Topic: Saeb Erakat

Saeb Muhammad Salih Erekat (also: 'Sa'ib', 'Erakat', 'Urayqat', Arabic: صائب عريقات‎, born April 28 1955) is the Palestinian chief of the PLO Steering and Monitoring Committee. He negotiated the Oslo Accords with Israel and remained chief negotiator from 1995 until May 2003, when he resigned in protest from the Palestinian government. He later reconciled with the party and was re-appointed to the post in September 2003. He is currently part of the Israel-Fatah negotiations team working to establish a Palestinian state.

Saeb Erekat was born on April 28, 1955 in East Jerusalem, into a Muslim family, then under Jordanian occupation. He has six siblings. Erekat received a BA and MA in Political Science at San Francisco State University in the United States and completed his Ph.D. in Peace and conflict studies at Bradford University, England. He is married with twin daughters and two sons.

He returned the West Bank town of Nablus to lecture in Political Science at the An-Najah National University, and also served for 12 years on the editorial board of the widely-circulated Palestinian newspaper, Al-Quds.