Mahmoud Abbas

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Mahmud Abbas (2009)

Mahmud Abbas ( Arabic محمود عباس, DMG Maḥmūd ʿAbbās ; int. also Mahmoud Abbas ; * March 26, 1935 in Safed , League of Nations mandate for Palestine ), called Abu Mazen (أبو مازن, DMG Abū Māzin ), is a leading politician in the Palestinian Fatah movement . Since November 2004 he has been chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), since January 15, 2005 President of the Palestinian Authority and since November 23, 2008 President of the State of Palestine . Abbas has been conducting official business without democratic legitimation since January 10, 2009. He was Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority from March to September 2003.

Youth and Studies

During the Palestine War in 1948, Mahmoud Abbas fled to Damascus with his parents . He studied English and Arabic literature as well as law at the university there .

He also studied at the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow history and received his doctorate in 1982 at the Faculty of Israeli policy with a thesis on the relationship between Zionism and Nazism 1933-1945 ( Связи между сионизмом и нацизмом (1933-1945 гг.) ). According to a report by the Middle East Media Research Institute , Abbas doubts in the foreword of his 1984 book in Arabic that is based on this dissertation, each with reference to well-known Holocaust deniers , that gas chambers were used to exterminate the Jews , and denies that in the Holocaust six million Jews were murdered. Instead, he speaks of “possibly less than a million”, although the murder of a single person is an unacceptable crime. He also claims that the entire Zionist movement conspired against the Jewish people and collaborated with the Nazis to "expand the mass extermination".

Political career

Abbas was one of the founders of the PLO and the Fatah movement in the early 1960s. In 1968 Abbas became Secretary General of the Executive Committee of the PLO and a member of the Palestinian National Council (PNC).

Abu Daud , who was primarily responsible for the attack on the Israeli Olympic team in Munich in 1972 , claimed that Abbas, as the PLO's chief financial officer, knew about the attack and supported it financially. However, he contradicted this statement in an interview.

In 1980 Abbas was elected to the head of the PLO board of directors and was his unofficial deputy until the death of Yasser Arafat . Mahmud Abbas was involved in the negotiations of the Oslo Accords and signed them on September 13, 1993 together with Arafat and Yitzchak Rabin . Abbas is held in high regard within the PLO. Outside of the PLO, however, he was "in the eyes of the Palestinian population as a personification of nepotism and self-enrichment."

Appointed Prime Minister in 2003

Mahmud Abbas, George W. Bush and Ariel Sharon at the Aqaba Summit in early June 2003

On March 19, 2003, Abbas was officially asked by Yasser Arafat to take over the office of Prime Minister. The governments of Israel and the United States had previously put Arafat under massive pressure because they wanted to turn him off as a discussion partner for peace negotiations and instead want to negotiate with Abbas, who is considered more moderate. Abbas was then given full powers to restructure the administration, finance and security.

Abbas's appointment as prime minister did not bring the hoped-for movement to the peace process in the Middle East . In public he went into opposition to Arafat, calling for democratic reforms and a strengthening of parliament, and calling the end of the Second Intifada a “mistake”, which sabotaged Arafat Abbas' work. This and the lack of support within the population, who saw him as a "puppet of Israel" and linked Abbas' family to corruption , made his work more difficult. Above all, the fight against terror, which Israel and its Prime Minister Ariel Sharon demanded as a prerequisite for Israeli concessions, could not be effectively advanced under Abbas.

Abbas eventually failed as prime minister after the so-called "road map" ( Roadmap ), the peace plan for the Palestinian territories , Palestinian by several suicide bombings and an Israeli missile attack on Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin in August 2003 had failed. Abbas then submitted his resignation to Yasser Arafat on September 6, after just 100 days, who accepted the resignation and asked him to remain in office until a new cabinet was formed. A day later, Mahmoud Abbas officially announced his resignation as Palestinian prime minister and justified his decision not only with disappointment at the lack of support in the Palestinian parliament but also with Israel's refusal to participate constructively in the peace plan. He went on to express his displeasure that Israel was being put under too little pressure by the international community, especially the US.

Arafat installed Ahmad Qurai , the previous President of Parliament, as Abbas's successor . On September 10th he agreed to take over the office. However, Qurai was considered to be much less reliable than Abbas, as he was accused of corruption on a large scale, among other things.

2005 presidential election

After Yasser Arafat's death, Mahmoud Abbas took over from him as PLO chairman and was nominated by Fatah as a candidate for the Palestinian presidential elections. On January 9, 2005, he was elected President of the Palestinian Authority by the Palestinians with 62.3 percent of the vote. The result was well received in the western world. In his inaugural address he said: “I give this victory to the soul of Yasser Arafat and I give it to our people, our martyrs and the 11,000 prisoners in Israel.” He also called on the Palestinians to end armed resistance against Israel. Javier Solana described the election as a historic opportunity for a peace solution, US President Bush invited Abbas to Washington for talks and Shimon Peres praised the victory as the “beginning of a new process”.

The Hamas had initially called for a boycott of the presidential election, this election but accepted subsequently given the high electoral victory. Hasan Yusif , the head of Hamas in the West Bank , no longer ruled out recognition of Israel in principle. Mahmud al-Zahar , head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip , stated in an interview that Hamas would "not give up the resistance" and ruled out recognition of Israel. Despite his efforts to find a peaceful solution to the Middle East conflict , the armed resistance continued during Mahmoud Abbas' term in office. A ceasefire negotiated by Hamas and Islamic Jihad on January 23rd was broken on February 12th by an attack on Israeli settlements. Israel also carried out military operations in Palestinian territories. On April 9, three Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip.

Abbas traveled to North America in May and spoke to US President George W. Bush and Canada's Prime Minister Paul Martin . As a result of these talks, President Bush promised him US $ 50 million in financial aid for housing construction in the Gaza Strip. Canada pledged $ 9.5 million in support for legal reform, housing, election monitoring, border management, and grants for Palestinian refugee women in Lebanon .

The conflict between the Palestinians and Israel did not abate later in the year . Abbas therefore announced on August 9, 2005 that the parliamentary elections, which were originally scheduled for July 17, would be postponed to January 2006.

General election 2006

In the parliamentary elections on January 25, 2006, Fatah suffered a severe defeat and lost the majority in the Palestinian parliament; Hamas achieved an absolute majority, which meant that the president was obliged to entrust it with forming a government. Responsibility for this defeat has often been attributed to Mahmoud Abbas, who during his tenure failed to mitigate the Palestinian people's concerns about corruption within the PA. Abbas's willingness to sit down at the table with Israel and the United States is also viewed critically by many Palestinians. One day after the elections, Mahmoud Abbas, impressed by the defeat of his party, declared that after his current term of office (until 2009) he would not be available for another term as president of the autonomous authority. After the new cabinet as sole government of Hamas under the leadership of Ismail Haniyya was confirmed by the Palestinian parliament on March 28, 2006, diplomatic relations with the western world, especially the USA, deteriorated due to Hamas' continued aggressive stance towards Israel, which Abbas did 'Position continued to weaken. On May 15, 2006 Abbas met in Sochi for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin .

In the course of 2006, despite the agreement reached by Abbas and Haniyyas on August 16 to form a new so-called “government of national unity”, violent power struggles continued. On February 8, 2007, Fatah and Hamas initially settled their conflict at the peace conference in Mecca, and Mahmoud Abbas commissioned Ismail Haniyya on February 15 to form a unity government made up of Hamas and Fatah. On March 17, Mahmoud Abbas' new cabinet was sworn in and the situation seemed to be gradually calming down. Although Israel boycotted the new government, Abbas met Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem in April 2007 to discuss the framework for a future Palestinian state.

Abbas with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, 2007

Civil War in the Palestinian Territories in 2007

At the same time, the conflicts in the Gaza Strip began to break out again and in June assumed civil war-like proportions, so that on June 15, after Fatah had almost completely lost its influence in the Gaza Strip, Mahmoud Abbas declared the unity cabinet to be deposed and an emergency government from Fatah Members and many independents, headed by the then finance minister Salam Fayyad , who belongs to the Third Way party and thus neither of the two major currents. Both the European Union and the United States supported Abbas in this decision and condemned the Hamas takeover in the Gaza Strip. For example, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that Abbas had made use of his "rightful powers as president" in the dissolution of the government. In the dispute between Fatah and Hamas, Abbas was also backed by Russia, the Egyptian President Husni Mubarak , the Jordanian King Abdullah II and the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert . Abbas then repeatedly spoke out in favor of a policy of understanding with Israel, and at a Middle East conference in Annapolis, USA at the end of November 2007, a joint declaration with Olmert followed, in which both expressed their will to serious peace negotiations.

Elected Palestinian State President 2008

On November 23, 2008, the Palestinian National Council of the PLO unanimously elected Abbas as president of "a future state [Palestine]," a post last held by Yasser Arafat. The Israeli Haaretz rated this step as a "mainly symbolic demonstration of sympathy".

Operation Cast Lead , re-election by Fatah and attempted reconciliation with Hamas

At the beginning of March 2008 Abbas suspended all contacts in the peace process in protest against Israel after an air-to-ground offensive by the Israeli army against Palestinian missile commandos in the Gaza Strip resulted in several deaths. At the same time, human rights organizations came to the conclusion that the plight in the Gaza Strip due to an Israeli blockade was worse than it was since 1967. In the period that followed, there was repeated violent fighting between Fatah and Hamas. At the end of December 2008, a six-month peace treaty between Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Israel expired. As a result, 30 rockets were fired into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, provoking heavy attacks by the Israeli air force and, in early January 2009, a three-week Israeli ground offensive ( Operation Cast Lead ). After Israel withdrew, Abbas spoke out at an Arab summit in Kuwait in favor of implementing an Egyptian ceasefire initiative and deploying international protection forces in the Gaza Strip, which Hamas rejected.

After failed talks between Fatah and Hamas, the then Prime Minister Salam Fayyad mid-March 2009 represented a re dominated by Fatah government before; Abba's own term of office had actually expired in January of that year, but was declared to be extended by a year due to a changed interpretation of the electoral law in order to be able to organize the upcoming elections in 2010. These elections were later postponed indefinitely. Abbas has governed since then without any democratic legitimation, which ended on January 9, 2009 when his four-year term in office expired.

In April 2009 Abbas was received by US President Barack Obama , who, in addition to the suspension of Israeli settlement activities in the occupied territories, called for the Palestinians to increase security in the West Bank and to take clear action against anti-Israeli incitement in schools and mosques. The conversation was seen as part of the new Middle East policy under Obama's new administration. As a result, in mid-June 2009, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a speech for the first time in favor of a two-state solution with the Palestinians. A few weeks later, Fatah General Secretary Faruq al-Qadumi , who was in exile, made serious allegations against Abbas. According to minutes, Abbas met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and high-ranking representatives of the US government in March 2004. Among other things, Sharon has called for the poisoning of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat (1929-2004) and the murder of important Palestinian leaders. Much of this was later put into practice.

In early August 2009 Abbas was re-elected as chairman of his moderate organization Fatah.

In September 2009, the was UN Human Rights Council -commissioned UN special report headed by former South African judge Richard Goldstone published in which both Israel and the Hamas was accused during Operation " Cast Lead " war crimes and possibly crimes against To have committed humanity . In response to economic pressure from the USA , Mahmud Abbas agreed on October 2, 2009 not to allow the UN Human Rights Council to accept the Goldstone report and to put it on hold until spring 2010. This sparked a wave of indignation among the Palestinians.

In December 2009 Abbas' term of office was extended indefinitely by an election within the PLO. The popular legitimation through free elections, which is customary in democracies, did not take place.

At the beginning of May 2011, Abbas and Ismail Haniyya (Hamas) signed, to the surprise of many, a reconciliation agreement that the Egyptian leadership had drawn up a year and a half earlier on behalf of the Arab League . Both parliamentary groups planned to form a joint transitional government and then to hold parliamentary elections two years late. Palestinian political experts attributed this step to the Arab uprisings since the beginning of 2011. However, negotiations about a joint government failed for the second time after 2009, so that this time Fayyad formed a government made up of Fatah representatives and independents.

Application for UN membership of Palestine

On September 23, 2011 Abbas applied for full membership for a state of Palestine at the United Nations. He justified his move primarily with the failed negotiations for a peace settlement between Israelis and Palestinians, which began in September 2010 with the participation of the USA, the Middle East Quartet , Egypt, Jordan and the two conflicting parties. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu called on the UN General Assembly not to comply with the Palestinian request. He insisted that Israel must maintain a long-term military presence in an independent Palestinian state even after a peace agreement; Abbas rejects this. Abbas' speech in New York had been broadcast on big screens across the West Bank. Thousands of Palestinians celebrated their country's application.

Joined the International Criminal Court

After the failed peace resolution in the United Nations Security Council in April 2014, Abbas started joining the International Criminal Court (ICC). The peace resolution, which would have asked Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian territories by 2017, had been rejected by a narrow majority, and the US had also vetoed it. On December 31, 2014 Abbas signed 22 international treaties, including the Rome Statute , the legal basis for the criminal court in The Hague. The Hamas leadership had agreed to this move and agreed to the risk of being charged with war crimes on their part, as long as the Palestinian war crimes allegations against the Israeli military and their leadership were investigated by the ICC.

With a ratification of the Rome Statute, the court will have jurisdiction over war crimes and crimes against humanity in Palestine, including the Gaza Strip. Abbas said: “They attack us and our country every day, and to whom can we complain? The Security Council has let us down - who should we turn to? ”In the 50-day Gaza War in July 2014, triggered by continuous rocket fire on Israel from the Gaza Strip, almost 2,200 Palestinians were killed and 67 soldiers died on the Israeli side and six civilians.

Anti-Semitic speech to the Palestinian National Council

On May 1, 2018, Abbas gave an anti-Semitic speech to the Palestinian National Council in which he blamed the Jews for the Holocaust . This was not triggered by anti-Semitism, but by the “social behavior” of the Jews, said Abbas. Abbas also included lending money . In his speech he also took the view that the Jewish people had no historical roots in the Middle East region.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin then said that Abbas said in his speech “exactly what led him to be accused of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial years ago ”. Abbas had already denied the importance of the Holocaust in his doctoral thesis, which he submitted in the early 1980s and accused the Zionist movement of collaborating with the Hitler regime . Also in 2018, Abbas had already described Israel in a controversial speech in January as a “colonial project”, “that has nothing to do with Jews, the Jews were instead used as tools”.

On May 4, 2018, Abbas apologized for his statements before the National Council in a public communication and distanced himself from anti-Semitism "in all its forms". His apology was not accepted by, for example, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman . Abbas had already spoken out in favor of recognizing the fact of the Holocaust with six million victims on April 27, 2014, the commemoration day of Yom HaScho'a , and had also expressed his condolences to the Jews, but afterwards he apparently withdrew from his stance.

family

Mahmud Abbas has three sons: Mazen, Yasser and Tareq. Best known is Yassir Abbas , who is a multimillionaire with a Canadian passport.

Fonts

  • Ṭarīq Ūslū: muwaqqiʿ al-ittifāq yarwī al-asrār al-ḥaqīqīya li'l-mufāwaḍāt . Šarikat al-Maṭbūʿāt li'ṭ-Tauzīʿ wa'n-Našr, Bairūt 1994
  • Through secret channels: the road to Oslo: senior PLO leader Abu Mazen's revealing story of the negotiations with Israel . Garnet Publishing, Reading 1995, ISBN 1-85964-047-8

Web links

Commons : Mahmud Abbas  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b PLO unanimously elects Abbas president of future Palestinian state , Haaretz, November 23, 2008
  2. ↑ Palestinian Leader: Number of Jewish Victims in the Holocaust Might be 'Even Less Than a Million…'. Zionist Movement Collaborated with Nazis to 'Expand the Mass Extermination' of the Jews. In: Inquiry & Analysis Series No. 95. memri.org , May 31, 2002, accessed May 4, 2018 .
  3. ^ Dana Krauße: Mahmoud Abbas Holocaust denier, Oslo architect and hope. In: Israel Network . March 21, 2003, accessed May 4, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Die tageszeitung : “Of course violence creates counter violence” , February 3, 2006
  5. ↑ Muriel Asseburg: On the way to a viable Palestinian state ?, in: Dietmar Herz, Christian Jetzlsperger, Kai Ahlborn (ed.): The Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Backgrounds, dimensions and perspectives. Volume 48 of Historical Communications - Supplements Series. Franz Steiner Verlag 2003, p. 135
  6. ↑ CNN : Palestinian prime minister Abbas resigns , September 6, 2003
  7. ↑ An intelligent, experienced man. FAZ , January 10, 2005, archived from the original on October 25, 2006 ; accessed on May 30, 2014 .
  8. ↑ BBC : Abbas achieves landslide poll win , January 26, 2006.
  9. ↑ Israeli troops kill Palestinian teenagers. Al Jazeera , April 11, 2005, accessed May 30, 2014 .
  10. ↑ Bush supports Abbas. In: tagesspiegel.de . May 27, 2005, accessed May 2, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Canada pledges aid to Abbas. Al Jazeera , April 11, 2005, accessed May 30, 2014 .
  12. ↑ WSWS.org: Palestinian elections show widespread hostility towards Abbas , Jan. 26, 2006.
  13. ↑ BBC : Abbas 'will not be leader again' , January 26, 2006.
  14. ↑ Tagesschau : Fatah and Hamas agree on the distribution of power (tagesschau.de archive), February 8, 2007.
  15. ↑ Tagesschau : Chronicle: From Power Struggle to Civil War (tagesschau.de archive), June 14, 2007.
  16. ↑ Tagesschau : Fajad is said to be Abbas' new premier (tagesschau.de archive), June 15, 2007.
  17. ↑ An inglorious anniversary. In: Israelnetz .de. January 9, 2019, accessed January 19, 2019 .
  18. ↑ a b cf. Mahmoud Abbas . In: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 19/2007 from May 12, 2007 (la), supplemented by news from MA-Journal up to week 29/2009 (accessed on August 8, 2009 via Munzinger Online)
  19. ↑ cf. Mahmud Abbas re-elected as Fatah boss at focus.de, August 8, 2009 (accessed August 8, 2009).
  20. ↑ Karin Leukefeld: Strike Against Peace . In: Junge Welt on October 7, 2009, last accessed on September 24, 2011.
  21. ↑ Fatah leaders are preparing for Erbkampf In: Israel Network .com, August 23, 2018 accessed on 3 September 2018th
  22. ^ Zeit Online : Abbas: Time has come for the Palestinian state . ( Memento from January 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), from September 23, 2011 on www.zeit.de
  23. ↑ amz / yas / dpa / Reuters / AFP / dapd: General Assembly in New York: Palestinians celebrate application for UN membership. In: Spiegel Online . September 23, 2011, accessed May 2, 2020 .
  24. ↑ UN rejection sends harsh wake-up call to Abbas , Haaretz on January 1, 2015
  25. ↑ Palestine files 'Israeli war crimes' probe request with accession letter to ICC - report , RT on January 1, 2015
  26. ↑ Israel classifies military operations in summer as war , FAZ on January 1, 2015
  27. ↑ a b fdi / dpa: Mahmoud Abbas blames Jews for the Holocaust. In: Spiegel Online . May 1, 2018, accessed May 2, 2020 .
  28. ↑ Anti-Semitic speech: Abbas blames Jews for the Holocaust. In: Zeit Online. May 2, 2018, accessed May 1, 2018 .
  29. ↑ Abbas apologizes for anti-Semitic remarks. Retrieved May 4, 2018 .
  30. ↑ Monika Bolliger: Late insight - the Palestinian President comments on the Holocaust . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . No. 97 . Zurich April 28, 2014, p. 4 .
  31. ↑ Joint union catalog: bibliographical evidence . In: Common library network .
  32. ^ Israel Union Catalog: bibliographical reference . In: The National Library of Israel .
personal data
SURNAME Abbas, Mahmud
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Abu Mazen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Palestinian politician
DATE OF BIRTH March 26, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Safed , Galilee