Birth: 31/5/1955 Death:NULL/NULL/NULL
Born in Bethlehem on 31 May 1955; left for Columbia in 1974 to study Spanish and Engineering and received a BSc in Civil Engineering from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Colombia in 1978, and an MSc (1981) in Engineering as well as a PhD (1986) in Transportation, Planning, and Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of New York; worked as Professor of Civil Engineering at Birzeit University from 1981-83 and again from 1986; also conducted numerous projects and surveys related to transportation, urban planning, infrastructure and the environment; in 1989, was arrested by Israeli authorities and put in solitary confinement for one month; founder and Director of Rimal Engineering Consultancy Group; founded Panorama – Center for the Dissemination of Alternative Information in 1991 and serves as its Dir.-Gen. since (was meanwhile renamed to Panorama – Palestinian Center for the Dissemination of Democracy & Community Development); served as head of the Civil Engineering Dept. at Birzeit University from 1993-96; served as spokesman for the PFLP in the OPT but left the party after it denounced the Oslo Accords and refused to take part in the 1996 elections; became a team member of Palestinian Second Track Diplomacy; founding member of the International Alliance for Arab-Israeli Peace in Copenhagen in 1997; Steering Committee member of the Orient House in Jerusalem, of the World Movement for Democracy, member of the Palestinian delegation to the Final Status Negotiations, the Palestinian National Dialogue Team, and the Athens Dialogue (of PNC & Knesset members); Vice-Pres. of the Palestinian Council of Justice and Peace; was awarded the Lombardy Peace Award 2004.
