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HIKMAT al-Masri, who has died aged 88 in his native Nablus, was one of the last of a generation of Palestinian grandees who lived under four regimes and did much to prepare the way for an independent Palestine. Al-Masri, a courtly and imposing man, was born to the famous soap-making family of Nablus in the Ottoman Empire's dying days and grew up as it became the capital of Palestinian nationalism and the largest city in the West Bank. Like most of his countrymen, al-Masri came to be a supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organisation but he always maintained close links with Jordan.