Kamel al-Budeiri

Who was Kamel al-Budeiri?

Muhammad Kāmil ibn Wahba al-Shāfi'ī al-Muqaddasī al-Budayrī was a famous Arab figure in the early 20th century. He was born in Jerusalem in 1882 and assassinated in 1923 in Wadi Rum during the British Mandate of Palestine and Transjordan.

During the Ottoman rule of Palestine he was appointed as a district commissioner of Ramla.

He was arrested by the British Mandate government upon coming back from a trip to Egypt after he was tipped by the Austrian Jewish agent Sarah Herinson as affiliated with the Arab Resistance at the time before releasing him a few months later.

As the years 1918 to 1922 witnessed the rising of the Arab National Movement in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, Akka and Nablus, Kamel joined Haj Amin Al-Husseini, his brother Fakhri Al Husseini, Ishaaq Darweesh, Ibrahim Darweesh, Jameel Al-Husseini, Aref al-Aref, and Sheikh Hassan Abu Al-So’oud in establishing the Arab Club. In October 1921, Kamel founded the Al Sabah newspaper on behalf of the Palestine Arab Congress. He was succeeded as editor-in-chief by Yousef Yassin and later Hani Abu Musleh. Al Sabah was the media front of the Arab Palestinian conference and succeeded the Southern Syria Newspaper.