Nabeel Kassis

Who is Nabeel Kassis?

Nabeel Kassis is an Palestinian academic and politician from Ramallah. He is the president of Birzeit University. In 2003, he served as the Planning Minister of the Palestinian National Authority. He served as the Tourism Minister in 2002 and State Minister in 1998. He was also in charge of the Bethlehem Project. As a proponent of transparency and reform Kassis was appointed member of the Special Committee for the Investigation of the Auditor's Report in 1997.

Kassis was a member of the Palestinian Madrid Peace Conference delegation in 1991 and a deputy head of the negotiation delegation at the Washington talks in 1992 to 1993. He later became the Director-General of the Technical and Advisory Committee to the Palestinian negotiation team, established to do preparatory work for the transition to Palestinian self-government. He was a member of the Palestinian delegation on final status negotiations in 1999. A trained theoretical nuclear physicist, Kassis taught physics in Germany, Italy, France, England, Lebanon, and Jordan before joining Birzeit University in 1980.