About the Center
Search
Center News
CCAS Mourns the Losses of Ambassador Ashraf Ghorbal and Board Member Jim Sams
Published in 2006
[No download available]
Ambassador Ashraf Ghorbal
Ashraf Ghorbal, a member of the Egyptian negotiating team that worked out the firstArabpeace deal with Israel and a longtime ambassador to the United States and longtime friend of the Center, died on November 30, 2005. He was 80.
Ghorbal was ambassador to Washington in 1978 when President Jimmy Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland’s mountains near Washington to talk peace.
During his tenure in Washington, “Ambassador Ashraf Ghorbal played a key role in the establishment of CCAS in the early 1970s,” said CCAS Director Michael C. Hudson. “He remained a close friend of the Center throughout his long tenure as a particularly distinguished representative of Egypt in Washington. All of us here who worked with him will miss him, and we send our condolences to his family and friends.”
Leaving the embassy in the hands of his deputy, Mohammed Shaker, Mr. Ghorbal stayed at Camp David during the 13 days. He was one of the people Sadat considered to replace Foreign Minister Mohammed Ibrahim Kamel after Kamel resigned in protest of the looming accords with Israel.
The Camp David documents led to a peace treaty in 1979, the first between the Jewish state and one of its Arab neighbors. Mr. Ghorbal had been Sadat’s press adviser from February 1973 through the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, which ended in a stalemate.
Born in Alexandria, Egypt, in May 1925, Mr. Ghorbal was educated at Cairo University and Harvard University. He began his diplomatic career with the Egyptian delegation to the United Nations in 1949. His efforts to promote lasting peace and understanding in the region will not soon be forgotten. In 1987, Ambassador Ghorbal returned to the United States as a visiting professor at Georgetown University.
We offer our deepest condolences to the friends, family and colleagues of this extraordinary man.
Board Member Jim Sams
We at CCAS are sad to report the news of the death of our friend and colleague Jim Sams. He fought a long and brave battle with lymphoma before finally succumbing on December 21, 2005 at his home in Bethesda, Maryland.
“Jim joined our Board in 2000. He was extraordinarily energetic and diligent in helping develop the Center. He was invaluable in the campaign to endow a chair at CCAS in the name of Hala and Clovis Maksoud; and he was very pleased, in his last days, to learn that it was close to being successfully completed. I benefited enormously from his counsel in a whole range of issues related to the Center. He gave generously of his vast experience as a founder and organizer of Arab-American and third-world NGOs,” said CCAS Director Michael C. Hudson.
James Farid Sams was a founding father of ANERA (American Near East Refugee Aid), one of the leading development organizations assisting the Palestinians. He was a president and chairman of the NAAA (National Association of Arab-Americans) and a key executive committee member of the ATFL (American Task Force for Lebanon). He lent his considerable organizational skills to the ADC (American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee), which honored him in May 2005 with the Alex Odeh Activist Award. He was also honored by a leading social development organization in Lebanon, the Rene Moawad Foundation.
A lawyer by training, Jim practiced law first in Washington and then for five years in Beirut. Later here turned to Washington and established the American Development Services Corporation, a real estate development and investment firm. Jim was fiercely proud of his Arab, Lebanese, and Druze heritage; and he fought tirelessly to promote better understanding between America and the Middle East. We at the Center and his many other friends at Georgetown extend our heartfelt condolences to Betty, his daughters Alicia and Victoria, his son James and daughter-in-law Lisa, and his grandchildren Claire and James.
Related Content
No related content exists for this item.