PNA's New Prime Minister to Strike Balance Between Ending Violence, Political Maneuvering

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, March 11, 2003

PNA's New Prime Minister to Strike Balance Between Ending Violence, Political Maneuvering

The Palestinian Legislative Council on Monday voted to create the post of Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), which will be taken up by Mahmoud Abbas, or Abu Mazen.

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The Palestinian Legislative Council on Monday voted to create the post of Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), which will be taken up by Mahmoud Abbas, or Abu Mazen.

Born in 1935 in then Palestinian city of Safad, Abu Mazen earneda B.A. in Law from Damascus University in Syria and a Ph.D. in History from Moscow's Oriental College. The white-haired soft-talking moderate within the PNA has devoted his entire career to the cause of fighting for Palestinian independence.

Being instrumental in initiating the 1965 Palestinian revolutionfor national independence, Mazen was one of founders of the Palestinian guerrilla faction Fatah, which merged with the PLO in 1967 to become its mainstream faction.

Mazen's political career took off in 1980 when he was appointed to the PLO Executive Committee, where he is currently holding the post of the secretary general.

Touted as No. 2 within the PNA and the heir apparent to PNA leader Yasser Arafat, Mazen has been playing a pivotal role in the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks and is well-known as a moderate persistent on his principles.

Mazen has been a permanent chief negotiator in the protracted Palestinian-Israeli peace talks aimed at reaching a just and comprehensive peace.

He laid down much of the basis for the secret negotiations with Israel in Oslo, Norway, which led to the Declaration of Principles that he signed with Israel on behalf of the PLO on September 13, 1993, in Washington.

"We have come to this point (Oslo Accords) because we believed that peaceful coexistence and cooperation are the only means for reaching understanding and for realizing the hopes of the Palestinians and the Israelis," he said.

The signing of the Declaration of Principles formally launched the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, which witnessed the signing of the Interim Peace Agreement in 1995.

Mazen is well known for his high sense of pragmatism and penchant for secret diplomacy, which have gained him acceptance among the Israelis.

But these same moderate views also caused him trouble with the hard-liners of his own camp. In August 2001, Israeli media reportedthat Mazen was one of seven Palestinian leaders on a hit list compiled by Palestinian militants for dealing with the Israelis.The Beilin-Abu Mazen document, which he reportedly reached with then Israeli minister Yossi Beilin in 1995, was denounced by Palestinian hard-liners as "a shameful document which leaves all the settlements untouched, and acknowledges Israeli sovereignty over most of the central West Bank." He denied the document��s existence.

Despite being widely regarded as a dove within the PNA, Mazen has nevertheless been adamant on several key issues in the peace talks, such the Palestinian sovereignty of Jerusalem, return of refugees and the Israeli settlements.

In an interview in 2000, he stated unequivocally: "We are not ready to concede the future of our people, our sovereignty on Jerusalem, and the right of return for refugees. We are not ready to accept Israeli presence on our land or the presence of settlements."

He declared that Jerusalem in whole should be under Palestinian sovereignty in future Palestinian-Israeli settlement, and Israel should remove all illegal settlements in the Palestinian territories and withdraw to the pre-1967 borders.

With the Palestinian-Israeli peace process halted indefinitely and the bloody conflicts repeating themselves every day, Mazen criticized the United States for its monopoly of the peace process.He demanded Washington exert more pressure on the hard-line Israeli leader Ariel Sharon rather than the Palestinian side."If the new US Secretary of State Colin Powell starts to repeat the Israeli ideas, he needs to know this tactic no longer works with us," he said.

"The United States should not have a monopoly of mediation over the peace process and negotiations because it has proven that it failed in this task," Mazen said, adding the Palestinians still demand for an international supervision of the peace process.Israel and the United States have sought the naming of a Palestinian premier to limit Arafat's authority with an aim to end the Palestinian violence and soften the Palestinian stance in future negotiations.

Mazen recently called for armed Palestinian factions to suspend attacks against Israel for one year to give peace a chance. More than 3,000 people, mostly Palestinian civilians, have been killed in the 29-month Palestinian Intifada, or uprising.But it remains to be seen how Mazen will strike a balance between dealing wisely with Israel and expanding his limited maneuvering room under the shadow of Yasser Arafat.

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