Don’t Miss It

Ambassador Afif Safieh
head of the PLO Mission to the United States

The Cathedral Church of St. Paul
138 Tremont Street, Boston

Wednesday, September 27 at 6:30pm.

Afif Emile Safieh was appointed head of the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) mission to the U.S. following 15 years as the Palestinian representative to the United Kingdom and the Vatican. Born in Jerusalem in 1950, he later studied at Jerusalem’s College Des Freres. In 1972 he obtained his degree in political science and international relations from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. Between 1976 and 1978, he was deputy director of the PLO Observer Mission to the United Nations in Geneva. Later he became a staff member in President Arafat’s office in Beirut, where he was in charge of European affairs and U.N. institutions.

Between 1981 and 1985, he was a researcher at the Center for European Studies in the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, after which he was a visiting scholar at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University until 1987. From 1987 until 1990, Safieh was the PLO representative to the Netherlands during which time he was also involved in the November-December 1988 negotiations in Stockholm that led to the official and direct American-Palestinian dialogue. From September 1990 to 2005, he was the Palestinian General Delegate to the United Kingdom.