CIDCM Co-Sponsored Event: Palestinian Ambassador on 11/20/13

We are pleased to announce that CIDCM is co-sponsoring a talk by Ambassador Maen Rashid Areikat, Chief Representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The Ambassador will be speaking on Regional Developments and their Impact on the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict. The talk will be on November 20^th, from 12:15 – 1:30, at Stamp here on campus.

 Lunch will be served.


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About the Speaker

Maen Rashid Areikat was born October 12, 1960 in Jericho in occupied Palestine.  Prior to his appointment to Washington, he was bestowed the rank of Ambassador by Chairman of the PLO and Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.Ambassador Areikat served for 11 years at the Negotiations Affairs Department (NAD) of the PLO in Ramallah, most recently as its Deputy Head and Coordinator-General (2008-2009).  Ambassador Areikat first joined NAD in 1998, when it was headed by current Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and served as Director-General until March 2008.  In addition to overseeing NAD’s day-to-day operations, Ambassador Areikat was responsible for overseeing the work of the Negotiations Support Unit (NSU), which provided legal, policy, communication and technical support to Palestinian Negotiating Teams and to the Palestinian Leadership.  Prior to his service at NAD, Areikat worked at the Orient House (1993-1998), the headquarters of the PLO in Jerusalem and of the Palestinian Negotiating Team for the Madrid peace talks.

While at the Orient House, he served as spokesperson for the late Mr. Faisal Husseini, the former PLO Executive Committee member in charge of Jerusalem Affairs, and later as Desk Officer for the U.S., Canada, Australia, and South Africa in the Orient House’s International Relations Department. As Chief Representative, Areikat took part in the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations at Beit Hanoun/Erez in Gaza and Taba in Egypt in 1996, in Jerusalem in 1997, and was an official member of the Palestinian delegation at the Wye River negotiations in 1998.  In the course of his career, Ambassador Areikat has traveled extensively throughout the region and abroad, including numerous official visits to Washington, D.C., and several European capitals.  He has also participated in various conferences and symposiums on the Middle East peace process and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Ambassador Areikat earned his Bachelor of Science in Finance from Arizona State University (ASU) in 1983 and his MBA in management from Western International University in 1987. He received his diplomatic training at the Ministry of External Affairs in Ottawa, Canada in 1993 and 1994, and completed a training course in good governance at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 2001. Ambassador Areikat is joined in Washington, D.C., by his wife, Jumana, and their three boys, Rashid (14 years), Saif (12 years) and Amr (9 years).