electoral gerrymandering and election fraud by the authorities.
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Kamal Jumblatt chaired the Afro-Asian People's Conference in 1960 and founded the same year, the National Struggle Front, a movement which gathered a large number of nationalist deputies.
28.
Kamal Jumblatt represented Lebanon at the Congress of Afro-Asian Solidarity and presided over the parliamentary and popular delegation to the People's Republic of China in 1966.
29.
Kamal Jumblatt supported the Palestinians in their struggle against Israel for ideological reasons, but to garner support from the Palestinian fedayeen based in Lebanon's refugee camps.
30.
The presence in Lebanon of large numbers of Palestinian refugees was resented by most Christians, but Kamal Jumblatt strived to build a hard core of opposition around the Arab nationalist slogans of the Palestinian movement.
31.
On 9 May 1968, Kamal Jumblatt was reelected Deputy for the seventh time.
32.
In 1972, Kamal Jumblatt was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize by the Soviet Union.
33.
Kamal Jumblatt had organized his own PSP into an armed force and made it the backbone of the Lebanese National Movement, a coalition of 12 left-wing parties and movements.
34.
Kamal Jumblatt paid a visit to Hafez al-Assad in March 1976, during which it was made clear that the Syrian position was very contrary to the one of the LNM.
35.
Kamal Jumblatt was the target of an assassination attempt during the same period.
36.
Kamal Jumblatt was very interested in Hinduism, in the early 1950s he visited India many times, where he met the Indian ambassador to Lebanon.
37.
On 1 May 1948, Kamal Jumblatt married May Arslan, daughter of Prince Shakib Arslan, in Geneva.
38.
Kamal Jumblatt lectured extensively and wrote more than 1200 editorials in both Arabic and French.
39.
Kamal Jumblatt is described as a socialist idealist under the influence of the European left movement.
40.
Kamal Jumblatt published his memoires under the title I Speak for Lebanon.
41.
On 16 March 1977, Kamal Jumblatt was gunned down in his car, at a few hundred meters from a Syrian check point near, the village of Baakline in the Chouf mountains by unidentified gunmen.
42.
Kamal Jumblatt was elected leader of the PSP on 1 May 1977.
43.
In 2015, Walid Kamal Jumblatt accused two Syrian officers, Ibrahim al-Hiwaija and Mohammed al-Khauli, as being responsible for killing his father.