Birth: NULL/NULL/1960 Death:NULL/NULL/NULL
Born in Al-Am’ari Refugee Camp near Ramallah in 1960 to a family originally from Lydda; was a student activist and involved in voluntary work in the mid-1970s, incl. leading the student movement against the 1978 Camp David Accords; was elected chairman of the Student Council at Birzeit University from 1979-81; graduated with a BA in Sociology from Birzeit University in 1983; also served as representative of the student movement to the National Guidance Committee; was arrested and put under house arrest several times by Israeli authorities; was named to lead the Palestine People’s Party (PPP) underground movement in the Gaza Strip around the mid-1980s, where he lived in hiding; was among the leaders of the first Intifada, incl. writing communiqués and coordinating activities; after the closure forced on Gaza Strip in March 1988, sneaked back into the West Bank; worked with the UNLU until his arrest in 1990; was subsequently imprisoned until 1993; while still in jail, was elected a member of the PPP politburo; also published a book entitled The Palestinian Political Leadership; was among the leaders of a prisoners’ hunger strike in 1992; upon release, continued his studies and received an MA in International Relations, Birzeit University in 2000; was elected Sec.-Gen. of the PPP in 2003; became a member of the Palestinian delegation against Israel’s separation wall to the International Court of Justice in The Hague in 2004; founded together with other factions and institutions the Palestinian Campaign for Freedom and Peace in 2004, which aimed to intensify international support for the Palestinian people by inviting international delegations to visit and advocate for Palestine, as well as sustaining the Intifada as a popular struggle; is a PNC member and holds observer status at the PLO Central Council; nominated himself in 2004 following the death of Pres. Yasser Arafat as a running candidate for the position of PA Pres. for the 2005 elections (winning 2.69% of the vote); was elected as PLC member (DFLP-affiliated The Alternative list) in the Jan. 2006 elections; has also written many books and articles.
