Jibril Rajoub

Rajoub was born in Dura, near Hebron, on May 14, 1953, and was the eldest of 13 siblings.[1][8] He was an outstanding pupil before his involvement in Fatah and repeated imprisonment interrupted his early life.[8] At age 15, he was arrested for helping fleeing Egyptian officers and spent four months in custody; after his release, he joined a secret Fatah cell in the area.[8] His entry into Fatah is dated to September 1969.[1]

In late 1970, Rajoub was arrested for throwing a grenade at an Israeli army bus near Hebron and subsequently served a lengthy prison term.[8] His conviction included membership in an armed organization.[2] While imprisoned, he taught himself Hebrew and English, studied history, and translated Menachem Begin’s The Revolt into Arabic.[1][9] These years preceded his later role as a Palestinian representative in security negotiations with Israeli and American counterparts.[9]

Rajoub was released in the 1985 Jibril prisoner exchange, in which 1,150 prisoners were exchanged for three Israelis held by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.[2][8] He worked as a journalist for the magazine Abir after his release.[4] He also resumed Fatah activity, using networks of former prisoners to strengthen the movement’s Tanzim organization in the West Bank.[10] During the following two years, he was repeatedly held in administrative detention.[8]

Rajoub married Hiba in 1987.[8] After the First Intifada began that year, he became one of its leaders and was arrested again.[10] He was deported to Lebanon in January 1988 and subsequently went to Tunis.[2] His formal education continued much later: he obtained a bachelor’s degree in security studies from the College of Defense and Security in Russia in 2004 and a master’s degree in Middle East studies from al-Quds University in 2012.[1]

In Tunisia, Rajoub advised Fatah deputy leader Khalil al-Wazir, known as Abu Jihad, on the First Intifada and headed the movement’s West Bank Committee, coordinating activity in the Palestinian territories.[1][2] After al-Wazir’s assassination, he became a close lieutenant of Yasser Arafat and advised him on affairs in the territories.[2][8]

The Oslo process brought Rajoub into direct security coordination with Israel.[4] At the end of December 1993, he and Muhammad Dahlan traveled to Rome to meet Israeli general Amnon Shahak and coordinate security activities.[4] Rajoub returned to the West Bank in 1994 and became director of the Palestinian Authority’s Preventive Security Force there in May.[4][10] Dahlan held the corresponding Preventive Security position in Gaza.[1] Rajoub trained much of his organization, which developed into one of the Palestinian Authority’s most powerful security agencies, with several thousand officers under his command.[1][2]

During the 1990s, Rajoub worked with the Shin Bet and CIA to prevent Palestinian attacks on Israel and became a major Palestinian interlocutor for both Israel and the United States.[4] He was the principal Palestinian representative in security talks with Israeli and CIA counterparts.[9] His working relationships extended to Israeli military officials, and former Shin Bet chief Yaakov Peri later recalled meeting him in Geneva as a negotiating partner.[10] Palestinian security forces faced pressure to arrest Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists, although Rajoub did not comply with every Israeli demand for arrests following attacks.[10]

During the Second Intifada, Israel targeted Rajoub’s security headquarters in Beitunia, maintaining that he had not done enough to prevent terrorist attacks.[1] His position was also weakened by a power struggle with Dahlan over control of the security organization.[1] Arafat dismissed him in 2002 amid American pressure to unify Palestinian security forces and concerns that Rajoub was plotting against him.[1] His dismissal prompted substantial protests among West Bank Preventive Security personnel.[1] Arafat appointed him national security adviser in 2003, and Rajoub continued in that role after Arafat’s death.[1][2]

Rajoub stood in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections to represent Hebron but lost to his brother Nayef, an imam and Hamas leader.[1] Nayef was a leading Hamas religious figure who had supported suicide bombings.[10] Following his electoral defeat, Rajoub resigned as national security adviser and turned toward leadership of the Palestine Olympic Committee and Palestinian Football Association.[1] These positions helped him recover prominence after the weakening of his security organization and his falling-out with Dahlan.[11]

By May 2008, Rajoub headed the Palestinian football federation and was overseeing preparations for the Palestinian national team’s first match on home soil.[12] After months of organizational work, Palestine drew 1–1 with Jordan at a new 6,500-seat stadium near Jerusalem.[12] Previously, the team had played abroad, mainly in the Gulf, because FIFA considered the Palestinian territories unsafe for visiting teams.[12] Rajoub presented the match as evidence that occupation, closures, and difficult living conditions had not overcome Palestinian determination.[12]

Rajoub also established the Palestinian Women’s Soccer League, which had 40 teams by the time of a 2009 report.[13] He acknowledged resistance to the initiative in a traditional society, saying that many sheikhs and clerics were appalled by the idea.[13] The Palestinian women’s team played its first public match in the West Bank against Jordan, drawing 2–2.[13] These initiatives accompanied his leadership of football and Olympic institutions rather than a return to operational security command.[1][13]

His sports diplomacy also involved efforts to restrict Israel’s participation in international competitions.[14] In 2012, Rajoub urged UEFA president Michel Platini to remove Israel as host of the 2013 Under-21 European Championship.[14] He alleged that Israel was violating FIFA regulations and cited the detention of Palestinian footballers Mahmoud Sarsak, Omar Rweis, and Mohammad Nimer.[14] FIFA president Sepp Blatter separately asked Israel’s football association to help press the authorities concerning Sarsak’s case.[14]

In July 2012, Rajoub opposed a proposed minute of silence at the London Olympics for the Israeli athletes murdered at the 1972 Munich Games.[2] Writing to International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge, he argued that “sports are a bridge for love ... and should not be used for divisiveness and the spread of racism.”[2] His opposition to that commemoration preceded further disputes over the relationship between sport and Israeli-Palestinian relations.[2][15]

On September 6, 2014, Rajoub condemned a youth football match between Israeli and Palestinian children organized by the Peres Center for Peace.[15] The September 1 match was the first in a planned series involving more than 600 children over the year and took place after that summer’s Gaza war.[15] In a Facebook post, Rajoub declared: “Any activity of normalization in sports with the Zionist enemy is a crime against humanity.”[15] He was then also head of the Palestinian Supreme Council for Sport and Youth Affairs.[15]

At the 2015 FIFA Congress, the Palestinian delegation pursued a proposal to suspend Israel, citing travel restrictions affecting some Palestinian players and the participation of settlement teams in Israel’s football federation.[16] Rajoub withdrew the suspension demand at the last minute, saying that FIFA colleagues had asked him not to pursue it and that he wanted Palestinian footballers to enjoy the game.[16] The amended proposal instead sought a monitoring mechanism covering the movement of players and equipment, discrimination against Palestinian players, and five Israeli clubs located beyond the Green Line.[16][17]

The FIFA Congress approved the amended proposal by 165 votes to 18, effectively ending that effort to suspend Israel.[16][17] The arrangement envisaged a joint Israeli-Palestinian group with international observers.[17] Rajoub shook hands with Israel Football Association president Ofer Eini after the vote.[17] His leadership of the Palestinian Football Association and Olympic Committee continued to provide him with international contacts alongside his Fatah responsibilities.[11][18]

In June 2018, Rajoub urged football fans to target the Argentine Football Association and burn Lionel Messi shirts and pictures if Messi participated in Argentina’s planned friendly against Israel.[7] The match had been moved from Haifa to Jerusalem following intervention by Israel’s Ministry of Culture and Sports, and Rajoub accused the Israeli government of turning it into a political tool.[19] Argentina later canceled the fixture.[7]

FIFA suspended Rajoub from attending matches in an official capacity for 12 months and fined him 20,000 Swiss francs, finding that his statements incited hatred and violence.[7] He called the ruling unjust and political and announced an appeal.[20] The suspension did not prevent him from running the Palestinian federation or attending FIFA meetings.[20] In 2019, the Court of Arbitration for Sport dismissed his appeal, finding the sanctions proportionate and rejecting his argument that procedural violations justified annulment.[21] UK Lawyers for Israel also records that the appeal was dismissed.[22] Rajoub continued to deny wrongdoing.[21]

Alongside his sports career, Rajoub advanced within Fatah’s leadership.[1] He was elected to the movement’s Central Committee in 2009.[1][3] In the 2016 leadership elections, he received 887 votes, one of the strongest results, behind Marwan Barghouti’s 930.[23] The committee then had 22 members and was described as Fatah’s highest leadership institution.[23] Rajoub regarded himself as a potential successor to Mahmoud Abbas, and his electoral performance strengthened his position in internal succession politics.[23]

Rajoub became secretary-general of Fatah’s Central Committee in 2017.[5] The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs describes the office’s duties under Article 40 of Fatah’s regulations as primarily administrative: convening committee meetings, coordinating agendas with the chairman and members, monitoring implementation of decisions, and approving protocols.[5] In a separate analysis, the same center connects his rivalry with Dahlan to succession politics and reports his criticism of Egyptian support for Dahlan in a February 17 interview with BBC Arabic.[24]

After Fatah’s Eighth Conference in May 2026, an INSS analysis referred to Rajoub as secretary of the Central Committee and reported that he had disagreements with Abbas while supporting continuation of the Oslo path.[6] It also reported his position that the Palestine Liberation Organization was the sole representative of the Palestinian people and that Hamas should enter its umbrella and accept its established principles.[6] Earlier reporting and analysis had identified him as a possible successor to Abbas.[23][24]

Rajoub publicly endorsed a two-state solution in 2013, declaring: “The solution for this conflict is a political one. It is not militaristic, ideological, or economic. The only solution is a political solution and the only game in town is the two-state solution.”[1] A 2004 account likewise characterized his position as supporting two states and opposing terrorism.[9] In a later interview, he advocated international pressure and cooperation with Israel’s peace camp as preferable ways to avert violence, while warning that “all the options are open” if Palestinians were isolated or pushed into a corner.[10]

Other statements endorsed more confrontational approaches.[1] Following the June 2014 kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers, Rajoub said kidnapping was the only language Israel understood and that abducting Israeli soldiers was the only way to obtain the release of Palestinian prisoners.[1] In a May 1, 2013 interview with Al Mayadeen, he said resistance to Israel remained on the agenda “in all of its forms” and added that, if Palestinians possessed nuclear weapons, “we would use them tomorrow morning.”[25] In 2016, he denied having advocated using a nuclear weapon against Israel, explaining that he had been describing what might have happened before the Oslo Accords.[8]

In that 2016 interview, Rajoub said he had opposed the use of arms during the Second Intifada and described violence and terrorist attacks as a mistake that caused Palestinians “terrible damage.”[8] He instead endorsed “popular resistance.”[8] Asked about calling Palestinians killed while attacking Israelis “shahids,” he said Palestinians honored those killed fighting the occupation.[8] During 2020, he also made public remarks praising people described as martyrs and prisoners serving Israeli sentences for terrorist attacks.[26]

Rajoub’s rhetoric included historical comparisons directed at Israel.[26] On July 24, 2014, he said on Palestinian Authority television that “it was the Nazis, not us, who did the Holocaust to them” and that Palestinians were paying the price for Europe’s crimes in the previous century.[27] On September 15, 2020, following the announcement of normalization between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, he called Benjamin Netanyahu “a distorted copy of Mussolini” on official Palestinian Authority television.[26] He compared the situation with Europe in the 1930s and 1940s and claimed that Arab governments’ speeches about recognizing Israel had been written “in Tel Aviv.”[26]

In November 2023, Rajoub described the October 7 attacks in an Egyptian-media interview as a “natural response to oppression” and part of a Palestinian defensive war.[28] He also called Hamas an integral part of the Palestinian political fabric.[28] Israeli sports minister Miki Zohar and Israeli Olympic Committee chair Yael Arad publicly condemned the remarks.[28] A Jewish Virtual Library account later quoted Rajoub saying Hamas’s October 7 actions had made it “part of the Palestinian national self-liberation movement and outside the framework of the Muslim Brotherhood.”[2] The same account quoted him supporting an inclusive Palestinian umbrella and a national consensus government.[2]

In an October 7, 2025 interview with Sky News Arabia, Rajoub described the 2023 attack as “a reaction to crimes committed against the Palestinian people since 1948.”[29] He said he could not condemn such armed struggle because it formed part of Fatah’s historical approach, but added that contemporary conditions favored political and diplomatic means to achieve statehood.[30] By this period, he was identified as both a PLO member and secretary-general of Fatah’s Central Committee.[29]

Rajoub’s public career has connected three prominent institutions of Palestinian political life: Fatah, the Palestinian Authority’s security apparatus, and international sports administration.[1][18] In the 1990s, his security position made him an important counterpart for Israel and the United States; after losing that command, football and Olympic leadership helped restore his standing within Palestinian politics.[4][11] His continued identification as secretary of Fatah’s Central Committee after the movement’s 2026 conference demonstrated his continuing place in its senior leadership.[6]

His sports record includes organizational development as well as political campaigning.[12][13] Preparations for the national team’s first home match and establishment of a women’s league expanded Palestinian participation in organized football.[12][13] Middle East scholar Ido Zelkovitz, quoted in Globes, argues that Rajoub’s sports offices broadened his support beyond the Hebron area, increased his national profile, and brought international contacts and funding for sports infrastructure in the West Bank.[18] His international sports profile also included the unsuccessful 2015 effort to suspend Israel from FIFA and the subsequent disciplinary sanction over his campaign against the Argentina-Israel friendly.[16][7][22]

Rajoub’s security tenure generated allegations of repression against Arafat’s political opponents, including suppression of dissent and harassment.[2][3] He was also accused of involvement in a 1992 plot to assassinate Ariel Sharon; that allegation was not established in the cited account.[2] A further disputed episode concerns wounded Israeli police officer Madhat Yusuf, who died during fighting at Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus in 2000: Rajoub was accused of preventing his evacuation.[8]

During Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, Rajoub said he drove Marwan Barghouti away from the Beitunia headquarters shortly before Israeli forces raided it.[8] Dahlan and Hamas members subsequently accused him of collaborating with Israel and handing over Hamas personnel, accusations that temporarily damaged his political standing.[8] These competing accounts do not establish the accusations as findings.[8]

A Jerusalem Center analysis recounts a separate dispute over Rajoub’s June 2017 television remarks suggesting that the Western Wall belonged to Jews and should form part of Israel in a permanent settlement.[31] It also records his immediate response that his words had been “misunderstood,” leaving their intended implications unresolved.[31] His support for negotiations, statements endorsing armed struggle, and sanctions for incitement in football have remained distinct sources of public controversy.[1][21]