BORN: March 26, 1935 Zefat, Palestine Palestinian president The choice is not between Palestinian unity or peace with Israel; it is between a two-state solution or settlement-colonies. Mahmoud Abbas. # ALI JAREKJ/REUTERS/CORBIS. Mahmoud Abbas is the first elected president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the recognized governing institution for some 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Arab (Arabicspeaking) regions occupied by Israel after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. (Palestinians are an Arab people whose ancestors lived in the historical region of Palestine, comprising parts of present-day Israel and Jordan, and who continue to lay claim to that land.) He also serves as chair of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a political and military organization formed to unite various Palestinian Arab groups with the goal of establishing an independent Palestinian state. The PLO represents nearly 4 million Palestinians around the world. In both roles he succeeded PLO founder Yasser Arafat (1929 2004; see entry), with whom he had worked closely for decades. For most of that period Abbas was largely unknown, working as Arafat s chief negotiator. He took over the PLO after Arafat s death in 2004 and was elected president of the Palestinian Authority in 1
January 2005. The Arafat style was one of bluff, drama, flattery, purposeful contradiction, mystery, fog, writes David Remnick in the New Yorker magazine. Abbas is a logician [logical thinker], stern, arid [dry]. Flees Palestine Abbas was born on March 26, 1935, in the village of Zefat in Palestine. The British had been granted a mandate over Palestine after World War I (1914 18). (A mandate is a commission granting one country the authority to administer the affairs of another country.) The British permitted the continuing immigration of Jews from Europe and elsewhere into the region. The Jews had long been facing anti-semitism (prejudice against Jews) and many came to Palestine, the site of the ancient Jewish kingdom, hoping to establish a Jewish homeland where they would be safe from the discrimination and violence they had faced elsewhere. Their presence caused friction with the predominantly Muslim, Arabic-speaking people who had lived in Palestine for hundreds of years. The two groups were engaging in violent skirmishes by the time of Abbas s birth. The events of World War II (1939 45) increased tensions in the area, with the arrival of thousands of new Jewish settlers fleeing persecution from the genocidal policies of Nazi Germany, which controlled much of Europe before its defeat in the spring of 1945. (Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people based on religion, ethnicity, or nationality.) In 1947 the United Nations (an international organization of countries founded in 1945 to promote international peace, security, and cooperation) sponsored a plan that would allow for the creation of a sovereign (self-governing) Jewish state, called Israel, in part of Palestine. The Arab Palestinians and the surrounding Arab nations vehemently protested the plan. In 1948 the British exited the area, and Jews declared the establishment of the state of Israel. Neighboring Arab nations attacked Israel, and the 1948 Arab-Israeli War resulted in a victory for Israel. Thousands of Arab Palestinians were forced from their homes by the fighting. The refugees (people who flee their country to escape violence or persecution) moved to neighboring Arab nations, and most lived in refugee camps. Abbas s family was among the many refugees who settled in Syria. Just thirteen years old at the start of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Abbas first lived in a tent with his family, but they were able to settle into more 2 Middle East Conflict: Biographies, 2nd Edition
Abbas s Dissertation Material from Abbas s doctoral dissertation (a paper required to earn a PhD degree), The Other Side: The Secret Relationship between Nazism and Zionism, which he wrote in 1982 and published 1984, has been used by his critics to cast doubt on his credentials as a political figure. In the dissertation he discusses possible links between Germany under the Nazi Party and the Zionists (supporters of an international political movement that called for the creation of an independent Jewish state in Palestine) during World War II (1939 45). Among these ties were the controversial Haavara Agreement of 1933, between the newly installed Nazi regime, a federation of German Zionists, and the Anglo- Palestine Bank. The agreement was arranged with the hope of encouraging emigration of German Jews to British-controlled Palestine. Also controversial are the questions the dissertation raises over the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust, the mass murder of European Jews and other groups by the Nazis during World War II. Abbas cites the total number of World War II casualties at forty million. But after the war it was publicized that six million Jews were among the victims, and that the war of annihilation had been aimed first of all against the Jews, and only then against the rest of the peoples of Europe, Abbas writes, as quoted in the New Yorker. The truth of the matter is that no one can verify this number. Or completely deny it. He goes on to state that the Nazis genocidal policies were an atrocity and the killing of a human being any human being is a crime the civilized world cannot accept and humanity cannot comprehend. (Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people based on religion, ethnicity, or nationality.) He also notes that It seems that the interest of the Zionist movement was to inflate the number of murdered in the war so as to insure greater gains. Those gains, according to Abbas, were public and international support for the creation of a Jewish national homeland. Abbas publicly distanced himself from the negative interpretations of his work, which some Jewish academics and supporters of Israel classified under the spurious field of scholarship known as Holocaust denial. In 2003 he gave an interview to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in which he defended his work, characterizing it as an assessment of long-running scholarly debate. I quoted an argument between historians in which various numbers of casualties were mentioned. One wrote there were 12 million victims and another wrote there were 800,000, he told Haaretz. I have no desire to argue with the figures. The Holocaust was a terrible, unforgiveable crime against the Jewish nation, a crime against humanity that cannot be accepted by humankind. The Holocaust was a terrible thing and nobody can claim I denied it. REMNICK, DAVID. CHECKPOINT. NEW YORKER (FEBRUARY 7, 2005): 52. ELDAR, AKIVA. U.S. TOLD US TO IGNORE ISRAELI MAP RESERVATIONS. HAARETZ (MAY 28, 2003). HTTP:// WWW.HAARETZ.COM/PRINT-EDITION/ NEWS/U-S-TOLD-US-TO-IGNORE-ISRA ELI-MAP-RESERVATIONS-1.8840 (ACCESSED ON NOVEMBER 30, 2011). Middle East Conflict: Biographies, 2nd Edition 3
permanent quarters in Syria. After completing high school, he laid floor tiles for a time before becoming a teacher at an elementary school. He earned a bachelor s degree from the University of Damascus in Damascus, Syria, then traveled to Egypt to study law. He then studied at the People s Friendship University, in Moscow, in the Soviet Union. This university had been established in 1960 to provide higher-education opportunities to young students from developing nations. Abbas earned his PhD in 1982. Later in his political career the title and topic of his doctoral dissertation (a paper required to earn PhD degree) would stir controversy and debate. Joins PLO Like many educated Palestinians of his generation seeking a professional career, Abbas settled in one of the oil-rich countries located along the Persian Gulf. He chose Qatar and worked as a director of personnel in the civil administration of that country in the mid 1950s. The late 1950s and early 1960s were an important time for Palestinians. The more fortunate Palestinians who fled during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War were those who had the resources to settle elsewhere, as Abbas s family did in Syria, and were able to obtain an education and citizenship in their newly adopted homelands. Less fortunate Palestinians held refugee status in Arab countries, meaning that they were granted governmental protection, but not citizenship. Their refugee status often restricted their civil, political, and economic rights and opportunities. In 1959 Arafat created Fatah, a Palestinian militant group and (later) political party dedicated to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Fatah quickly became the leading voice for the Palestinians. At its founding, Fatah was dedicated to the destruction of Israel as a nation in order to reclaim Palestine for Palestinians. Abbas first met Arafat when Arafat came to Qatar on a fund-raising trip in 1961. Abbas joined Fatah soon afterward. In 1964 the PLO was created by the Arab League, a regional political alliance of Arab nations formed in 1945 to promote political, military, and economic cooperation within the Arab world. The PLO served as an umbrella organization, bringing together many smaller organizations with similar goals in order to share their skills and resources, and Fatah soon became the lead group in the PLO. Arafat became the organization s most visible figure. Abbas became a full-time member of the organization, 4 Middle East Conflict: Biographies, 2nd Edition
traveling with Arafat and the PLO leadership for the next three decades. He lived in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Tunisia during these years and went by the name Abu Mazen. The PLO often used violence to further its cause, launching attacks against Israel from across the borders of various neighboring Arab states. However, in the early 1970s, the PLO began to use negotiation and compromise along with armed struggle as tools to gain political advantage. This prompted the breakaway of a longtime PLO member known as Abu Nidal (also known as Sabri al-banna; 1937 2002; see entry), who believed that violent action was the only way for Palestinians to achieve their goal. Abu Nidal and his group, called the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO), carried out scores of attacks against Israeli, Western, and even Palestinian targets. One such operation was an assassination attempt on Abbas and Arafat in Damascus that was foiled with the help of the Syrian intelligence services. A PLO panel tried Abu Nidal in absentia (in the absence of the person concerned) for the plot and issued a death sentence. Nidal remained an active, disruptive force in thepeaceprocessuntilthelate1980s,whenhedisappearedintoiraq. The Oslo Accords In the early 1970s Abbas served as PLO treasurer, and in 1980 he became the head of the Department of National and International Relations. Eventually he became secretary-general of the PLO executive committee, the organization s most powerful group. By 1988 he was serving as the PLO s national security adviser and foreign relations minister. Over the years Abbas earned a reputation as an intellectual and extremely practical man. He thought through the long-term implications of PLO positions and urged its leadership to take approaches that would bring about positive results, but he admitted years later that he and Arafat had at times disagreed strongly on vital issues. Abbas is thought to have been behind secret talks with political groups inside Israel that led to more widespread sympathy for the Palestinian call for an independent country. Abbas always believed that Palestinians could not overcome Israeli opposition through military force, simply because Israel s military power was vastly superior. Abbas, as quoted by an article on the CNN Web site, believed the only way [to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict] is the choice of peace. It is impossible to liberate Palestinians with the use of weapons because the balance of power is not with us. Middle East Conflict: Biographies, 2nd Edition 5
By the 1990s Abbas had a solid reputation and a wide network of contacts on both sides of the conflict. This made him the ideal person to participate in secret talks between the PLO and the Israelis in Oslo, Norway, in 1993. Neither the United States, which arranged the talks, nor Israel wanted to negotiate directly with Arafat, because they had long considered him to be a terrorist for his violent actions aimed at the destruction of Israel. Arriving on separate airplanes and meeting in secluded locations, Abbas s team and Israeli negotiators met to work out a peace deal. Under the deal, known as the Oslo Accords, Israel and the PLO recognized each other s existence, Israel agreed to allow Palestinians to rule themselves in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and the PLO agreed that Israel could protect its settlers in those areas. Abbas was the PLO representative who signed the agreement at the White House in Washington, D.C., on September 13, 1993, with Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres (1923 ; see entry). The Oslo Accords did not solve all the problems between Israel and the PLO, but it marked a major turning point in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The accords also amplified tensions inside Israel, with conservative political elements bitterly opposed to it. Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin (1922 1995; see entry) was assassinated in 1995 because of his participation in the Oslo Accords, and in the 1996 elections his Labor Party lost several seats in the Knesset, Israel s parliament, to the Likud Party. Becomes prime minister The Oslo Accords established the Palestinian Authority (PA) to act as the governing body for Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Arafat, as PLO leader, became the first president of the PA. While Arafat had been effective as the fiery leader of the PLO, he was less effective in his administrative duties as PA president. In the years after 1993, Arafat proved unable to control Palestinian militant groups that had refused to end the violence against Israel. He also proved unable to bring effective administration of health, education, and other services to Palestinians. In 2000 Palestinians in the occupied territories (the lands under the political and military control of Israel, especially the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) began what became known as the Second Intifada, or uprising. Unlike the First Intifada (1987 93), which was strictly an uprising against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, demonstrators used violence. Militant groups launched 6 Middle East Conflict: Biographies, 2nd Edition
rocket attacks against Israel and used suicide bombers. (A suicide bombing is an attack intended to kill others and cause widespread damage, carried about by someone who does not hope to survive the attack.) In 2001, as the uprising continued, Israeli forces placed Arafat under house arrest in his compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah. In 2002 Abbas agreed to a new peace plan proposed by the United States, the United Nations, Russia, and the European Union (EU; an economic and political association of European countries) called the Road Map for Peace. Israel objected to the plan, as did militant groups like Hamas (a Palestinian Islamic fundamentalist group and political party operating primarily in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with the goal of establishing a Palestinian state and opposing the existence of Israel), which continued their attacks on Israeli targets. Facing the collapse of the PA, Arafat finally agreed to one of the main points of the new peace plan, which was to appoint Abbas as prime minister of the PA, which he did in March 2003. Middle East political analysts commended the choice, for Abbas had long been known to Israeli leaders and others across the Arab world as a trusted, level-headed negotiator. In 2003 Abbas was named the first Palestinian prime minister, a position that required him to work closely with Palestinian president Yasser Arafat. # REUTERS/CORBIS. Middle East Conflict: Biographies, 2nd Edition 7
However, Abbas s authority as prime minister was limited. Abbas lobbied the PA parliament to grant him more authority to negotiate on its behalf and to improve the delivery of services within the occupied territories. He also sought to reign inmilitantgroups,whowerestepping up their attacks on Israeli targets. Arafat, meanwhile, had failed to follow through on some of the goals for achieving Palestinian sovereignty. With national liberation as his goal, Arafat was able to [ignore] such niceties of nation-building as creating an independent court system, explained journalist James Bennet in the New York Times in 2005. For many Palestinians, building a state before they have one puts the cart before the horse. Abbas made little progress as prime minister throughout the spring and summer of 2003. Publicly claiming that he was unwilling to govern while Arafat was undermining his power, Abbas resigned as prime minister on September 6, 2003, delivering his notice of resignation in a private meeting with the PA leadership. Elected president The friction between Abbas and Arafat ended permanently on November 11, 2004, when Arafat died in a Paris, France, hospital after a brief illness. The two had been estranged, not for the first time, for more than a year, but Abbas told Bennet in 2005 that the onset of Arafat s sudden illness in late October 2004 had prompted a reconciliation. I went to him, he recalled to Bennet. I talked to him, and I followed him to Paris. He is my brother, but the brothers also have their own differences. Arafat s death, widely mourned throughout the Arab world, immediately resulted in a power vacuum in the leadership of the PA. Abbas emerged as a possible presidential candidate, even though he had never before run for public office. Not surprisingly, there were several rivals for this position. Yet Abbas was the only candidate who offered a reasonable negotiating stance and a plan for ending corruption and bringing efficient government to the occupied territories. On January 9, 2005, Abbas received over 60 percent of the vote. In the name of God, this victory is for the soul of [Yasser] Arafat, Abbas told supporters on the night of his victory, according to Remnick. It s also a gift for the Palestinian people from [the cities of] Rafah to Jenin. Also for the souls of the martyrs and wounded and the eleven thousand prisoners in Israeli jails! They are all celebrating this victory with you now! 8 Middle East Conflict: Biographies, 2nd Edition
Abbas s election was hailed as a positive sign for peace in the Middle East. He even recieved a congratulatory phone call from Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon (1928 ; see entry). As a candidate, Abbas had spoken bluntly about the situation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and his outline for an end to the violence. I told them everything openly that I m against the armed intifada, I m against the rockets, he recalled in his 2005 interview with Bennet a few weeks after his victory. It was in the interest of our people. So I told them the truth, and for that... they elected me. Internal divisions Abbas faced grave challenges as the elected president of the PA, however, because the job gave him much more control over the PA than did his former position of prime minister. In early February he and Sharon met in the Egyptian Red Sea resort town of Sharm el Sheik for the first diplomatic talks since the start of the Second Intifada. The pair agreed to a truce, which Hamas pledged to honor. Sharon, meanwhile, carried out a controversial program, called the disengagement plan, to remove Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank. In the spring, Abbas announced that Hamas had met the requirements for participation in the upcoming parliamentary elections, scheduled for January 2006. Hamas candidates won a majority of seats. This stirred outrage in Israel and the West, and the victory placed Abbas in an awkward situation, in control of the country s foreign policy and security forces, but with Hamas in charge of virtually everything else, noted the New York Times in Times Topics: Mahmoud Abbas. The strains were [made worse] by Israel s move to cut off tax revenues that paid for the bulk of government salaries, and by the decision of the United States and the European Union to suspend most of its aid in protest of Hamas s refusal to recognize Israel or renounce violence. Tensions increased in the late spring and early summer of 2006 as Abbas tried to find support for a proposed referendum (a direct public vote on a single proposal) on a two-state solution, in which an independent Palestinian state would exist alongside Israel. Deadly attacks continued in the border areas, with militants of Hamas, Hezbollah (a militant group and political party based in Lebanon), and the al-aqsa Martyrs Brigade carrying out raids on and kidnappings of Israeli forces. This led to the outbreak of war once again, with the Israel Defense Forces launching a major assault Middle East Conflict: Biographies, 2nd Edition 9
on the Gaza Strip in June and on neighboring Lebanon in July. The conflict dragged on for months, with significant civilian casualties. Meanwhile, internal divisions continued to plague the PA. In 2007 Abbas and representatives of Hamas agreed to form a unity government. Despite this cooperation, however, fighting broke out between Hamas and Fatah, with the worst of the violence occurring in June. Finally Abbas dissolved the unity government. Abbas and Fatah took control of the West Bank, forming an interim (temporary) government, and Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip. The PA was divided in two. Seeks UN recognition Abbas s term as president expired in January 2009, but he extended it for one year under the terms of PA Basic Law. Hamas voiced its objection to this move and considered its political leader in the PA legislature, Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council Aziz Duwaik (c. 1950 ), the acting president. Abbas attempted to schedule new parliamentary elections for a date in early 2010, but with the PA effectively divided in two, the contestable legitimacy of the ballot would render any results legally invalid. Abbas has been praised for his effective management and meeting of the goals necessary for the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state, including the overhaul of its internal security services. He has been critical of Israel regarding its settlements in the West Bank and planned to make his case for the PA to be admitted as a full member of the United Nations. In an article he wrote for the New York Times in May 2011, Abbas argues that the United Nations had long ago voted to divide Palestine into two countries, then it formally recognized Israel as a sovereign member of the United Nations a few months later. The State of Palestine intends to be a peace-loving nation, committed to human rights, democracy, the rule of law and the principles of the United Nations Charter. Once admitted to the United Nations, our state stands ready to negotiate all core issues of the conflict with Israel, he writes. Palestine would be negotiating from the position of one United Nations member whose territory is militarily occupied by another, however, and not as a vanquished people ready to accept whatever terms are put in front of us. However, Abbas knew that only a united Palestine could press for UN recognition. Abbas met with representatives of Hamas in March 2011 and proposed the formation of a temporary government. Hamas unexpectedly agreed. In September 2011 Abbas appeared before the United Nations 10 Middle East Conflict: Biographies, 2nd Edition
Security Council to request recognition of a Palestinian state. One month later, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) voted in favor of granting Palestinian membership to that organization. However, the appeal for UN membership stalled in November 2011 when the Security Council committee reviewing the application failed to reach an agreement. For More Information BOOKS Abbas, Mahmoud. Through Secret Channels: The Road to Oslo. Ithaca, NY: Garnet, 1995. PERIODICALS Abbas, Mahmoud. The Long Overdue Palestinian State. New York Times (May 16, 2011). Available online at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/ opinion/17abbas.html?scp=4&sq=%22mahmoud+abbas%22&st=nyt (accessed on November 30, 2011). Bennet, James. Abbas Steps Down, Dealing Big Blow to U.S. Peace Plan. New York Times (September 7, 2003). Available online at http://www.nytimes. com/2003/09/07/world/mideast-turmoil-leadership-abbas-steps-downdealing-big-blow-us-peace-plan.html?scp=441&sq=%22mahmoud+ abbas%22&st=nyt&pagewanted=all (accessed on November 30, 2011). Bennet, James. The Interregnum. New York Times (March 13, 2005). Available online at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/magazine/ 13PALESTINIANS.html?sq=&st=nyt%22mahmoud%20abbas=%22=& scp=62&pagewanted=all&position= (accessed on November 30, 2011). Remnick, David. Checkpoint. New Yorker (February 7, 2005): 52. WEB SITES Eldar, Akiva. U.S. Told Us to Ignore Israeli Map Reservations. Haaretz (May 28, 2003). http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/u-s-told-us-toignore-israeli-map-reservations-1.8840 (accessed on November 30, 2011). Profile: Mahmoud Abbas. BBC News (November 5, 2009). http://news.bbc.co. uk/2/hi/middle_east/1933453.stm (accessed on November 30, 2011). Times Topics: Mahmoud Abbas. New York Times (May 5, 2011). http:// topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/mahmoud_abbas/ index.html (accessed on November 30, 2011). Who Is Mahmoud Abbas? CNN.com (January 7, 2005). http://www.cnn.com/ 2005/WORLD/meast/01/07/who.is.abbas/ (accessed on November 30, 2011). Middle East Conflict: Biographies, 2nd Edition 11