Nasser Youssef, interior minister: A major-general and longtime ally of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, Youssef assumed control of Palestinian national security forces in the Gaza Strip and West Bank when the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994 under interim peace deals with Israel. Youssef's relations with Arafat deteriorated a few years ago and he recently criticized the Palestinian president's leadership as an obstacle to Palestinian dreams of independence, but the two are said to have mended fences.

That must have been after Yasser spit on him...

Salam Fayyad, finance minister: Fayyad, 50, is an economist, political independent and former International Monetary Fund official recruited by Arafat in a Cabinet shakeup last year under US pressure to establish financial order and transparency in the Palestinian Authority. He stayed on to serve as finance minister in the short-lived administration of Mahmoud Abbas, who resigned as prime minister a month ago after losing a power struggle with Arafat. Fayyad is backed by Washington and has credibility with Israel, which has channeled through him tax funds owed to the Palestinians. Married with three children, he has a PhD from the University of Texas.

Good, gray money man, who gets the money after it's come through Yasser...

Nabil Shaath, foreign affairs: Shaath, 65, formerly an entrepreneur and professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton Business School, evolved into a key adviser to Arafat and has been involved in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks since 1991. Shaath is a veteran of Arafat's Fatah movement and served as his minister of planning and international cooperation from the 1994 inception of the Palestinian Authority. That title made him unofficial foreign minister, and he formally took the foreign affairs portfolio under Abbas.
He is from a refugee family that left its home in what is now Israel during the 1948 war.

Another Yasser-yessir man, but at least he's not as bad as...

Saeb Erekat, no specified post: Erekat, 58, has a doctorate in peace studies from England's Bradford University. He taught at Al-Najah University in the West Bank city of Nablus before joining the first Palestinian delegation to Middle East peace talks in Madrid in 1991. He has participated in countless negotiations with Israel and the United States since then. An articulate, rapid-fire spokesman for the Palestinian cause and a familiar face in international television coverage of the conflict, Erekat is also a veteran of Fatah and was appointed minister of local government in 1996.

Saeb, as we all know, has no lips. He was once turned into a pillar of salt for several days...