People You Should Know: Mahmoud Abbas

Mahmoud Abbas

- elected president of Palestinian National Authority in January 2005.
- served as the first Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority from March to October 2003 when he resigned citing lack of support from Israel and the United States as well as "internal incitement" against his government.
- considered leading politician in Fatah.
- is regarded as an intellectual pragmatist by some.
- wrote in his book The Other Side: the Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism: "It seems that the interest of the Zionist movement, however, is to inflate this figure [of Holocaust deaths] so that their gains will be greater. This led them to emphasize this figure [six million] in order to gain the solidarity of international public opinion with Zionism. Many scholars have debated the figure of six million and reached stunning conclusions—fixing the number of Jewish victims at only a few hundred thousand." Later saying, "I wrote in detail about the Holocaust and said I did not want to discuss numbers. 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. I have no desire to argue with the figures. The Holocaust was a terrible, unforgivable 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."
- has often been at odds with Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Palestine.
- On 6/14/2007, Abbas dissolved the Hamas government and declared a state of emergency in response to the increased violence in the Gaza strip. Afterwards, Hamas fighters have claimed to be in control of Abbas' presidential compound. On 6/18, hours after the EU promised to resume direct aid to the Palestinians, Abbas dissolved the National Security Council, a sticking point in the defunct unity government with Hamas. That same day, the United States decided to end its 15-month embargo on the Palestinian Authority and resume aid, attempting to strengthen Abbas's West Bank government. One day later, the Fatah Central Committee cut off all ties and dialogue with Hamas, pending the return of Gaza.