Forgive my cultural ignorance here. I had to research about 90% of this, and I might've gotten some historical details wrong, and almost certainly the Arabic. I made sure not to call Pakistan a Middle Eastern country this time:
politicalbiographies.com
Saeb Mukarat
President Mukarat in Ankara (AP/2011)
Abū Hussam Ṣāʼib ‘Abd Muḥammad al-Bayt (أبو حسام ساب أبد محمد البيت) was born August 13, 1948 in the city of Jerusalem during the Arab-Israeli War. His father, Abdul Muhammad, was killed in the conflict and the family left for Transjordan as part of the 1948 Palestinian exodus.
Young Saeb was raised with family in Transjordan, where he was exposed to American culture, adopting the nickname of "muskrat", later arabicized to
Mukarat. In 1963, his uncle Rahman al-Bayt payed to send Saeb to Turkey where he enrolled in the Middle East Technical University, majoring in biology. He graduated in 1969. Saeb attempted to enlist with Jordanian forces during the Six-Day War in 1967, but was unable to secure passage out of Turkey in time.
A young biologist, Saeb settled in Ankara, marrying a woman of modest means and working with the government on a Jordanian visa. He was working his way towards Turkish citizenship when he learned of his younger half-brother's death. Husam al-Bayt had been born in Transjordan but ran away to Israel as a teenager in 1965. He was killed by Israeli Defense Force soldiers in 1970.
Saeb, angered and saddened by his brother's death, moved to Israel later that year to work and help establish a Palestinian state. He joined with the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Although not a soldier, Saeb adopted his childhood nickname of 'Mukarat' as an alias and worked under junior minister Nizar Farad to help develop 'alternative' warfare techniques. Rumors of biological warfare developed by Saeb have been denied.
Saeb al-Bayt led a secret life as Mukarat for most of the 1970s and 1980s in Gaza. On the one hand, he held a respectable university position and raised a family of three children. But on the other, he was working directly under Yasser Arafat and Nizar Farad as one of the chief scientist's in the PLO employ. It was at this time that Saeb gained a reputation for ease at clandestine behavior and espionage activities. Farad's posthumously released letters referred to Mukarat as 'one of the best tools in our human intelligence program.' Saeb had worked closely with Israeli biologists during this time.
He was discovered to be Mukarat in 1989 and imprisoned for a year before being released among a group of several dozen other PLO prisoners during negotiations with the United States. In the interim, his family had been taken care of by the PLO and he was given a hero's welcome, adopting the name 'Saeb Mukarat' in common style. Mukarat joined the Palestinian National Council and started moving towards a more moderate approach to politics. Although a senior member of Fatah, Mukarat kept himself outside of Arafat's inner circle. He was elected by a large margin in 1995 when the Palestinian Legislative Council was founded.
By the late '90s, Mukarat was seen as the leader of the moderates within the Fatah Party. Following Arafat's death in 2000, Mukarat surprised many by supporting hardliner Nizar Farad for Chairmanship of the PLO and Presidency of the Palestinian Authority. In 2003, he was elected Prime Minister as an alternative to Farad in negotiations, although he had moved towards the left in his speeches, accepting Farad's views on being completely anti-Israel.
Following the 2005 terrorist attack that killed US Congressmen Daniel DeSantos and Thomas Korb, Mukarat used PLO agents to contact the White House to negotiate a new peace treaty with Israel without Chairman Farad's presence. Whether this was legitimate and Farad found out, or it was all a ruse by Farad and Mukarat to get America and Israel to the table (who otherwise would not negotiate with former terrorist Farad) is unknown, but Farad prematurely made the announcement of the talks, forcing the 2005 Camp David Accords to take place.
As Prime Minister, Mukarat attended the Camp David Accords, and made impassioned pleas towards a middle ground, often being seen as the driving force to move Farad towards accepting some otherwise unacceptable ideas. He has been praised for his flexibility at Camp David by both Toby Ziegler and Kate Harper in recent books.
Mukarat, strongly anti-Hamas, helped with wording that outlawed the party in Palestine. This would lead to a backlash involving Chairman Farad's assassination, and continued escalation against UN peacekeepers, that erupted in what is referred to as the "Gaza War". Following a 60 day period after Farad's death, Mukarat was elected President of the Palestinian Authority and Chairman of the PLO on October 17, 2006.
Mukarat's term in office was mostly dealing with ramifications from the Camp David Accords and the onslaught of the Gaza War. The third President of the PA, Mukarat was the first without a strong terrorist past, and was more accepted by Israeli authorities, despite his previous imprisonment and suspicions of biological warfare involvement. He survived numerous assassination attempts on himself and had his family moved to Turkey for the duration of the War.
He recently was heavily involved in the Ankara Agreement at the behest of US Secretary of State Arnold Vinick and finally agreed to the movement of the Palestinian capital from East Jerusalem to Ramallah. He is currently working with US diplomat Lawrence Lessig on developing a Palestinian Consititution and has announced his plan to run for President in the June elections.
