Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Born in Jerusalem in 1954; went in 1971 to study Medicine at Moscow University, graduating in 1978 (MD); returned to Jerusalem and worked as a physician at Al-Maqassed Hospital; member of the Palestinian Communist Party (later Palestinian People’s Party - PPP); co-founder (1979) and voluntary chairman of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees (UPMRC) since 1983; continued his studies and received a degree in Philosophy and an MSc in Business Administration and Management from Stanford University, US; returned and became Director of the Health, Development, Information and Policy Institute (HDIP) in Ramallah since 1990; member of the Steering Committee for the Palestinian delegation to the multilateral peace negotiations in the early 1990s; one of the delegates involved in the 1991 Madrid Peace conference and subsequent negotiations; among the founders of the GIPP (Grassroots International Protection for the Palestinian People); run unsuccessfully in the 1996 elections in Ramallah; PPP leader and its representative in the PNC; spokesperson for various bodies, incl. the Palestinian National Initiative (Al-Mubadara), which he co-launched together with Ibrahim Dakkak, Haidar Abdul Shafi and late Edward Said in June 2002 and as whose Sec.-Gen. he serves; was arrested in 2002 and prevented entry to Jerusalem by Israeli authorities; was awarded the International Health Organization’s prize in 2002; resigned from the leadership of the Palestine People’s Party to devote his efforts to the Palestinian National Initiative in late 2003; campaigned against Israel’s Separation Wall in the International Court of Justice at The Hague in 2004; wrote numerous articles focusing on civil society and health development in Palestine; nominated himself as an independent running candidate in the 2005 PA elections following the passing away of Pres. Yasser Arafat, gaining 19.48% of the votes, was elected PLC member (Independent Palestine list) in the 2006 elections.
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