Is President Mahmoud Abbas facing difficulties?

(Baonghean) - A year after the formation of a national unity government with the participation of the Fatah party and the Hamas Islamic Movement, the Palestinian people hoped to live in peace, as everyone knew that the Hamas Islamic Movement had long been the biggest obstacle in the Middle East peace process. However, on June 17th, the national unity government of Prime Minister Rami Hamdalla submitted his resignation, which was accepted. This also means that the peace plan for the Gaza Strip, which President Mahmoud Abbas has been pursuing, will face many difficulties…

Mahmoud Abbas, commonly known as Abu Mazen, was born in Safed, a British Mandate territory in Palestine, on March 26, 1935. He and his family fled to Syria during the 1948 Israeli Incident and returned to Palestine in 1995. He is one of the few surviving founders of Fatah, the largest political group within the PLO. During his exile in Qatar in the late 1950s, he rallied Palestinians fighting for an independent state. These individuals later became key figures in the PLO.

Compared to his fellow fighters, Mahmoud Abbas stood out as a highly accomplished intellectual. He earned a law degree from the University of Damascus (1985) before successfully defending his doctoral dissertation in history at the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies (1982) and authored several valuable research books on the history of his homeland, as well as other topics. Among them was the book "The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism." Immediately after the publication of this work, the Jewish community harshly criticized his doctoral degree.

President M. Abbas (right) and Prime Minister R. Hamdallah met with members of the new Palestinian cabinet a year ago.

Mahmoud Abbas built a powerful network of relationships with Arab leaders and influential intelligence agency directors. This made him a highly successful fundraiser for the PLO and gave him a crucial role in internal security from the early 1970s. He was then appointed head of the PLO's internal and external relations department in 1980. He was a cornerstone in initiating dialogue with Israeli peace and left-wing movements in the 1970s. Furthermore, he played a key role in maintaining these relationships during the difficult years leading up to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. One of Mahmoud Abbas's major political achievements before becoming president was his recognition as the architect of the Oslo peace process. He accompanied President Yasser Arafat to the White House in 1993 to sign the Oslo Accords.

In April 2003, Mahmoud Abbas was elected the first Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority but resigned less than four months into office due to disagreements over the control of Palestinian security forces and also to break the deadlock in the Middle East peace roadmap. In 2004, he was elected Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and in 2005, he was elected Chairman of the Palestinian National Authority. Also in 2005, in the official presidential election following the controversial departure of President Yasser Arafat in Paris (France), Mahmoud Abbas was elected president and currently holds the highest office in Palestine.

Returning to the internal political crisis, both Fatah and Hamas are in fact fighting for an independent Palestinian state separate from Israel. However, differences in political views, ideology, and methods of fighting Israel have prevented the two forces controlling the two Palestinian territories from finding common ground for many years. Fatah's consistent stance is moderate, secular, and pursues diplomatic negotiations with Israel, while Hamas is extremist and resolutely refuses to recognize the existence of the Israeli government. Because of Hamas's extremism and violence, the Tel Aviv government has repeatedly launched attacks on the Gaza Strip, including an attack lasting nearly a month that killed thousands and left the area in ruins, a site that will take decades and tens of billions of dollars to restore.

The only encouraging sign, and one that also offered hope for an independent state to the international community and the Palestinian people themselves, was that after the war, both Fatah and Hamas set aside their seemingly insurmountable differences to sit down for negotiations. Therefore, Hamas's willingness to relinquish its control over Gaza and align itself with the leadership of President Mahmoud Abbas's government, under the banner of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), was not only a significant internal shift within Hamas but also a major change in the Palestinian political landscape.

However, before we could even celebrate the unfinished Middle East peace process, on June 17th, just one year after its formation, the National Unity Government, which included Hamas, collapsed. According to the latest information, it is currently unknown whether Hamas will be allowed to participate in the new government formed by President Mahmoud Abbas when Prime Minister Rami Hamdalla steps forward to establish it. But what is known is that Hamas has strongly opposed this decision. And if the new government does not include Hamas, it is highly likely that President Mahmoud Abbas's peace plan for a two-state solution – with Israel and Palestine coexisting – will fall into a new cycle of deadlock.

Canh Nam