1953 -
Palestinian activist and senior security official in the Palestinian Authority.
Born in the West Bank village of Dura, Jibril Rajub joined al-Fatah as a youth. Imprisoned by Israel soon thereafter in 1968, he was released in a 1985 Israeli-Palestinian prisoner exchange. He had become one of al-Fatah's most senior figures in the West Bank when Israel deported him during the first intifada. In Tunis he served as an advisor to Palestine Liberation Organization chair Yasir Arafat, and helped to coordinate the first intifada as deputy to al-Fatah security chief Khalil alWazir (Abu Jihad).
With the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 1994, Rajub returned from exile to head the Preventative Security Forces (PSF) in the West Bank. Along with Gaza PSF chief Muhammad Dahlan, Rajub was one of the two most important security officials in the PA. He eventually ran afoul of Arafat, who dismissed him in April 2002. As part of the feud between Arafat and PA prime minister Mahmud Abbas in the summer of 2003, Arafat mended fences with Rajub and appointed him as his national security adviser, pitting him against his rival Dahlan, Abbas's minister of state for security affairs.
— MICHAEL R. FISCHBACH
