People
ABBAS, Mahmoud -- Palestinian Authority President (2005-)
Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, was born in Safad in 1935. Forced to flee, he lived as a refugee in Syria and worked as an elementary teacher. Abbas is a founding member of Fatah and a member of the Palestine National Council, the PLO Executive Committee and headed the PLO Department for National and International Relations since 1980. As secretary general of the PLO Executive Committee, Abbas was signatory of the 1993 Declaration of Principles that launched the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.
ABU ZAHRA, Imad -- Journalist
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| Imad Abu Zahra |
Imad Abu Zahra, a freelance photographer, died from his wounds on 12 July 2002, a day after he was shot by Israeli troops in the West Bank city of Jenin. Said Dahla, a photographer for the Palestinian news agency WAFA, was also wounded in the incident, but survived. The previous day, around midday after the curfew had been lifted, he was in the centre of Jenin with Said el-Dahla, a photographer of the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, when Israeli tanks fired on them without warning, wounding both in the leg.
ARAFAT, Yasser -- President of Palestine
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| Yasser Arafat |
Yasser Arafat was the founder of Fatah and chairman of the Palestine Liberation of Organization and was in 1996 elected as President. In the early '70s he came before the UN General Assembly with his famous "gun and the olive branch" speech. The symbolic juxtaposition of peace and resistence has defined Arafat's political life. He died in November 2004 in a hospital in France.
AVERY, Brian -- Peace Activist
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| Brian Avery |
On 5 April 2003, Israeli troops shot International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activist Brian Avery in Jenin. Avery, a 24-year-old American citizen from Albuquerque, New Mexico, experienced serious wounds to his face after Israeli troops shot at him with heavy machine gun fire from an armored personnel carrier (APC). An internal inquiry by the Israeli military concluded that the incident in which Brian was shot "never occurred" and therefore the military determined that an investigation was unnecessary. On 28 February 2005, Avery petitioned the Israeli high court to force the military to hear the eyewitness testimony it suppressed at the time of the incident.
BARAK, Ehud -- former Israeli Prime Minister
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| Ehud Barak |
Ehud Barak was born in 1942 in Kibbutz Mishmar Hasharon. After a 35-year military career, Ehud Barak made a transition to politics that culminated only four year later with his victory over Likud's Benjamin Netanyahu on 17 May 1999. He kept his position until he lost the elections of February 2001. In the summer of 2000 Israeli officials claimed that he made a "generous offer" during negotiations at Camp David.
BARGHOUTHI, Mustafa -- Presidential Candidate 2005
Born in Jerusalem to a Palestinian family from Deir Ghassaneh village in the Ramallah district, Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi is director of the Health Development Information and Policy Institute, which was founded by his colleagues and himself in 1989. He is a grassroots human rights campaigner, struggling for Palestinians' social, medical, and educational needs. Along with the late Dr. Edward Said and others, he established the Palestinian National Initiative in 2002, which aimed to build democracy in Palestine and worked towards reform, the cause of Palestiniain liberation, and the right of return.
BARGHOUTI, Marwan -- Member of the Palestinian Legislative Council
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| Marwan Barghouti |
Marwan Barghouti is elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and senior Fateh leader in the West Bank. He joined Fateh at the age of 15. In 1983, he entered Birzeit Univerisity and became active in the student movement. His studies were disrupted upon his arrest in 1985, when he was placed under administrative detention.
BISHARA, Azmi -- Former Member of Knesset
Azmi Bishara is a member of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, since 1996. He was born in 1956 in Nazareth. He is the founder and first chairman of the National Committee of Arab High School Students, the founder of the Arab Students Union in Israel, the founder of the National Democratic Assembly and former head of the Philosophy department of Birzeit University.
CARTER, Jimmy -- Former US President
Jimmy Carter, the 39th President of the United States (1977-1981), and the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is also the author of the 2006 book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid. Following his presidency, Carter has perhaps best been known as a champion of human rights. Founder of the Carter Center, Carter has traveled around the world, campaigning for human rights and observing elections.
CORRIE, Rachel -- Peace Activist
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| Rachel Corrie |
Rachel Corrie was a 23-year-old American peace activist from Olympia, Washington, who was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer on 16 March 2003, while undertaking nonviolent direct action to protect the home of a a Palestinian doctor, his wife, and three children from demolition. Since her killing, an enormous amount of solidarity activities have been carried out in her name around the world.
DAHLAN, Mohammed -- PA security head
Gaza Fatah strongman, former head of the Preventive Security, former Palestinian Minister of State for Security, former Minister for Civil Affairs, former negotiator, member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Mohammed Dahlan is the appointed head of the National Security Council under Palestinian president Abbas.
DARWAZEH, Nazih -- Journalist
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| Nazih Darwazeh |
Nazeh Darwazeh, a 42-year-old Palestinian cameraman working with the Associated Press Television News (APTN), was shot dead by an Israeli soldier in Nablus on 19 April 2003. He was one of a group of Palestinian journalists filming a confrontation between Palestinian youth and the Israeli military, when Israeli soldiers opened fire. He was shot in the head at a range of only 20 yards. The bullet entered through his eye. Darwazi, wearing a yellow jacket marked "press," was with half a dozen other journalists.
HURNDALL, Thomas -- Peace Activist, Photographer
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| Tom Hurndall |
On 11 April 2003, Thomas Hurndall, a young photographer observing and recording the work of the International Solidarity Movement in Rafah, was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier while trying to pull Palestinian children away from Israeli gunfire. He suffered severe brain damage and passed away following complications with pneumonia on 13 January 2004. Israel initially made a series of wild claims about the circumstances of the shooting.
JOHNSTON, Alan -- Journalist
On 12 March 2007, BBC correspondent Alan Johnston was kidnapped and held hostage in the Gaza Strip for 114 days. Johnston has been the BBC's correspondent in Gaza for more than three years and is the second foreign reporter to be kidnapped in Gaza this year, and the fourteenth since the start of 2005. According to Reporters Without Borders, "The grim series of abductions of foreign journalists continues in the Gaza Strip without the authorities so far finding a way to bring it to an end. None of the people responsible for kidnapping journalists since 2005 has been arrested or tried. This impunity encourages potential hostage-takers to act."
KERRY, John -- 2004 Democratic Presidential Candidate
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| John Kerry |
According to his official biography, Senator John Kerry, serving his fourth term, "has worked to reform public education, address children's issues, strengthen the economy and encourage the growth of the high tech New Economy, protect the environment, and advance America's foreign policy interests around the globe." Sadly, despite initial signs of willingness to criticize Israeli excesses, Kerry's platform on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict shows no signs of any hope for change from the current US administration's positions.
LIEBERMAN, Avigdor -- Israeli politician and deputy prime minister
Avigdor Lieberman, chair of the far-right Yisrael Beitenu (Israel Our Home) party, joined Ehud Olmert's government as deputy prime minister and Minister of Strategic Threats in October 2006. As a cabinet member, Lieberman is an integral part of all strategic discussions. Lieberman, who is known for his advocacy of "transfer," or ethnic cleansing, of Palestinian citizens in Israel, as well as his declaration that Palestinian members of the Knesset who meet with Palestinian leaders from the West Bank and Gaza should be executed as traitors, immigrated to Israel from Moldova at the age of 20.
MILLER, James -- Journalist
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| James Miller |
James Miller, a 34-year-old British cameraman and documentary filmmaker, was shot dead by the Israeli Defense Forces in Rafah, a town in the Gaza Strip, on 2 May 2003. Miller and his crew had been working for the US HBO cable network in Rafah on a documentary about how Palestinian children are affected by the violence of the Intifada. Miller died while waiting evacuation from the scene.
SAID, Edward -- Palestinian scholar
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| Edward W. Said |
Edward Said is the late world famous Palestinian intellectual and literature critic. He was a prominent member of the Palestinian parliament-in-exile for 14 years until he quietly stepped down in 1991. In 1948, Said and his family were dispossessed from Palestine and settled in Cairo. He came to the United States to attend college and lived in New York for many years. Because of his advocacy for Palestinian self-determination and his membership in the Palestine National Council, Said was not allowed to visit Palestine until several years ago and passed away in 2003.
SHARON, Ariel -- Israel's Former Prime Minister
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| Ariel Sharon |
Ariel Sharon, Israel's former Prime Minister, has been part of the Israeli army for more than 25 years and active politician for more than 30 years, only shortly interrupted in 1983, when he resigned as Defense Minister after a government commission found him indirectly responsible for the September 1982 massacre of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Sharon was the driving force behind Israel's settlement construction and its systematic violations of human rights. In early February 2004, at the peak of international criticism of Sharon's project of the Wall, Sharon introduced his "disengagement" plan.
YASSIN, Ahmed -- HAMAS founder
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| Ahmed Yassin |
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was born near Gaza in 1938 in Palestine during the British Mandate. At age 12, he was paralysed in a sporting accident and was confined to a wheelchair. During the Nakba in 1948, he fled to Gaza. At the beginning of the first Palestinian Intifada in 1987, he founded Hamas from the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood. Yassin was arrested in mass roundup of nearly 200 Hamas members in 1989 and was sentenced to life in prison for ordering attacks on Israeli soldiers and on Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel.
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