In addition to the current 193 member states, the United Nations welcomes many international organizations, entities, and non-member states (currently only one) as observers. Observer status is granted by a United Nations General Assembly resolution. The status of a Permanent Observer is based purely on practice, and there are no provisions for it in the United Nations Charter.^[1]

Observers have the right to speak at United Nations General Assembly meetings, participate in procedural votes, and to sponsor and sign resolutions,^{[clarification needed]} but not to vote on resolutions and other substantive matters. Various other rights (e.g. to speak in debates, to submit proposals and amendments, the right of reply, to raise points of order and to circulate documents, etc.) are given selectively to some observers only. So far, the EU is the only international organisation to hold these enhanced powers.^[2]

There is a distinction between state and non-state observers. Non-Member States of the United Nations, which are members of one or more specialized agencies, can apply for the status of Permanent Observer state.^[1] The non-state observers are the international organizations and other entities.

Non-member observer states are arranged for seating in the General Assembly Hall immediately after the Member States and before the other observers.^[3]

Non-member states[link]

Non-member observer states are recognized as sovereign states, and are free to submit a petition to join as a full member at their discretion. For example, Switzerland was a permanent observer state from 1948 to 2002, until becoming a full member on September 10, 2002. Currently, the only such state, the Holy See, is described as a "Non-member State having received a standing invitation to participate as observer in the sessions and the work of the General Assembly and maintaining permanent observer mission at Headquarters".^[4]

Non-member state	Date observer status was granted
Holy See (sovereignty over the territory of Vatican City)	April 6, 1964: became a permanent observer state July 1, 2004 (A/RES/58/314)[3]: gained all the rights of full membership except voting and putting forward candidates

Notes

• The Cook Islands and Niue—both states in free association with New Zealand—are treated as non-member states.^[5]
• The Republic of China, or Taiwan, in addition to applying for full membership, has also applied variously for non-member^[6] or observer^{[citation needed]} status in the UN since 1991.^[7] Such requests have been consistently denied due to the UN's recognition of the People's Republic of China as the "legitimate representative of China to the United Nations"; this resulted in the 1971 replacement of the Republic of China with the People's Republic as the official representative of China.
• Palestine is not recognised as a non-member state, but its people's representative, the Palestine Liberation Organization, holds observer status as an entity and its territory is regarded as occupied by Israel.^[8]
• Other countries are recognized by the United Nations as not being self-governing and appear on the United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories, but are represented in the UN by their respective administering member state.^[8]

Former non-member observer states[link]

Sixteen former non-member states were also granted observer status.^[9][10] Fourteen of those states eventually became members of the United Nations. The other two, South Vietnam and North Vietnam, united to form a single state which later became a UN member.

State	Granted	Ended
Austria	1952	1955
Bangladesh	1973	1974
Democratic People's Republic of Korea	1973	1991
Democratic Republic of Viet Nam	1975	1976
Federal Republic of Germany	1952	1973
Finland	1952	1955
German Democratic Republic	1972	1973
Italy	1952	1955
Japan	1952	1956
Kuwait	1962	1963
Monaco	1956	1993
Republic of Korea	1949	1991
Republic of Viet Nam	1952	1976
Spain	1955	1955
Switzerland	1946	2002
Vietnam	1976	1977

Entities and International organizations[link]

Many intergovernmental organizations and a few other entities (non-governmental organizations and others with various degrees of statehood or sovereignty), are invited to become observers at the General Assembly. Some of them maintain a permanent office in the United Nations headquarters in New York City, while others do not; however, this is the choice of the organization and does not imply differences in their status.^[11]

Palestine[link]

Since 1998 the Palestine Liberation Organization has been assigned seating in the General Assembly Hall immediately after non-member States and before the other observers.^[12][13]

Regional organizations allowed to speak[link]

In the resolution adopted in May 2011 granting additional rights to the European Union the UNGA decided that similar arrangements may be adopted for any other regional organization that is allowed to speak on behalf of its member states.^[19]

Intergovernmental organizations[link]

Other entities[link]

Former observer entities[link]

• South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO),^[26] in the period of 1976^[27] - 1990^{[citation needed]} (observer with right to circulate communications without intermediary, formerly a liberation movement in Namibia, currently a political party)

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

European Union[link]

While the EU is an observer, it is party to some 50 international UN agreements as the only non-state participant. It is a full participant on the Commission on Sustainable Development, the Forum on Forests and the Food and Agriculture Organization. It has also been a full participant at certain UN summits, such as the Rio and Kyoto summits on climate change, including hosting a summit. Furthermore, the EU delegation maintains close relations with the UN's aid bodies.^[28] In 2011 the EU was granted enhanced powers in the General Assembly; the right to speak in debates, to submit proposals and amendments, the right of reply, to raise points of order and to circulate documents. These rights were also made open to other international organizations who requested them.^[29][2]

Notes[link]

See also[link]

• List of current Permanent Representatives to the United Nations
• UN ECOSOC observers
• Category:United Nations General Assembly observers

References[link]

External links[link]

• Full list of UNGA and ECOSOC observers with admission resolutions details, January 2010
• United Nations General Assembly
• United Nations missions in New York City
• Non-member States with Observer Status
• Intergovernmental Organizations and Other Entities with Observer Status
• UN Info Quest – Organizations granted observer status in the General Assembly
• Blue Book "Permanent Missions to the United Nations No. 298" dated March 2008

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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2012)

It has been suggested that United Nations Fourth Committee be merged into this article or section. (Discuss) Proposed since August 2011.

United Nations General Assembly مجمع عمومی سازمان ملل متحد(Persian) الجمعية العامة للأمم المتحدة (Arabic) 联合国大会 (Chinese) Assemblée générale des Nations unies (French) Генера́льная Ассамбле́я ООН (Russian) Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas (Spanish)
United Nations General Assembly hall at its headquarters in New York
Org type	Principal Organ
Acronyms	GA, UNGA AG
Head	President Abdulaziz Al-Nasser[1] Deputy President Mohammad Khazaee
Status	Active
Established	1945
Website	www.un.org/ga

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA/GA) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation. Its powers are to oversee the budget of the United Nations, appoint the non-permanent members to the Security Council, receive reports from other parts of the United Nations and make recommendations in the form of General Assembly Resolutions.^[2] It has also established a wide number of subsidiary organs.^[3]

The General Assembly meets under its president or Secretary-General in regular yearly sessions the main part of which lasts from September to December and resumed part from January until all issues are addressed (which often is just before the next session's start). It can also reconvene for special and emergency special sessions. Its composition, functions, powers, voting, and procedures are set out in Chapter IV of the United Nations Charter.

The first session was convened on 10 January 1946 in the Westminster Central Hall in London and included representatives of 51 nations.

Voting in the General Assembly on important questions – recommendations on peace and security; election of members to organs; admission, suspension, and expulsion of members; budgetary matters – is by a two-thirds majority of those present and voting. Other questions are decided by majority vote. Each member country has one vote. Apart from approval of budgetary matters, including adoption of a scale of assessment, Assembly resolutions are not binding on the members. The Assembly may make recommendations on any matters within the scope of the UN, except matters of peace and security under Security Council consideration. The one state, one vote power structure theoretically allows states comprising just eight percent of the world population to pass a resolution by a two-thirds vote.

During the 1980s, the Assembly became a forum for the North-South dialogue – the discussion of issues between industrialized nations and developing countries. These issues came to the fore because of the phenomenal growth and changing makeup of the UN membership. In 1945, the UN had 51 members. It now has 193, of which more than two-thirds are developing countries. Because of their numbers, developing countries are often able to determine the agenda of the Assembly (using coordinating groups like the G77), the character of its debates, and the nature of its decisions. For many developing countries, the UN is the source of much of their diplomatic influence and the principal outlet for their foreign relations initiatives.

Agenda[link]

The agenda for each session is planned up to seven months in advance and begins with the release of a preliminary list of items to be included in the provisional agenda.^[4] This is refined into a provisional agenda 60 days before the opening of the session. After the session begins, the final agenda is adopted in a plenary meeting which allocates the work to the various Main Committees who later submit reports back to the Assembly for adoption by consensus or by vote.

Westminster Central Hall, the location of the first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in 1946

Items on the agenda are numbered. Regular plenary sessions of the General Assembly in recent years have initially been scheduled to be held over the course of just three months, however additional work loads have extended these sessions to last on through just short of the next session. The routinely scheduled portions of the sessions are normally scheduled to commence on "the Tuesday of the third week in September, counting from the first week that contains at least one working day," as per the UN Rules of Procedure.^[5] The last two of these Regular sessions were routinely scheduled to recess exactly three months afterwards^[6] in early December, but were resumed in January and extended on until just before the beginning of the following sessions.^[7]

Resolutions[link]

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev addresses the 64th session of the UN General Assembly on 24 September 2009.

The General Assembly votes on many resolutions brought forth by sponsoring states. These are generally statements symbolizing the sense of the international community about an array of world issues. Most General Assembly resolutions are not enforceable as a legal or practical matter, because the General Assembly lacks enforcement powers with respect to most issues. The General Assembly has authority to make final decisions in some areas such as the United Nations budget.

General Assembly Resolutions are generally non-binding on member states, but carry considerable political weight, and are legally binding towards the operations of the General Assembly. The General Assembly can also refer an issue to the Security Council to put in place a binding resolution.

UN budget[link]

The General Assembly also approves the budget of the United Nations, and decides how much money each member state must pay to run the organization.^[8]

Resolution numbering scheme[link]

From the First to the Thirtieth General Assembly sessions, all General Assembly resolutions were numbered consecutively, with the resolution number followed by the session number in Roman numbers (for example, Resolution 1514 (XV), which was the 1514th numbered resolution adopted by the Assembly, and was adopted at the Fifteenth Regular Session (1960)). Beginning in the Thirty-First Session, resolutions are numbered by individual session (for example Resolution 41/10 represents the 10th resolution adopted at the Forty-First Session).

Elections[link]

The General Assembly votes in elections for the ten non-permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. These elections take place every year, and member states serve two year terms, with five replaced each year. The candidates are selected by their regional groups. The General Assembly also elects members of the United Nations Economic and Social Council. It also elects members of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, and some members of the United Nations Trusteeship Council. The General Assembly appoints the Secretary-General of the United Nations on recommendation of the Security Council, and adopts rules governing the administration of the Secretariat. Along with the Security Council, the General Assembly elects Judges for the International Court of Justice in The Hague.^[9]

Special sessions[link]

Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero addressing the General Assembly in New York, 20 September 2005

Special sessions may be convened at the request of the United Nations Security Council, or a majority of UN members, or, if the majority concurs, of a single member. A special session was held on October 1995 at the head of government level to commemorate the UN's 50th anniversary. Another special session was held in September 2000 to celebrate the millennium; it put forward the Millennium Development Goals. A further special session (2005 World Summit) was held in September 2005 to commemorate the UN's 60th anniversary; it assessed progress on the Millennium Development Goals, and discussed Kofi Annan's In Larger Freedom proposals.

At the first Special Session of the UN General Assembly held in 1947, Osvaldo Aranha, then president of the Special Session, began a tradition that has remained until today whereby the first speaker at this major international forum is always a Brazilian.^[10]

If the Security Council fails to act to maintain international peace and security due to a disagreement between its permanent members, the General Assembly has the power to convene an emergency special session and act to ensure peace and security under United Nations General Assembly Resolution 377.

Emergency special sessions[link]

The General Assembly may take action on maintaining international peace and security if the United Nations Security Council is unable, usually due to disagreement among the permanent members, to exercise its primary responsibility. If not in session at the time, the General Assembly may meet in emergency special session^[11] within 24 hours of the request. Such emergency special sessions are to be called if requested by the UN Security Council on the vote of any seven members, or by a majority of the Members of the United Nations.

The "Uniting for Peace" resolution, adopted 3 November 1950, empowered the Assembly to convene in emergency special session in order to recommend collective measures – including the use of armed force — in the event of a breach of the peace or act of aggression. As with all Assembly resolutions, two-thirds of UN Members 'present and voting' must approve any such recommendation before it can be formally adopted by the Assembly. Emergency special sessions have been convened under this procedure on ten occasions. The two most recent, in 1982 and 1997 through 2003 respectively, have both been about the State of Israel.

Subsidiary organs[link]

The United Nations General Assembly building.

The General Assembly subsidiary organs are divided into five categories: committees (30 total, six main), commissions (seven), boards (six), councils and panels (five), working groups, and "other".

Committees[link]

Main committees[link]

The main committees are ordinally numbered, 1–6:

• The First Committee: Disarmament and International Security (DISEC)
• The Second Committee: Economic and Financial (ECOFIN)
• The Third Committee: Social, Cultural, and Humanitarian (SOCHUM)
• The Fourth Committee: Special Political and Decolonisation (SPECPOL)
• The Fifth Committee: Administrative and Budgetary
• The Sixth Committee: Legal.

The roles of many of the main committees have changed over time. Until the late 1970s, the First Committee was the Political and Security Committee (POLISEC) and there was also a sufficient number of additional "political" matters that an additional, unnumbered main committee, called the Special Political Committee, also sat. The Fourth Committee formerly handled Trusteeship and Decolonization matters. With the decreasing number of such matters to be addressed as the trust territories attained independence and the decolonization movement progressed, the functions of the Special Political Committee were merged into the Fourth Committee during the 1990s.

Each main committee consists of all the members of the General Assembly. Each elects a chairman, three vice chairmen, and a rapporteur at the outset of each regular General Assembly session.

Other committees[link]

Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev addresses the UN General Assembly in December 1988.

These are not numbered. According to the General Assembly website, the most important are:

• Credentials Committee – This committee is charged with ensuring that the diplomatic credentials of all UN representatives are in order. The Credentials Committee consists of nine Member States elected early in each regular General Assembly session.
• General Committee – This is a supervisory committee entrusted with ensuring that the whole meeting of the Assembly goes smoothly. The General Committee consists of the president and vice presidents of the current General Assembly session and the chairman of each of the six Main Committees.

Other committees of the General Assembly are enumerated.^[12]

Commissions[link]

There are six commissions:

• Disarmament Commission, established by GA Resolution 502 (VI) and S-10/2
• International Civil Service Commission, established by GA Resolution 3357 (XXIX)
• International Law Commission, established by GA Resolution 174 (II)
• United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), established by GA Resolution 2205 (XXI)
• United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, established by GA Resolution 194 (III)
• United Nations Peacebuilding Commission, established by GA Resolution 60/180 and UN Security Council Resolutions 1645 (2005) and 1646 (2005)]

Despite its name, the former United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) was actually a subsidiary body of ECOSOC.

Boards[link]

There are six boards.

Councils and panels[link]

The newest council is the United Nations Human Rights Council, which replaced the aforementioned UNCHR in March 2006.

There are a total of four councils and one panel.^[13]

Working Groups and other[link]

There is a varied group of working groups and other subsidiary bodies.^[13]

Seating in the General Assembly[link]

Countries are seated alphabetically in the General Assembly according to English translations of the countries' names. However, the country which occupies the front-most left position (and hence the countries' seating position in the Assembly) is rotated annually by ballot. One country is balloted each year to sit in the front-most left position, and the remaining countries follow alphabetically behind it.^[14]

General Assembly reform and UNPA[link]

On 21 March 2005, Secretary-General Kofi Annan presented a report, In Larger Freedom, that criticized the General Assembly for focusing so much on consensus that it was passing watered-down resolutions reflecting "the lowest common denominator of widely different opinions." He also criticized the Assembly for trying to address too broad an agenda, instead of focusing on "the major substantive issues of the day, such as international migration and the long-debated comprehensive convention on terrorism". Annan recommended streamlining the General Assembly's agenda, committee structure, and procedures; strengthening the role and authority of its president; enhancing the role of civil society; and establishing a mechanism to review the decisions of its committees, in order to minimize unfunded mandates and micromanagement of the United Nations Secretariat. Annan reminded UN members of their responsibility to implement reforms, if they expect to realize improvements in UN effectiveness.^[15]

The reform proposals were not taken up by the United Nations World Summit in September 2005. Instead, the Summit solely affirmed the central position of the General Assembly as the chief deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the United Nations, as well as the role of the Assembly in the process of standard-setting and the codification of international law. The Summit also called for strengthening the relationship between the General Assembly and the other principal organs to ensure better coordination on topical issues that required coordinated action by the United Nations, in accordance with their respective mandates.^{[citation needed]}

A United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, or United Nations People's Assembly (UNPA), is a proposed addition to the United Nations System that eventually could allow for direct election of UN parliament members by citizens all over the world.

In the General Debate of the 65th General Assembly, Jorge Valero Briceño, representing Venezuela, said "The United Nations has exhausted its model and it is not simply a matter of proceeding with reform, the twenty-first century demands deep changes that are only possible with a rebuilding of this organisation." He pointed to the futility of resolutions concerning the Cuban embargo and the Middle East conflict as reasons for the UN model having failed. Venezuela also called for the suspension of veto rights because it was a "remnant of the Second World War [it] is incompatible with the principle of sovereign equality of States."^[16]

See also[link]

United Nations portal

• List of Permanent Representatives to the United Nations
• United Nations Interpretation Service
• United Nations System
• Reform of the United Nations

Notes[link]

External links[link]

Wikisource has several original texts related to: United Nations General Assembly

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: United Nations General Assembly

• United Nations General Assembly
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  • Subsection of the overall UN webcast site
• Verbatim record of the 1st session of the UN General Assembly, Jan. 1946
• UN Democracy: hyperlinked transcripts of the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council
• UN General Assembly – Documentation Center
• Council on Foreign Relations: The Role of the UN General Assembly

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Shimon Koffler Fogel is the Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA). He assumed the position on January 1, 2011 as part of an impending restructuring of Jewish agencies in Canada that resulted in the Canadian Jewish Congress, the Canada-Israel Committee and other bodies dissolving on July 1, 2011 with their functions being assumed by CIJA. Prior to becoming CEO of CIJA, Fogel was CEO of the Canada-Israel Committee^[1] from 1988 until 2010.

Education[link]

Fogel is a graduate of Clark University’s School of Government and International Relations where he was awarded a Jonas Clark Scholarship. He pursued graduate and doctoral studies at McGill University.^[2]

Career[link]

Fogel served as the first National Director of Community Services at Canadian Jewish Congress and as Executive Director of the Atlantic Jewish Council until 1988 when he was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Canada-Israel Committee.^[2]

He is a registered consultant to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Canadian House of Commons, and has been a member of the Round-Table on Global Security under the Department of National Defence. He has also been a seasonal lecturer at Queen’s University.^[2]

References[link]

Mahmoud Abbas مَحْمُود عَبَّاس
2nd President of the Palestinian National Authority Disputed since January 2009
Incumbent
Assumed office 15 January 2005*
Prime Minister	Ahmad Qurei Nabil Shaath (Acting) Ahmad Qurei Ismail Haniyeh Salam Fayyad
Preceded by	Rawhi Fattouh (Acting)
Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization
Incumbent
Assumed office 29 October 2004 Acting: 29 October 2004 – 11 November 2004
Preceded by	Yasser Arafat
Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority
In office 19 March 2003 – 6 September 2003
President	Yasser Arafat
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Ahmad Qurei
Personal details
Born	(1935-03-26) 26 March 1935 (age 77) Safed, British Palestine
Political party	Fatah
Spouse(s)	Amina Abbas
Alma mater	Damascus University Patrice Lumumba Peoples' Friendship University
Religion	Sunni Islam[1]
*Abbas's term as President expired 15 January 2009, since then Aziz Duwaik has been recognised as President by the Haniyeh government in the Gaza Strip, while Abbas is recognised as President by the Fayyad government in the West Bank.[2]

Mahmoud Abbas (Arabic: مَحْمُود عَبَّاس‎, Maḥmūd ʿAbbās; born 26 March 1935), also known by the kunya Abu Mazen (Arabic: أَبُو مَازِن‎, Åbú Mázɩn), has been the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) since 11 November 2004 and became President of the Palestinian National Authority on 15 January 2005 on the Fatah (فتح Fataḥ) ticket.

Elected to serve until 9 January 2009, he unilaterally extended his term for another year and continues in office even after that second deadline expired. As a result of this, Fatah's main rival, the political party Hamas announced that it would not recognise the extension or view Abbas as rightful president.^[3][4][5] Abbas was chosen as the President of the State of Palestine by the Palestine Liberation Organization's Central Council on 23 November 2008,^[6] a job he had held unofficially since 8 May 2005.^[7] Abbas 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.^[8] Before being named prime minister, Abbas led the PLO's Negotiations Affairs Department.

In 2011, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas stated that the Arab rejection of the United Nations Partition Plan in 1947 was a mistake he hoped to rectify.^[9]

Biography[link]

Mahmoud Abbas was born in Safed in Galilee.^[10] He and his family fled to Syria during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.^[10] He graduated from the University of Damascus before going to Egypt where he studied law.

Abbas later entered graduate studies at the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, where he earned a Candidate of Sciences degree^[11][12] (the Soviet equivalent of a PhD). The theme of his doctoral dissertation was "The Other Side: the Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism".

He is married to Amina Abbas and they have had three sons. The eldest, Mazen Abbas, ran a building company in Doha and died in Qatar of a heart attack in 2002 at the age of 42.^[13] The kunya of Abu Mazen means "father of Mazen". Their second son is Yasser Abbas, a Canadian businessman who was named after former PA leader Yasser Arafat.^[14] The youngest son is Tareq, a business executive.

Abbas with President of the United States George W. Bush and Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon at the Red Sea Summit in Aqaba, Jordan, 4 June 2003

Political activism[link]

In the mid-1950s, Abbas became heavily involved in underground Palestinian politics, joining a number of exiled Palestinians in Qatar, where he was Director of Personnel in the emirate's Civil Service. While there, in 1961, he was recruited to become a member of Fatah, founded by Yasser Arafat and 5 other Palestinians in Kuwait in the late 1950s.^[15] At the time, Arafat was establishing the groundwork of Fatah by enlisting wealthy Palestinians in Qatar, Kuwait, and other Gulf States.

Abu Daoud, who planned the 1972 Munich Massacre, the hostage-taking of members of the Israeli team at the Munich Olympic Games which ended with the murder of eleven Israeli athletes and coaches and a West German policeman, wrote that funds for the operation were provided by Abbas, though without knowing what the money would be used for.^[16]

In 1985, he temporarily went into hiding in Yugoslavia upon avoiding international justice mechanisms in Rome, Italy.^[17]

At the same time he has performed diplomatic duties, presenting a moderating face for PLO policies. Abbas was the first PLO official to visit Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War in January 1993 to mend fences with the Gulf countries for the PLO's support of Iraq during the Persian Gulf War. At the 1993 peace accord with Israel, Abbas was the signatory for the PLO on 13 September 1993. He published a memoir, Through Secret Channels: The Road to Oslo (1995).^[18]

Political career[link]

By early 2003, as Israel and the United States refused to negotiate with Yasser Arafat, Abbas began to emerge as a candidate for a more visible leadership role. As one of the few remaining founding members of Fatah, he had some degree of credibility within the Palestinian cause, and his candidacy was bolstered by the fact that other high-profile Palestinians were for various reasons not suitable (the most notable, Marwan Barghouthi, was under arrest in an Israeli jail after being convicted of multiple murders). Abbas's reputation as a pragmatist garnered him favor with the West and certain elements of the Palestinian legislature, and pressure was soon brought on Arafat to appoint him prime minister. Arafat did so on 19 March 2003. Initially, Arafat attempted to undermine the post of prime minister, but was eventually forced to give Abbas some degree of power.

However, the rest of Abbas's term as prime minister was characterised by numerous conflicts between him and Arafat over the distribution of power. Abbas hinted he would resign if not given more control over the administration. In early September 2003, he confronted the Palestinian parliament over this issue. The United States and Israel accused Arafat of undermining Abbas and his government. In addition, Abbas came into conflict with Palestinian militant groups, notably the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement and Hamas because his pragmatic policies were opposed to their hard-line approach. However, he made it clear that he was forced to abandon, for the moment, the use of arms against Israeli civilians inside the green line due to its ineffectiveness.^{[citation needed]}

Initially he pledged not to use force against the militants in the interest of avoiding a civil war, and attempted negotiation. This was partially successful, resulting in a pledge from the two groups to honor a unilateral Palestinian cease-fire. However, continuing violence and Israeli "target killings" of known leaders forced Abbas to pledge a crackdown in order to uphold the Palestinian Authority's side of the Road map for peace. This led to a power struggle with Arafat over control of the Palestinian security services; Arafat refused to release control to Abbas, thus preventing him from using them on the militants. Abbas resigned as prime minister in October 2003, citing lack of support from Israel and the United States as well as "internal incitement" against his government.^[8]

2005 presidential election[link]

Part of a series on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and Arab–Israeli conflict
Israeli–Palestinian peace process
Israel with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights:    Israel    West Bank · Gaza Strip, Golan Heights
Negotiating parties
Israel · Palestinians
History
Camp David Accords · Madrid Conference
Oslo Accords / Oslo II · Hebron Protocol
Wye River / Sharm el-Sheikh Memoranda
2000 Camp David Summit · Taba Summit
Road Map · Annapolis · State of Palestine
Primary negotiation concerns
Final borders · Israeli settlements · Refugees (Jewish · Palestinian Arab) · Security concerns
Status of Jerusalem · Water
Secondary negotiation concerns
Antisemitic incitements
Israeli West Bank barrier · Jewish state
Palestinian political violence
Places of worship
Current leaders
Palestine Mahmoud Abbas · Salam Fayyad Israel Shimon Peres · Benjamin Netanyahu
International brokers
Diplomatic Quartet (United Nations · United States · European Union · Russia)
Arab League (Egypt · Jordan) · United Kingdom · France
Other proposals
One-state solution (Isratine) · Two-state solutions (Arab Peace Initiative · Geneva Accord · Allon Plan · Elon Peace Plan · Lieberman Plan) · Three-state solution Israeli unilateral plans: Disengagement · Realignment
Peace-orientated projects: Peace Valley · Middle East economic integration
Major projects, groups and NGOs
Peace-oriented projects · Peace Valley · Alliance for Middle East Peace · Peres Center for Peace
v t e

After Yasser Arafat's death Mahmoud Abbas was seen, at least by Fatah, as his natural successor. On 25 November 2004, Abbas was endorsed by Fatah's Revolutionary Council as its preferred candidate for the presidential election, scheduled for 9 January 2005. On 14 December Abbas called for an end to violence in the Second Intifada and a return to peaceful resistance. Abbas told the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that "the use of arms has been damaging and should end." However, he refused to disarm Palestinian militants and use force against groups designated as terrorist organizations.

With Israeli forces arresting and restricting the movement of other candidates, Hamas' boycott of the election, and his campaign being given 94% of the Palestinian electoral campaign coverage on TV, Abbas' election was virtually ensured,^[19] and on 9 January Abbas was elected with 62% of the vote as President of the Palestinian National Authority.

In his speech, he addressed a crowd of supporters chanting "a million shahids", stating: "I present this victory to the soul of Yasser Arafat and present it to our people, to our martyrs and to 11,000 prisoners". He also called for Palestinian groups to end the use of arms against Israelis.^[20]

Presidency[link]

Despite Abbas' call for a peaceful solution, attacks by militant groups continued after his election, in a direct challenge to his authority. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement launched a raid in Gaza on 12 January that killed one and wounded three military personnel in Gaza. On 13 January Palestinians from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Hamas, and the Popular Resistance Committees launched a suicide attack on the Karni crossing, killing six Israelis. As a result, Israel shut down the damaged terminal and broke off relations with Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, stating that Abbas must now show a gesture of peace by attempting to stop such attacks.

Abbas was formally sworn in as the Chairman of the Palestinian National Authority in a ceremony held on 15 January in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

On 9 August 2005 he announced that legislative elections, originally scheduled for 17 July, would take place in January 2006. On 15 January 2006 he declared that despite unrest in Gaza, he would not change the set date of the elections (25 January), unless Israel decided to prevent Palestinians in East Jerusalem from voting.^[21] Hamas won a majority of votes in this vote.

Relations with Israel[link]

Abbas with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office.

On 23 January 2006, Israeli radio reported that Abbas had secured a thirty-day ceasefire from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. On 12 February lone Palestinians attacked Israel settlements and Abbas quickly fired some of his security officers for not stopping the attacks in a ceasefire.

On 9 April 2006, Abbas said that the killing of three Palestinians in southern Gaza by Israeli soldiers is a deliberate violation of the declared ceasefire deal. "This violation is made on purpose," Abbas said in a written statement sent to reporters in the West Bank capital of Ramallah. Abbas made the statement shortly after three Palestinian teenage boys were shot dead by Israeli troops in the southern Gaza town of Rafah. Israel claimed they thought the boys were attempting to smuggle weapons, while Palestinians claimed a group of boys were playing soccer and three of them went to retrieve the ball near the border fence.^[22]

In response to the teens' deaths, Abbas said, "The Palestinian National Authority will not turn a blind eye to the shedding of the blood of our people and our children. We can never accept opening fire at our children who pose no danger at all." Abbas said the Palestinian children "are as precious to their parents as the Israeli children to their parents." Condemning the Israeli shooting as "unjustified", Abbas urged Israel to take serious actions to show commitment to the truce.

In May 2006, Abbas travelled to the White House and met with his American counterpart, George W. Bush. Bush, in return for Abbas' crackdown on terrorists, pledged 50 million USD in aid to the Palestinian Authority and reiterated the US pledge for a free Palestinian state. It was the first direct aid the United States has given to them, as previous donations have gone through non-governmental organizations. The next day Prime Minister Paul Martin of Canada pledged 9.5 million CAD in new aid for judicial reform and housing projects, monitors for the coming Palestinian elections, border management and scholarships for Palestinian refugee women in Lebanon.^[23]

On 25 July 2006 he announced that he would move his office to Gaza until the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops in order to coordinate the Palestinian side of the withdrawal, mediating between the different factions.^[24]

Abbas has been called the most "courageous" pro-peace senior leader the Palestinians ever had.^{[citation needed]} Ephraim Sneh, a former minister in the Israeli cabinet wrote that on April 19, 2006, following the elections in Israeli but before Ehud Olmert was sworn in, he met with Abbas and Abbas requested that negotiations resume immediately with the new Israeli government and that he be put in touch right away with a contact person to be appointed by the prime minister. Sneh reported that he immediately conveyed the substance of their meeting to the prime minister's office, but the prime minister had no interest in the matter.^[25]

On 16 January 2006, Abbas said that he would not run for office again at the end of his current term.^[26]

On 25 May, Abbas gave Hamas a ten-day deadline to accept the 1967 ceasefire lines.

On 2 June, Abbas again announced that if Hamas did not approve the prisoners' document—which calls for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict according to the 1967 borders—within two days, he would present the initiative as a referendum. This deadline was subsequently extended until 10 June 2006. Hamas spokesmen stated that a change in their stance would not occur, and that Abbas is not constitutionally permitted to call a referendum, especially so soon after the January elections.

Abbas warned Hamas on 8 October 2006 that he would call new legislative elections if it did not accept a coalition government. To recognize Israel was a condition he has presented for a coalition. But it was not clear if Abbas had the power to call new elections.^{[citation needed]}

On 16 December 2006, Abbas called for new legislative elections, to bring an end to the parliamentary stalemate between Fatah and Hamas in forming a national coalition government.^[27]

Abbas meets with then United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

On 17 March 2007, a unity government was formed incorporating members of both Hamas and Fatah, with Ismail Haniyeh as Prime Minister and independent politicians taking many key portfolios.

On 14 June 2007, Abbas dissolved the Hamas-led unity government of Haniyeh, declared a state of emergency, and appointed Salam Fayyad in his place. This followed action by Hamas armed forces to take control of Palestinian Authority positions controlled by Fatah militias. The appointment of Fayyad to replace Haniyeh has been challenged as illegal, because under the Palestinian Basic Law, the president may dismiss a sitting prime minister, but may not appoint a replacement without the approval of the Palestinian Legislative Council. According to the law, until a new prime minister is thus appointed, the outgoing prime minister heads a caretaker government. Fayyad's appointment was never placed before, or approved by the Legislative Council.^[28] For this reason, Haniyeh the Hamas prime minister has continued to operate in Gaza, and is recognised by a large number of Palestinians as the legitimate acting prime minister. Anis al-Qasem, a constitutional lawyer who drafted the Basic Law, is among those who publicly declared Abbas' appointment of Fayyad to be illegal.^[29]

On 18 June 2007, the European Union promised to resume direct aid to the Palestinian Authority, Abbas dissolved the National Security Council, a sticking point in the defunct unity government with Hamas.^[30] That same day, the United States decided to end its fifteen-month embargo on the Palestinian Authority and resume aid, attempting to strengthen Abbas's West Bank government.^[31] A day later, the Fatah Central Committee cut off all ties and dialogue with Hamas, pending the return of Gaza.^[32]

On 2 March 2008, Abbas stated he was suspending peace talks with Israel, while Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed to press on with military operations against militants who have been launching home-made rockets into southern Israel.^[33]

On 20 May 2008, Abbas stated he would resign from his office if the current round of peace talks had not yielded an agreement in principle "within six months". He also stated that the current negotiations were, in effect, deadlocked: "So far, we have not reached an agreement on any issue. Any report indicating otherwise is simply not true."^[34]

On 9 January 2009, Abbas term as president, at least as he was originally elected, ended. Abbas extended his term for another year, stating the Basic Law gave him the right to do so, so he could align the next presidential and parliamentary elections. Pointing to the Palestinian constitution, Hamas disputes the validity of this move, and considers Abbas' term to have ended, in which case Abdel Aziz Duwaik, Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council has become acting president. Abbas remains as the president even though his one year extended term has expired. ^[5][35][36]

Relations with foreign leaders[link]

In May 2009, he welcomed Pope Benedict XVI to the West Bank, who supported Abbas' goal of a Palestinian State.^[37]

Also in May 2009, Abbas made a visit to Canada, where he met with foreign affairs minister Lawrence Cannon and Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

In February 2010, Abbas visited Japan for the third time as Palestinian President. In this visit he met Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. He also visited Hiroshima, the first such visit by a Palestinian leader, and spoke about the suffering of Hiroshima, which he compared to the suffering of the Palestinians.^[38]

Published works[link]

The Connection between the Nazis and the Leaders of the Zionist Movement 1933 - 1945 is the title of Mahmoud Abbas' CandSc thesis, completed in 1982 at the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, and defended at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. In 1984 it was published as a book in Arabic titled "The Other Side: the Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism" (Arabic: al-Wajh al-Akhar: al-'Alaqat as-Sirriya bayna an-Naziya wa's-Sihyuniya).

In the doctoral thesis and book, Abbas describes the Nazi Holocaust as "the Zionist fantasy, the fantastic lie that six million Jews were killed."^[39]

The dissertation and book discussed topics such as the Haavara Agreement, by which the Third Reich agreed with the Jewish Agency to facilitate Jewish emigration to Palestine.^[11][40] Some content of his thesis has been considered as Holocaust denial by critics, especially the parts disputing the accepted number of deaths in the Holocaust as well as the accusations that Zionist agitation was the cause of the Holocaust ^[41] a charge that he denies.^[42]

Quotes[link]

• "The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live in Eastern Europe, as if we were condemned to change places with them: they moved out of their ghettos and we occupied similar ones." (1976)^[43]
• "There is absolutely no substitution for dialogue." (2003)
• "The armed struggle necessitates certain conditions and opportunities that do not exist for us in Palestine. We cannot equate what is happening in Palestine with what is going on Lebanon or Algeria. Therefore, military activities under these circumstances and means are ineffective. For this reason, we stated that we have no choice but to stop it [military activities] for a year, which is not a submission from our point of view. As long as the circumstances are not equivalent." (A-Sharq Al-Awsat, 3 March 2003)^{[citation needed]}
• "The little jihad is over, and now we have the bigger jihad - the bigger battle is achieving security and economic growth" (2005)^[44]
• "From here [the Gaza withdrawal], our people begin the march towards establishing an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital"^[45]
• "Today we are visitors to the airport (referring to Yasser Arafat International Airport), tomorrow we will come here as travellers." (19 August 2005)^{[citation needed]}
• “His Holiness was moved to receive this accolade from the people of Bethlehem and paid special attention to the message of the passport.” On giving the Bethlehem Passport to Pope Benedict XVI. The citation refers to "all people who uphold a just and open society."^[46]
• "I renew my commitment to continuing the road he [Arafat] began and for which he made a lot of sacrifices, until the Palestinian flag flies from the walls, minarets and churches of Jerusalem." (2005)^[47]
• "A Jewish state, what is that supposed to mean? You can call yourselves as you like, but I don't accept it and I say so publicly."(April 27, 2009)^[48][49]
• "Zionist forces expelled the Palestinian Arabs to ensure a decisive Jewish majority in the future state of Israel, and Arab armies intervened. War and further expulsions ensued" (2011).^[50]
• "We go to the United Nations now to secure the right to live free in the remaining 22 percent of our historic homeland because we have been negotiating with the State of Israel for 20 years without coming any closer to realizing a state of our own.^[50]"
• "It [the Arab rejection of the 1947 UN Partition Plan to divide Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state] was our mistake. It was an Arab mistake as a whole."^[51]

References[link]