The Orient House

The Orient House is the Palestinian national gathering place for Palestinians in Occupied East Jerusalem. As the PLO Headquarters in the occupied city, the Orient House aspires to develop Arab East Jerusalem as the capital of the emerging Palestinian state and is today the only Palestinian establishiment in the city to wave the Palestinian flag. Hi... storically, the building was the site of many diplomatic functions, including a tea party in honor of the German Emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm, when he visited Jerusalem in 1898. King Abdallah, King Ali and Prince Zaid accepted condolences at the Orient House when their father, Sharif Hussein Ben Ali (Sharif of Mecca), was buried in the Haram al-Sharif in 1930 and Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia and Empress Minan of Abyssinia also found the Husseini house to be a haven for their court when the Italians invaded their country and forced them into exile in 1936-37. Today, besides its political status in the city, the Orient House offers Palestinians in Jerusalem social, economic and political support, in an attempt to compensate for the widespread deprivations caused by the ongoing military occupation. In order to offset the social and economic suffocation of the Israeli occupation and Jerusalem's isolation from the rest of the occupied territories, the Orient House constantly promotes cultural and economic development projects in the city. After several attempts to shut off and suspend the services provided by the Orient House, the Israeli occupation forces in 1988 broke into the building and closed down the establishment for "security reasons", depriving Palestinians of their only source of support and representation in the city. Despite these measures the Orient House continued to operate in exile and, after re-opening on 26 October 1992, began to play a vital role in the initiation of the Middle East peace process. During this period the Orient House regained its diplomatic status in Jerusalem and once again became the official Palestinian political address in ...Read More