Atef Abu Bakr, also known as Abu Farah, (; born 1946) is a Palestinian politician and diplomat who was a member of the

Palestine Liberation Organization The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO; ) is a Palestinian nationalism, Palestinian nationalist coalition that is internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinians, Palestinian people in both the occupied Pale ...

(PLO) and then of the

Abu Nidal Organization The Abu Nidal Organization (ANO; ), officially Fatah – Revolutionary Council ( ), was a Palestinian militant group founded by Abu Nidal in 1974. It broke away from Fatah, a faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization, following t ...

(ANO). His membership to the latter lasted until 1990. He then rejoined the PLO. He served as the PLO ambassador in different countries between 1974 and 1984.

Early life and education

Abu Bakr was born in

Ya'bad Ya'bad () is a Palestinian town in the northern West Bank, 20 kilometers west of Jenin, in the Jenin Governorate of Palestine. It is a major agricultural town, with most of its land covered with olive groves and grain fields. According to the Pa ...

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...

, in 1946. He is a graduate of the

University of Baghdad The University of Baghdad (UOB) (, also known as Baghdad University) is a public university, public research university in Baghdad, Iraq. It is the largest university in Iraq and the tenth largest in the Arab world. History The College of Isl ...

Career and activities

Abu Bakr was a member of the

Fatah Fatah ( ; ), formally the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (), is a Palestinian nationalist and Arab socialist political party. It is the largest faction of the confederated multi-party Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and ...

. He was appointed PLO ambassador to

Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...

in 1974 and remained in office until 1976. Then he served as the ambassador of the PLO to

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

between 1976 and 1983. His last diplomatic post for the PLO was in

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

which he held from 1983 to 1984. Abu Bakr resigned from the PLO in February 1985 when the PLO leader

Yasser Arafat Yasser Arafat (4 or 24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004), also popularly known by his Kunya (Arabic), kunya Abu Ammar, was a Palestinian political leader. He was chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 to 2004, Presid ...

and the Jordanian ruler

King Hussein Hussein bin Talal (14 November 1935 – 7 February 1999) was King of Jordan from 1952 until his death in 1999. As a member of the Hashemite dynasty, the royal family of Jordan since 1921, Hussein was traditionally considered a 40th-generati ...

signed an agreement which allowed the king to make negotiations with Israel representing the Palestinians. As a result Abu Bakr joined the ANO in Syria. He was appointed director of the political department in the ANO's Fatah Revolutionary Council in 1985 and served in the post until 1987. His successor as the director of the political department was Mansour Hamdan. Abu Bakr was one of the Abu Nidal's ten-member Politburo. Then Abu Bakr was named as the spokesman of the Fatah Revolutionary Council. He left the ANO in November 1989 while serving as the spokesman of the Fatah Revolutionary Council. His defection occurred one year after the

bombing A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechan ...

of a passenger plane by the ANO. The reason for his defection was the disputes between

Abu Nidal Sabri Khalil al-Banna (; May 1937 – 16 August 2002), known by his ''Pseudonym, nom de guerre'' Abu Nidal ("father of struggle"),; translates it as "father of the struggle". was a Palestinian fedayeen, Palestinian militant. He was the founde ...

, leader of the ANO, and Abu Bakr in regard to the future moves of the group in the context of the

First Intifada The First Intifada (), also known as the First Palestinian Intifada, was a sustained series of Nonviolent resistance, non-violent protests, acts of civil disobedience, Riot, riots, and Terrorism, terrorist attacks carried out by Palestinians ...

. Nearly 150 ANO members also left the group in the same period. After hiding for a while Abu Bakr returned to the PLO in 1990.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abu Bakr, Atef 20th-century Palestinian diplomats 1946 births Living people Ambassadors of Palestine to the Czech Republic Ambassadors of Palestine to Hungary Palestine Liberation Organization members Arab people in Mandatory Palestine University of Baghdad alumni People from Jenin Governorate Cold War diplomats Fatah members