The Peace Process

Afif Safieh served as Palestinian General Delegate in London, Washington and Moscow from 1990 to 2009. During this time, he met and interacted with the leading figures of our times: from Yasser Arafat, John Major and Tony Blair; to Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush and Pope John Paul II. The Peace Process: From Breakthrough to Breakdown brings together Afif Safieh's articles, lectures and interviews from 1981, when he was a staff member in Yasser Arafat's Beirut office, to 2005, at the end of his mission in London, revealing the political and intellectual journey of one of Palestine's most skilled and distinguished diplomats. His writings, which centre on the Palestinian struggle for independence, are a testament to his vision and humanity and provide a unique map of Palestinian diplomacy over the last three decades.

Born in Jerusalem in 1950, Afif Safieh is Roving Ambassador for Special Missions for the PLO and the Fatah Deputy Commissioner for International Relations. He served as Head of Mission in London, Washington and Moscow, as well as to the Holy See and The Netherlands. During his service in The Netherlands from 1987 to 1990, he was involved in the 1988 Stockholm negotiations that led to the first official and direct American-Palestinian dialogue. From 1976 to 1978, he served as Deputy Director of the PLO Observer Mission to the United Nations Office at Geneva. He later worked as a staff member in Yasser Arafat's office in Beirut from 1978 to 1981, in charge of European Affairs and UN institutions. Safieh was invited as a visiting scholar at the Centre for International Affairs, Harvard University, for two years in 1985. He has given lectures and speeches at Harvard, MIT, Oxford, the House of Commons, The Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies (RUSI) and the Royal Institute for International Affairs. After twenty-seven years of exile, Afif Safieh was the first PLO official to return to Jerusalem for a visit in December 1993, but was denied family reunification in his home town. He lives in London with his wife and daughters.