Samir Ghawshah

Samir Ghawshah (also Sameer Ghawsha, Ghosha, Ghosheh and other variants), is a Palestinian politician and militia leader.

Ghawshah was born in Jerusalem in 1940, and was educated as a dentist. From 1974, he heads the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front (PPSF), a minor leftist faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) with Ba'thist tendencies. It was founded in the West Bank and was originally close to Yassir Arafat's Fatah movement. However, frequently in opposition to Arafat's policies (for example in the Rejectionist Front), it also received backing from a number of Arab governments, especially Syria and Libya.

The PPSF broke apart when talks between Israel and Palestinians began in Madrid in 1991, with Ghawshah heading the more moderate faction and returning to the favor of Arafat. Ghawshah's PPSF accepted the Oslo Agreement and he served as Minister of Labor in the resulting Palestinian National Authority (PNA) from 1994, but resigned after voting against the Hebron redeployment agreement in January 1997. He published his resignation in a letter, complaining of irregularities in the PNA's system of governance, and of apparent examples of corruption. He continued to serve as Minister without Portfolio, but from 1999 had no ministerial post. He was present at the Camp David negotiations of 2000 as an adviser to Yassir Arafat, and briefly returned as Minister for Jerusalem in the PNA between late October 2002 and April 2003. He is the PPSF's representative on the PLO's Executive Committee, last elected in 1996.