Posted on 03/10/2003 12:54:21 AM PST by Robert_Paulson2
Profile: Mahmoud Abbas
Mahmoud Abbas, the PLO Secretary General who is usually referred to as Abu Mazen, has been nominated by Yasser Arafat to be the Palestinian Authority's prime minister. He is the most senior Palestinian leader after Yasser Arafat and, as such, holds a symbolic importance for most Palestinians.
Born in Safed in British Mandate Palestine in 1935, he is one of the few surviving founder members of Fatah - the main political grouping within the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
A highly intellectual man, Abu Mazen studied law in Egypt before doing a PhD in Moscow. He is the author of several books. In exile in Qatar during the late 1950s, he helped recruit a group of Palestinians to the cause. They went on to become key figures in the PLO.
Security role
He co-founded Fatah with Yasser Arafat and accompanied him into exile in Jordan, Lebanon and Tunisia. In the early days of the movement, he became respected for his clean and simple living. Abu Mazen always kept to the background, but also built up a network of powerful contacts that included Arab leaders and heads of intelligence services. This enabled him to become a successful fundraiser for the PLO and to take on an important security role in the early 1970s, before being appointed head of the PLO's Department for National and International Relations in 1980.
Abu Mazen, regarded as a pragmatist, was one of the main initiators of the dialogue with Jewish left-wing and pacifist movements in the 1970s and in the difficult years before negotiations were eventually started between Israel and the Palestinians. Widely regarded as the architect of the Oslo peace process, he accompanied Mr Arafat to the White House in 1993 to sign the Oslo Accords.
Referring to the current intifada, Abu Mazen has called for a halt to armed attacks on Israeli targets to avoid giving Israel a pretext to destroy the last vestiges of Palestinian autonomy.
According to a transcript of comments made during a closed Fatah meeting at the end of last year, he said it was time for soul-searching. "We should... ask ourselves, not by beating ourselves up, but by reviewing the mistakes we made, where we are headed," he said, according to the transcript.
Palestinian return
In the light of his origins in Safed in Galilee - in what is now northern Israel - he is said to hold strong views about the right of return of Palestinian refugees. In the newly-formed Palestinian Authority, Abu Mazen took over the refugee file and pushed for progress on this issue.
It is his view that: "Everyone should first be granted the right of return, but then we have to sit down and discuss the details that have to be jointly agreed upon and mutually acceptable to both sides."
Mr Arafat has named Abu Mazen as one of two possible leaders of an interim government should he step down. The other is Ahmed Qurei, the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
Although Abu Mazen is not a charismatic figure and has no political machine of his own, he would be the most obvious choice in a presidential election for the Fatah rank and file, who would have a strong interest in uniting around a single candidate.
Analysts say Fatah - which remains the strongest faction in the PLO - would play an important role in choosing any successor to Mr Arafat. Ultimately, it controls the political infrastructure and would be the best equipped to mobilise supporters. As a high-profile member of the Palestinian leadership, who is also respected as a statesman both regionally and internationally, Abu Mazen would represent continuity and would be acceptable to the vast majority of Palestinians.
He is, however, no longer in the best of health, and it is unlikely that he would relish taking on such a role.
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