CNN
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Let’s take a look at the life of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
birthday: 1935
place of birth: Safed, Palestine
marriage: Amina Abbas
Children: three sons, Mazen (died 2002), Yasser and Tareq;
education: University of Damascus, BA; Dongyang University (Moscow), Ph.D.
His family left the Safed region of British Palestine in 1948 and lived as refugees in Syria.
Abbas laid floor tiles and taught elementary school before earning a law degree.
He played a key role in drafting the Declaration of Principles, the historic Oslo Accords signed by PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1993.
This was a major factor in the decision of the Palestinian National Council to cooperate with Israeli peace groups.
He is also known as Abu Mazen. (Abu is a slang term referring to the head of a household or the father of a child.)
1959 – A founding member of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah), which became the largest political group of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
1964 – Fatah joined the PLO.
1967 – Appointed to Fatah's Central Committee.
1968 – Join the Palestinian National Committee (PNC).
1980 – Elected to the PLO Executive Committee.
September 1993 – Go to the White House with Arafat and sign the Oslo Accords, the Declaration of Principles.
1995 – Sign a temporary peace agreement with Israel.
March 19, 2003 – I accept the position of Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority.
June 3, 2003 – In Egypt, U.S. President George W. Bush meets with the leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Bahrain to discuss peace efforts.
September 6, 2003 – Resignation as Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority.
November 11, 2004 – Became chairman of the PLO after Arafat's death.
January 9, 2005 – We declare victory in the Palestinian presidential election.
May 26, 2005 – Meet Bush. It was the first meeting with the Palestinian Authority at the White House since peace talks collapsed in 2000. Bush promised to provide $50 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority.
May 31, 2005 – I underwent successful minor heart surgery at a hospital in Amman, Jordan.
February 21, 2006 – Hamas leader Ismail Haniya is asked to form a government. Haniya takes office in March.
June 14, 2007 – Disbands the government and removes Haniya as prime minister. Haniya rejects this and remains Gaza's de facto leader.
June 15, 2007 – Economist Salam Fayyad appointed as new Prime Minister of Palestine's Emergency Cabinet.
November 27, 2007 – Attending the Annapolis Middle East Peace Conference, the first formal peace conference sponsored by the United States since 2000. Senior diplomats and representatives from dozens of countries and organizations will also attend, hoping to restart stalled Middle East peace talks.
April 24, 2008 – Meet President Bush at the White House.
January 2009 – Citing the provisions of the Constitution, the term of office is extended until 2010.
December 16, 2009 – The PLO Central Council voted to extend Abbas' presidential term indefinitely.
May 4, 2011 – Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal formally adopted the reconciliation agreement at a ceremony in Egypt.
September 16, 2011 – In his Ramallah speech, Abbas announced that he would push for full UN membership for Palestine.
September 23, 2011 – Abbas submits application for statehood to the UN Secretary-General.
January 3, 2013 – Abbas issues a decree changing the organization's name to “State of Palestine.”
December 31, 2014 – A day after the United Nations Security Council rejected a resolution calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state by 2017 and for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and east Jerusalem, Abbas applied to join the International Criminal Court. This served as an opportunity for the Palestinian Authority to file a war crime complaint against Israel.
September 30, 2015 – Addressing the United Nations General Assembly before the Palestinian flag was raised at the United Nations, he said the Palestinian Authority was no longer bound by the Oslo Accords.
September 8, 2016 – Secret Soviet documents obtained by CNN from the Mitrokhin archives at Churchill College, Cambridge University, claim that Abbas, who completed his graduate studies in Moscow in 1982, was a KGB agent while a member of the PLO in Damascus. Palestinian leaders denounced the report as a “smear campaign.”
September 30, 2016 – Attending the funeral of Israeli politician Shimon Peres and shaking hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
October 6, 2016 – I was admitted to the hospital for a heart test.
May 3, 2017 – I met US President Donald Trump at the White House.
December 10, 2017 – Abbas canceled a meeting with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence after President Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
January 14, 2018 – Abbas called on the PLO to “revise all agreements concluded between the PLO and Israel because Israel has left these agreements in a dead end” and accused Israel of terminating the Oslo Accords. This criticism came six weeks after President Trump announced that he would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
April 30, 2018 – Abbas noted at the opening of the Palestinian National Council that the Holocaust was driven not by anti-Semitism but by the financial activities of European Jews. He apologizes a few days later.
May 28, 2018 – He is treated for pneumonia and discharged.
January 28, 2020 – Abbas rejected Trump's Middle East “peace toward prosperity” plan unveiled with Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House and told a press conference in Ramallah in the West Bank, “Jerusalem is not for sale. All our rights are not for sale or compromise. Your deal is a conspiracy and will not succeed.” Abbas, who cut off diplomatic contacts with the United States in December 2017, did not attend public events and was not briefed on the plans.
April 29, 2021 – Abbas announced the postponement of scheduled parliamentary elections, saying Israel had not confirmed whether it would allow voting in East Jerusalem.
August 16, 2022 – Abbas told a news conference in Berlin that Israel had committed “50 holocausts” against Palestinians, sparking outrage from world leaders and a social media storm.
November 5, 2023 – Abbas met U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Ramallah amid escalating settler violence in the West Bank following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.