Online Encyclopedia
Mahmoud Abbas
Mahmoud Abbas (Arabic: محمود عباس) (born March 26, 1935), commonly known as Abu Mazen (ابو مازن), is a leading politician in Fatah and, currently, Chairperson of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), having been elected on November 11 2004 after Yasser Arafat's death. Before being named Prime Minister, Abbas led the PLO's Negotiations Affairs Department. He served as Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority (PA) from March to October 2003 when he resigned amid a power struggle with Arafat. His international reputation is that of a moderating influence in the Palestinian authority, with a genuine drive towards achieving peace. (His name Abu Mazen is an honorific title, expressing popular esteem within Palestinian society, and refers to his role as father of Mazen, his eldest son. It is common for Arabic men to be known by such a name.)
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Biography
Youth and education
Abbas was born in 1935 in Safed, then part of the British Mandate of Palestine. After the founding of Israel in 1948 - and the subsequent occupation of the rest of the former Mandate by Jordan and Egypt - Abbas left for Syria, where he taught school and graduated from the University of Damascus , before going to Egypt, where he studied law. Subsequently, Abbas entered graduate studies at the Oriental College in Moscow, where he earned a Ph.D. in history. In 1982, Abbas wrote a doctoral dissertation, referring to well-known Holocaust deniers, claiming secret ties between the Nazis and the Zionist movement. In 1984, a book based on Abbas' doctoral dissertation was published in Arabic by Dar Ibn Rushd publishers in Amman, Jordan. His doctoral thesis later became a book, The Other Side: the Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism, which, following his appointment as Palestinian Prime Minister in 2003, was heavily criticized by some Jewish groups as an example of Holocaust denial. In his book, Abbas raised doubts that gas chambers were used for the extermination of Jews, and suggested that the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust was "less than a million." In an interview with Haaretz in May 2003, he claimed merely to have been quoting the wide range of scholarly disagreement over the Holocaust, but no longer harbored any desire to argue with the generally accepted figures; he further affirmed his belief that "the Holocaust was a terrible, unforgivable crime against the Jewish nation, a crime against humanity that cannot be accepted by humankind".
Involvement with politics
In the mid 1950s Abbas became heavily involved in underground Palestinian politics, joining a number of exiled Palestinians in Qatar, where he was Director of Personnel in the emirate's Civil Service. While there, he recruited a number of people who would become key figures in the Palestine Liberation Organization, and was one of the founding members of Fatah in 1957.
Throughout the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, Abbas travelled with Arafat and the rest of the PA leadership in exile to Jordan, Lebanon and Tunisia (see article on Yasser Arafat for details). Though he garnered little media attention, Abbas is said to have had a powerful behind-the-scenes influence on the Palestinian Authority, and was widely regarded as a highly intellectual pragmatist. In particular, he is credited with initiating secretive contacts with left-wing and pacifist Jewish groups during the 1970s and 80s, and is considered by many to be a major architect of the 1993 Oslo peace accords (evidenced in part by the fact that he traveled with Arafat to the White House to sign the accords).
Abbas has nonetheless been charged with involvement in terrorism from some quarters: Mohammed Daoud Oudeh (Abu Daoud), the mastermind of the Munich Massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes in 1972, charges that his operation was funded by Abbas. Daoud is the sole source for these charges, and they have not been corroborated by others. [1] http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32292 [2] http://www.israellawcenter.org/press.shtml?1700528700#april29 .
At the same time he has performed diplomatic duties, presenting a moderating face for PLO policies. Abbas was the first PLO official to visit Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War in January 1993 to mend fences with the Gulf countries for the PLO's pro-Saddam Hussein stand during the crisis. At the 1993 peace accord with Israel, Abbas was the signatory for the PLO on September 13, 1993. he published a memoir Through Secret Channels: The Road to Oslo (1995).
Term as Prime Minister
By early 2003, as both Israel and the United States had indicated their refusal to negotiate with Yasser Arafat, Abbas began to emerge as a candidate for a more visible leadership role. As one of the few remaining founding members of Fatah, he had some degree of credibility within the Palestinian cause, and his candidacy was bolstered by the fact that other high-profile Palestinians were for various reasons not suitable (the most notable, Marwan Bargouti, was under arrest in an Israel jail). Abbas's reputation as a pragmatist garnered him favor with the international community and certain elements of the Palestinian legislature, and pressure was soon brought on Arafat to appoint him Prime Minister. Arafat did so on March 19, 2003; initially Arafat attempted to eviscerate the post of Prime Minister, but eventually was forced to give Abbas some degree of real power.
However, the rest of Abbas's term as Prime Minister continued to be characterized by numerous conflicts between him and Arafat over the distribution of power between the two. Abbas had often hinted he would resign if not given more control over the PA's administration. In early September 2003 he confronted the PA parliament over this issue. The United States and Israel accuse Arafat of constantly undermining Abbas and his government.
In addition, Abbas came into conflict with Palestinian terrorist groups, notably Islamic Jihad and Hamas; his moderate pragmatic policies were diametrically opposed to their hard-line approach. Initially he pledged not to use force against the militants, in the interest of avoiding a civil war, and instead attempted negotiation. This was partially successful, resulting in a pledge from the two groups to honor a unilateral Palestinian cease-fire. However, continuing violence forced Abbas to pledge a crackdown in order to uphold the Palestinian Authority's side of the Road Map for Peace. This led to a power struggle with Arafat over control of the Palestinian security services; Arafat refused to release control to Abbas, thus preventing him from using them in a crackdown on militants.
Resignation
On September 4, 2003, demonstrations and threats against Abbas peaked with death theats. Two days later on September 6, he called a closed session of the Palestinian Legislative Council detailed his reasons and submitted his resignation from the post of Prime Minister, citing inability to carry out his duties in the face of continual opposition from Arafat and others in the Palestinian Authority, as well as a lack of support from Israel and the United States. He presided over a "caretaker" government until his successor Ahmed Qurei was sworn in on October 7, 2003.
Following these events, Abbas dropped out of the public eye for a time but was seen in January 2004 carrying out talks with Palestinian factions in Gaza. Abbas was back in the public eye after Yasser Arafat died and Abbas became the chairman of the PLO.
In an interview with Newsweek on June 13, 2004, Abbas revealed that a major reason for his resignation was that he felt his life was in danger due to increasingly hostile protests against his leadership. When asked "How many of these things were instigated by Chairman Arafat?", he responded, "I wouldn't want to mention anyone by name. But I'll give you something to understand; I don't have any relationship with the chairman from the resignation to this day."
2005 presidential election
On November 25, 2004, Abbas was endorsed by the Fatah Revolutionary Council as its preferred candidate for the Palestinian presidential election, set at January 9, 2005.
On December 14, 2004, Abbas called for an end to violence in the Al-Aqsa Intifada and a return to peaceful resistance. Abbas told the Asharq al-Awsat newspaper that "the use of arms has been damaging and should end". Analysts predict that these remarks may harm his prospects in the upcoming election.
Quotes
- "There is absolutely no substitution for dialogue" (2003)
External links
- Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen Website http://www.abumazen.info/ Official
- Palestinian group endorses Abbas http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4043065.stm , BBC News
- Abbas: No Force Against Arab Militants http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/news-article.aspx?storyid=4749 , AP (June 9, 2003)
- Profile: Mahmoud Abbas http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1933453.stm , BBC News (September 4, 2003)
- Someone Was Going to Kill http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5197317/site/newsweek/ Newsweek Interview of Mahmoud Abbas (June 21 Issue)