Mahmoud Abbas

Biography

Born in 1935 with Safed, a town of Galileo now Israeli, Mahmoud Abbas is a child who lives in the middle of the conflicts. At the thirteen years age, he flees with foot the Palestine to go to take refuge in Syria.

Indeed, in 1948, it leaves with its family her native house which it will find only forty six years later, in September 1994, transformed into a Yeshiva, a talmudic school.

With Damas, where it is taken refuge with its close relations, the Mahmoud young person works as tile-layer to pay his studies, then obtains his baccalaureat with the Université of Damas before going in Egypt or it will study the right. It supplements its formation with the Eastern college of Moscow where it obtains a doctorate in history.

In 1982, Abbas writes her thesis, under the direction of Ievgueni Primakov: “ the back of the decoration: secret relations between the Nazism and the Zionism ” in which it will question in particular the number of the victims of Shoah. This thesis highly was criticized and shown negationnism. He will retort and moderate later by calling upon the context: “ We were then in war with Israel. The Holocauste was terrible, unforgettable crime against the Jewish people, a crime against the humanity which cannot be accepted by mankind. ”

July 20th, 2007 Mahmoud Abbas receives in Muqattah the PRICE OF the FOUNDATION - Forum of Notches Montana " hands of its President-Founder Mr. Jean-Paul Carteron especially come to Ramallah in the presence of the Ambassador from the Swiss Confederation.

Its engagement

In the years 1950, Abbas starts to strongly imply himself in the Palestinian policy. It leaves to settle with the Qatar where it occupies a big role in the civil service of the emirate as a personnel manager. It makes fortune without never giving up quickly its engagement towards the Palestinian cause. Moreover, it is given the responsability to recruit a great number of those who will become characters - keys in the Liberation organization of Palestine.

Abbas is also one of the founding members of the Fatah in 1959 with Yasser Arafat and Farouk Kaddoumi; it deals with collecting funds for its creation thanks to its relations in the Gulf. But it joined the group armed officially only in 1961, by adopting like name of war that of Abu Mazen (father of Mazen, its oldest son). It is of habit in the Arab countries “to re-elect” the people of a certain maturity by such a name.

During the Years 1960, 1970 and 1980, it follows Yasser Arafat in her various places of exile. Regarded as moderate, it discreetly approaches the left Israeli, and encourages contacts between the PLO and of the Israeli mediums of left. He is opposed to the sights of the extremists various Palestinian movements. Mohammed Daoud Odeh, the brain of the taking of hostage of the Israeli athletes at the time of the Olympic Games of Munich, affirms that it is implied there.

Years 1990

In the years 1990, profiting from the support of Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas carries out the necessary steps to start the secret negotiations of PLO with Israel which lead to the peace process of Oslo: the September 13rd 1993, it signs the peace agreements. On its return in Palestine in 1995, he becomes General secretary of the organization.

At the beginning of the the Second Intifada, its position becomes difficult whereas he asks the stop of the attacks against Israel, which regards it as a valid interlocutor. The April 29th 2003, under the pressure of the “Four-bit byte” (the United States, Russia, European Union, UNO), Yasser Arafat appoints it Prime Minister. It helps with the installation of the “Roadmap for peace” envisaging the creation of a Palestinian State. Regarded as pragmatic by the various parts and because of the fact that the United States and Israel refuse to dialog with Yasser Arafat, he becomes the principal interlocutor of the negotiations. He is opposed moreover to the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad Palestinian. The death threats multiply and, because of a conflict with Yasser Arafat on the nomination of the Minister for Safety, Mahmoud Abbas resigns of her station the September 7th 2003, replaced by Ahmed Qorei.

Its role of Prime Minister

With the beginning of the year 2003, owing to the fact that Israelis and States-Uniens indicated their refusal to negotiate with Yasser Arafat, Abbas starts to make known himself as a candidate for a role of Palestinian leader.

Being one of the founding members of the Fatah, Mahmoud Abbas reaches an high degree of credibility in the Palestinian company. Its candidature for the post of Prime Minister is reinforced by the fact that no other person seemed admissible. Its main competitor, Marwan Barghouti, centrist laic but supported in writing pad by part of integrist and which in the surveys arrived in second position, outdistancing the five other candidates by far, are stopped by Israel and put in prison.

The reputation of Abbas plays in her favor and Yasser Arafat must undergo the pressure of the Palestinian legislature to appoint it Prime Minister. March 19th, 2003, Mahmoud Abbas becomes Prime Minister for the Palestinian Authority.

At the beginning, Yasser Arafat tries to minimize the new post of Prime Minister, but it is obliged thereafter to leave in Abbas a certain degree of being able. However, the limits of the capacity between the hands of Abbas as a Prime Minister continue to be the source of many conflicts between this last and Yasser Arafat concerning the distribution of the capacities. Abbas must often threaten to resign of her station if it does not obtain more control on the administration of the Palestinian Autorité. At the beginning of the month of September 2003, Abbas confronts the Parliament of the Palestinian Authority with her problems. The the United States and Israel show Yasser Arafat to lower Abbas and her government.

In parallel, Abbas enters in conflict with Palestinian militant groups, in particular the Islamic Jihad and the Hamas. Its political approach is diametrically opposed to their, the very hard one. At the beginning, he refuses to employ the force against the militants in order to avoid a civil war and, in the place, tries negotiations. Those succeed partially, having for result an engagement of the two groups to honor a unilateral Palestinian cease-fire. But violence and the attacks begin again on the two sides, and force Abbas to set up limits at these groups in order to confirm the position of the Palestinian Autorité on the process set up for peace.

All this will lead to a fight between Yasser Arafat and Abbas about the command of the Palestinian troops of the security services.

Resignation

The September 4th, 2003, the death threats emanating of the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad against Mahmoud Abbas start to flow, Hamas shows it treason for “ to have given up the sacro-saints principles of the national movement ”. Two days later, on September 6th, he convenes the Palestinian Legislative council and explains the reasons to them for which he decides to resign: incapacity to carry out its functions vis-a-vis the opposition of Yasser Arafat and other members of the Palestinian Authority and with the lack of support of the the United States and Israel.

It continues to manage the go concern to the entry according to its successor, Ahmed Qorei, elected the October 7th, 2003.

Following her resignation, Abbas tries to be made forget but, in January 2004, he is seen in the band of Gaza discussing with Palestinian factions.

In an interview with the famous magazine Newsweek the June 13rd, 2004, Mahmoud Abbas will reveal the primary reasons of her resignation, it announces that it feared for its life because of increasingly hostile protests vis-a-vis its control when he was still Prime Minister. When the journalist asks him “for How much protests were incited by the president Yasser Arafat? ”, it answers, “ I will not quote anybody who can be in connection with these protests. But understand that I did not have any relationship with the President about my resignation to date . ”

President of the Palestinian Authority

With died of Yasser Arafat in November 2004, Mahmoud Abbas gains the presidential election of January 9th, 2005. Three days front, he had declared: “ I am obliged to continue the policy of Yasser Arafat. I am related to the last speech of Arafat in front of the constitutive Council - of August 18th, 2004 - If it is about a speech extremist, as some claim it, I am also extremist, but I make some am not it. I read again it and I can assure you that the remarks of Arafat are logical and pragmatic and that I adhere completely to it”. It takes its functions as of the January 16th. Ariel Sharon declares that the condition sine qua non with any progress towards the revival of a political process is “ the complete stop of terrorism ” i.e. of all the phases of resistance to the occupation, including fight against the occupying army and against the colonists, as well as the crushing of all the terrorist organizations, “ It is of acts on the ground and not about idle talk . ” As of the January 13rd, in the week even of the election, the Palestinian activists kill six Israelis in an attack against the border post of Karni between Israel and the Gaza Strip. The attack is asserted, like an joint action, by the Brigades Izz Aldine Al-Qassam, by the military branches of the Hamas, by the Bataillons of Saladin, by the Brigades of the Al-Aqsa martyrs, a movement of the mobility of the Fatah, the own party of Mahmoud Abbas. The border post of Karni is particularly strategic, because it is the only entrance point of the goods which supply the Gaza Strip and the 1,5 million Palestinians who live there.

Mahmoud Abbas, who condemned this attack, is in favor of the end of the armed struggle and the demilitarization of the Intifada which it describes as against-productive, because according to its remarks, the only four years tangible and half result of attacks and attacks was to increase the weight of the Occupation and the suffering of the Palestinian people, but it will as say to Sharon as the end of the occupation which has lasted soon for thirty-eight years is the key of peace. The Israeli stoppings installed everywhere in the West Bank make the life unbearable, make inflate the unemployment of 55%, obliging half of the Palestinian population to living below the poverty line.

The January 26th 2006, the Hamas gains the Palestinian legislative elections vis-a-vis Fatah. Mahmoud Abbas thus asks him to form the next government and names Ismaël Haniyeh as a Prime Minister.

The June 14th 2007, Mahmoud Abbas dismisses Ismaël Haniyeh following a violent attempt at takeover of the Hamas in the Gaza Strip. He issues the state of emergency and, the following day, indicates independent the Salam Fayyad like new chief of the Government.

Stakes at the time of its election

At the time of its election, the organizations activists did not want to deposit the weapons without obtaining counterparts and guarantees, in particular political; for that they multiplied the operations armed throughout the electoral campaign, while drawing from the rockets and the blows of mortars against Israel and the Jewish colonies of the Gaza Strip, in order to render comprehensible in Mahmoud Abbas who it will not be the only one with being able to decide end of the intifada.

According to Samy Abou Zohri, one of the spokesperson of the Hamas: “ Mahmoud Abbas was elected with the head of the Palestinian authority, and not of the Palestinian people. It thus should as fast as possible start the dialog with the other Palestinian components, of which Hamas (...) Palestinian resistance has nothing to do with the political process. The intifada was not started by an individual, and will not be stopped by an individual. This decision will be made collectively, around a table and not by making statements in front of the cameras. ”

It seemed that the islamist movements, like the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad Palestinian which are close to the population and know how much this intifada is increasingly hard and unbearable for the Palestinian population, would not be opposed to a truce with Israel. But they wanted not only to be associated with the future negotiations, but to obtain a political place of choice in the future Palestinian State, and to avoid being marginalized by the end of the armed operations, in order to keep their popularity near the Palestinian popular layers.

Lastly, within the framework of the Fatah, the new President was going to have to engage an in-depth reform of the organization, because it is undermined since years by generalized corruption and the internal struggles. Many adversaries of Mahmoud Abbas, fear that the end of the intifada and demilitarization, does not deprive them to be able to them and their resources, and thus of their influence within the movement created by Yasser Arafat.

From the point of view of Ariel Sharon, her objective of disengagement of the Gaza Strip - as revealed it its adviser Dov Weisglass - is intended to confer a permanent statute on the establishments of the West Bank in order to annex them, whereas for Mahmoud Abbas, the continuation of colonization and that of the construction of the Wall on the grounds of the future Palestinian State with an aim of legalizing the annexations in the West Bank prevents any payment of peace with Israel.

Vision of the Israelis

In a general way, the Israelis, “ maintain a reasonable hope ” and hope that the new president of the Palestinian Autorité, that they always call under the name of Abou Mazen , will have the capacity to be “Palestinian Gorbatchev”. According to the Minister for Justice, Tzipi Livni: “ we must do everything to reinforce the statute of dirigant of Abou Mazen, on the basis of the principle which it is able to control the terrorist groups ”

59% of the Israelis estimate that Israel must help it provided that he fights against terrorism. According to the Israeli survey institute Smith: “ They hope for positive changes… but they wait to see what it will concretely do… For the moment it seems somebody of weak, vis-a-vis all the armed groups. ”

According to the political entourage of Ariel Sharon, the attack of Karni is a warning showing that it is impossible to be unaware of terror, to circumvent it to manage agreements… the Palestinians must fight terror, without that it will be impossible to make progress ”. Israel with the will to withdraw Gaza Strip, which confirms the retirement scheme, but the armed groups Palestinian are likely to multiply the attacks while hoping to show thus, their importance and to affirm their victory and the accuracy of the cause of the weapons. The Israeli government think that Abou Mazen can take some measurements quickly:

to order with the Palestinian media to put a term at the incentive with violence against Israel;
to prohibit the wearing of weapons as a public;
to prevent rocket fires artisanal against the Israeli territory and the Jewish colonies;
to redeploy the Palestinian troops so that they intervene more effectively against the encagoulés militants.

See too

External bond

Which is Abou Mazen?

Zh-yue: 阿巴斯

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