Love of the Land: Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority President

Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority President

John Perazzo
Frontpagemag.com
27 January '10

Click here to view the full Mahmoud Abbas profile.

Excerpts from the Mahmoud Abbas profile:

In the mid-1950s Abbas became involved in underground Palestinian politics, and joined a number of exiled Palestinians in Qatar. While there, he recruited numerous people who would become key figures in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and was one of the founding members of Fatah in 1957.

Through the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, Abbas travelled with Yasser Arafat and the rest of the PA leadership-in-exile to Jordan, Lebanon, and Tunisia. Widely regarded as a pragmatist, Abbas is credited with initiating secretive contacts with leftist and pacifist Jewish organizations during the 1970s and 80s, and is considered by many to have been a major architect of the 1993 Oslo peace accords (evidenced in part by the fact that he traveled with Arafat to the White House to sign the accords).

Love of the Land: Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority President