Paul Ajlouny

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Paul A. Ajlouny (born 1933 in Ramallah, then part of British Mandatory Palestine) is a Palestinian-American publisher and businessman. He moved to the United States in 1946 and earned an engineering degree from the University of Kentucky in 1963.

In the late 1960s he started the Jerusalem-based newspaper Al Fajr, which he ran from New York. It aimed to represent educated Palestinian professionals who did not feel the PLO represented them. The paper faced stiff competition and closed on June 23, 1993, with Ajlouny saying he was losing about $25,000 a month to keep it afloat.

During the 1970s, while living in Hempstead, Long Island, he said he advised the PLO. In November 1979 a Brooklyn federal court found him guilty of attempting to smuggle stolen communications equipment to the Middle East in early 1978, equipment prosecutors said was to help set up an independent telecommunications network for the PLO.

In the 1980s he remained active in the Palestinian community on Long Island and identified himself as a PLO supporter in 1984, calling for mutual recognition between Israel and a demilitarized Palestinian state. After the Oslo Accords in 1993, Ajlouny and Al Fajr criticized the PLO leadership and Yasir Arafat for lack of accountability and corruption.