Ibrahim Dakkak was born in Jerusalem in 1929. He co-founded the Palestinian National Front, which organized Palestinian political activity in the 1970s. Dakkak was the secretary of the Palestinian National Steering Committee in the occupied territories. He served as head of the Engineers’ Union in the West Bank from 1978 until 1986. He also helped in the formation of numerous Palestinian civil society organizations, such as the Council of Higher Education and Arab Thought Forum, which he chaired from 1978 until 1992. Dakkak was the founding director of Makassed Hospital in Jerusalem. He took over the task of reconstruction after the Al-Aqsa mosque was burned in 1969. In 2002, he joined Mustafa Barghouti and Haydar Abdel Shafi in launching the Palestinian National Initiative. Dakkak chaired the Birzeit University Board of Trustees in 1973.
