Clayton E. Swisher is an American former journalist and author, who now works as a geopolitical risk analyst. Formerly the Director of Investigative Journalism for the Al Jazeera Media Network in Doha, Qatar, he now heads Swisher Empirical Studies LLC, headquartered in Doha.
He is the author of two non-fiction books on the Arab–Israeli conflict.
Swisher is the son of Mary Swisher and James Swisher Jr. He grew up in Michigan and later in New Castle, Pennsylvania, where he played football for Neshannock High School. After high school, Swisher attended the University of Pittsburgh. In 1999 he graduated with a bachelor's degree in administration of justice. In 2003 he graduated from Georgetown University with a Master's in Islam & Muslim-Christian Relations. [1]
In 2018 Swisher received a PhD in Middle East Politics from Exeter University under the supervision of notable Israeli Professor Ilan Pappé. [2]
Swisher served in the US Marine Corps reserves and later as a Special Agent with the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service, investigating passport fraud and internal corruption. [3] [4]
Swisher also performed close protection officer duties as a bodyguard for Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell, as well as foreign dignitaries, including Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. [5] [6] [7]
Between 2005 and 2007, Swisher transitioned to the think tank and research industry and worked as the Director of Programs with the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C., where he hosted televised debates concerning US foreign policy toward the Arab world. [8] He was also affiliated with the Council on Foreign Relations as a 5-year term member. [9]
Swisher is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighter who competes internationally at the rank of Blue Belt. [10] In 2022, he won a gold medal at the IBJJF European Championship in Rome and later took two bronze medals at the IBJJF Campeonato Brasileiro in São Paulo, the sport's largest annual competition in Brazil. [11] [12]
Swisher joined Al Jazeera English in 2007. As a producer and roving reporter, he covered the 2008 US presidential elections, the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict, ethnic fighting in Kyrgyzstan and between 2009 and 2010 the conflict in Afghanistan.
In 2011, Swisher led the team which produced the " Palestine Papers ", described by The Guardian newspaper as "the biggest documentary leak in the history of the Middle East conflict." [13] The late esteemed correspondent Robert Fisk said the Palestine Papers "blew open the secret and scandalous American-led negotiations between Israelis and the Palestinian Authority between 2000 and 2010." [14] The Palestine Papers led to the temporary resignation of Dr. Saeb Erekat, Chief PLO Negotiator, who accused Swisher in a live Al Jazeera interview of orchestrating the leak as part of a CIA plot. However, after investigating formal complaints made by Erekat and the PLO, against Swisher and Al Jazeera, the British media regulator Ofcom rejected their claims. [15]
In 2012, Swisher produced and reported for the documentary exclusive "What Killed Arafat". The film won the 2013 CINE Golden Eagle Awards for best Investigative Journalism and received nominations from BAFTA and The Royal Television Society. [16] [17] [18] The nine-month investigation revealed high levels of radioactive Polonium-210 in the clothes and personal effects of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, which he had worn and kept close do him in the final days before his death. This led to a French criminal investigation and the exhumation of Arafat's body. [19]
Swisher reported again on these events in the 2013 follow-up film, Killing Arafat. The forensic investigation and autopsy of Arafat's corpse, conducted by experts from France, Switzerland, and Russia, reached differing conclusions. The Swiss laboratory published a 108-page report concluding the elevated levels of Polonium discovered "moderately support" the hypothesis that Arafat was poisoned. French investigators did not publish their report and ended the criminal investigation by claiming the Polonium traces from Arafat's corpse were instead of a "natural environmental origin". A Russian delegation reported that "Yasser Arafat died not from the effects of radiation but of natural causes". [20]
In October 2017, Swisher was criticized for planting an undercover reporter, James Anthony Kleinfeld, inside pro-Israel organizations in the U.S. and the UK as part of an Al Jazeera documentary series called The Lobby. [14] As a result of Al Jazeera's undercover investigation, in early 2018, Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer, of New Jersey and Republican Congressman, Lee Zeldin, of New York, urged President Donald Trump's administration "to open an investigation into Al Jazeera's activities in the U.S. and force the network to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA." As of 2023, Al Jazeera had not been placed on the FARA list.
For reasons which remain unclear, Al Jazeera decided not to broadcast the second series of The Lobby, which featured Kleinfeld's undercover work. In response, Swisher took a sabbatical from Al Jazeera and accused the network of capitulating to outside pressure from the Qatari government and pro-Israel advocates. [21] [14] Swisher never returned to work at the station.
Swisher's first book, The Truth About Camp David, was published in 2004. The American academic L. Carl Brown wrote in Foreign Affairs, "Swisher makes a convincing case. This may not be the definitive 'truth about Camp David,' but it warrants careful attention from all who would learn from the history of negotiations to secure peace in the Holy Land." [22] In a review in the Negotiation Journal, David Matz wrote, "Swisher's report is undermined by the prominence and vehemence of his opinions" and that "his heavy-handedness is off-putting." [23]
In 2011, Swisher's second book, The Palestine Papers: The End of the Road? was released, examining the themes of the more than 1,600 leaked documents on the Israeli–Palestinian negotiations, that Swisher had obtained for Al Jazeera. [24]
Fatah, formally the Palestinian National Liberation Movement, is a Palestinian nationalist and social democratic political party. It is the largest faction of the confederated multi-party Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the second-largest party in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority, is the chairman of Fatah.
The Palestinian Authority, officially known as the Palestinian National Authority or the State of Palestine, is the Fatah-controlled government body that exercises partial civil control over the Palestinian enclaves in the Israeli-occupied West Bank as a consequence of the 1993–1995 Oslo Accords. The Palestinian Authority controlled the Gaza Strip prior to the Palestinian elections of 2006 and the subsequent Gaza conflict between the Fatah and Hamas parties, when it lost control to Hamas; the PA continues to claim the Gaza Strip, although Hamas exercises de facto control. Since January 2013, the Palestinian Authority has used the name "State of Palestine" on official documents, although the United Nations continues to recognize the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) as the "representative of the Palestinian people".
The Palestine Liberation Organization is a Palestinian nationalist coalition that is internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinian people in both the Palestinian territories and the diaspora. It is currently represented by the Palestinian Authority based in the West Bank city of Al-Bireh.
Yasser Arafat, also popularly known by his kunya Abu Ammar, was a Palestinian political leader. He was chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 to 2004 and president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) from 1994 to 2004. Ideologically an Arab nationalist and a socialist, Arafat was a founding member of the Fatah political party, which he led from 1959 until 2004.
The 2000 Camp David Summit was a summit meeting at Camp David between United States president Bill Clinton, Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat. The summit took place between 11 and 25 July 2000 and was an effort to end the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The summit ended without an agreement, largely due to irreconcilable differences between Israelis and Palestinians on the status of Jerusalem. Its failure is considered one of the main triggers of the Second Intifada.
Mahmoud Abbas, also known by the kunya Abu Mazen, is a Palestinian politician who is the president of the State of Palestine and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). He has been the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) since 2004, PNA president since January 2005, and State of Palestine president since May 2005. Abbas is also a member of the Fatah party and was elected chairman in 2009.
George Habash was a Palestinian politician and physician who founded the Marxist–Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Saeb Muhammad Salih Erekat was a Palestinian politician and diplomat who was the secretary general of the executive committee of the PLO from 2015 until his death in 2020. He served as chief of the PLO Steering and Monitoring Committee until 12 February 2011. He participated in early negotiations with Israel and remained chief negotiator from 1995 until May 2003, when he resigned in protest from the Palestinian government. He reconciled with the party and was reappointed to the post in September 2003.
Yasser Arafat, who was the President of the Palestinian National Authority and Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, died unexpectedly on 11 November 2004, 75 years of age, after a short period of illness. The cause of his death has since been debated, and several different theories concerning it have been suggested. However, official investigations by French and Russian teams did not find evidence of foul play.
Hani al Hassan, also known as Abu Tariq and Abu-l-Hasan, was a leader of the Fatah organization in Germany and member of the Palestinian Authority Cabinet and the Palestinian National Council.
Nasser Al Qudwa, also spelled Nasser Al-Kidwa is a Palestinian politician. A long-time activist in Fatah, he represented the Palestinian Liberation Organization at the United Nations from 1991 to 2005, when he became the Foreign Minister of the Palestinian Authority. Al Qudwa served in that role until 2006.
The Clinton Parameters were guidelines for a permanent status agreement to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, proposed during the final weeks of the Presidential transition from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush.
The bilateral relations between the State of Palestine and Russia have a complex history, deeply interwoven with Russian and Soviet relations with the Israeli enterprise, Palestinian nationalism, and Third World national liberation movements. Between 1956 and 1990, Soviet–Palestinian relations were part of the then-ongoing Soviet–American confrontation.
China–Palestine relations, also referred to as Sino–Palestinian relations, encompass the long bilateral relationship between China and Palestine dating back from the early years of the Cold War.
The Palestine Papers is a collection of confidential documents about the Israeli–Palestinian peace process leaked to Al Jazeera, which published them between 23 and 26 January 2011. Nearly 1,700 documents from the office of the main PLO negotiator, Saeb Erekat, and his team have been published, dating from 1999 to 2010.
The Palestinian–Serbian relations are bilateral relations between the State of Palestine and the Republic of Serbia. Relations between Serbia and Palestine have been very close and friendly.
The Al Jazeera Investigative Unit is a specialized investigative journalism team within Al Jazeera. The unit is known for producing in-depth investigative reports and documentaries on a wide range of global issues, including politics, human rights, corruption, environmental issues, and more.
Ireland–Palestine relations are the bilateral and historical relations between the Republic of Ireland and the State of Palestine. In 2000, Ireland established a representative office in Ramallah and Palestine has a representative office in Dublin. Both countries are members of the Union for the Mediterranean.
Palestine–Ukraine relations are bilateral relations between the State of Palestine and Ukraine. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic recognized Palestinian independence on 19 November 1988. Palestine recognized Ukraine as a sovereign state in February 1992. On 2 November 2001, the two countries established diplomatic relations and the Palestinian embassy opened the same day. Ukraine has supported UN resolutions against Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Germany–Palestine are relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the State of Palestine. Germany does not recognize Palestine diplomatically. However, Germany has a Representation Office in Ramallah, while there is also a Palestinian Mission in Berlin. There are numerous contacts between both societies, and Germany provides economic support to the Palestinian Territories through development partnerships. Germany is diplomatically committed to a two-state solution and has acted as a mediator in the Arab–Israeli conflict in the past.
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