Nizar Farad was the Chairman of the Palestinian National Authority.
He was born in the city of Zefat, which was taken over by the Haganah in 1948 when he was eight years old. His sister Amira and brother Aziz were killed, and the family became refugees in Syria.[1]
When the Congressional Delegation was bombed, Farad believed it was the act of a lone terrorist because it worked against Palestinian interests to attack Americans. He condemned the retaliatory Israeli missile strike on Gaza City that killed five children.[2]
Farad cooperated with the Americans and planned to arrest Khalil Nasan and the other perpetrators of the CODEL bombing, but when the Israelis surrounded his compound in the West Bank, his people in Gaza refused to arrest Nasan and he had no way of communicating with them. Prime Minister Mukarat secretly sent an envoy to meet with Josh Lyman in Germany to cut Farad out of talks, but Farad publicly "accepted" the invitation the Americans didn't send and they were forced to treat with him too.[3]
Israelis at first refused to the peace talks at Camp David if Farad attended due to his alleged support of Hamas, but he was considered too weak to crack down on the group anyway. The Americans got him access to a phone, and he agreed to arrest Nasan and secretly turn him over to the Americans, giving credit to the FBI. President Bartlet argued to the Israelis that this showed Farad was serious about peace, and the talks commenced.[4]
Farad resisted discussing other topics unless Jerusalem would become the capitol of the Palestinian state, which the Israelis refused to consider. He also argued in favor of the right of return, but Kate Harper convinced him to stand down. He accepted the presence of American peacekeepers.[1]
He was on his way back from speaking at a university in the West Bank when a vehicle charged his motorcade and exploded. He was injured and taken to Augusta Victoria Hospital on the Mount of Olives, where he later died along with seven students. Charles Frost believed the assassination wasn't the act of a student extremist, as was reported, but that it was a conspiracy that would also result in the assassination of Kazakhstani President Rushan Issetov.[5] This prediction came true.[6]