By Yasser El-Banna, IOL Gaza Correspondent

GAZA, March 8 (IslamOnline.net) – Mahmoud Abbas, known by his nom de guerre Abu Mazen, is the Palestine Liberation Organization’s second in command after Yasser Arafat.

He is known to be pragmatic and currently holds the PLO and Fatah movement General Secretariat.

Born in Safed city in 1935, he departed with his family following Palestine War in 1948 to Syria where he studied law. In the early 1960s, he obtained his PhD on Zionism from one of Moscow universities.

Abu Mazen started his political activity in Syria, and then moved to Qatar where he worked as head of personnel affairs of the civil service administration.

In Qatar, he formed Palestinian groups and contacted PLO’s Fatah movement that had been in the making.

Abu Mazen joined the PLO’s First Central Commission, yet remained in the shadow due to the fact that he was in Damascus, while PLO headquarters was in Beirut.

He has been a member of the Palestine National Council since 1968. Meanwhile, he obtained a PhD on the history of Zionism from the Faculty of Oriental Studies in Moscow.

Abu Mazen was the head of his country’s delegation to the negotiations with General Matityahu Belid that led to the Declaration of Peace Principles in January 1, 1977.

He has been a PLO Economic Committee member since April 1981. Following the assassination of Abu Gihad, he took over the occupied territories portfolio.

In 1989, he initiated secrets talks with the Israelis through Dutch intermediaries, coordinated negotiations during Madrid Conference and supervised the negotiations that led to Oslo accords.

He also led negotiations, concluded in Cairo, commonly known as ‘Gaza-Jericho’ agreement.

Abu Mazen presided over PLO’s Negotiation Affairs Department since its inception in 1994 and was appointed head of the PLO’s Department for International Relations.

He returned to Palestine in 1995 and was nominated to be the secretary general of the PLO’s Executive Committee.

He has repeatedly called upon the Palestinians to stop their military operations against occupation and underlined the necessity of reaching a peaceful agreement with Israel.

Consequently, he lost a lot of popularity among Palestinians, including supporters of Fatah movement, the backbone of the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Abu Mazen has lately criticized the Intifada and called for a halt to armed attacks on Israeli targets to avoid giving Israel a pretext to destroy the last vestiges of Palestinian autonomy.

On February 2, 2003, he declared from Moscow the demilitarization of the Intifada, which stirred rage among Palestinian factions, including Fatah Movement.

Since early 1970s, Abu has been declaring his stance: ‘’a compromise can only be reached with the Israelis through negotiations’,’ he said.

Shortly before Al-Aqsa Intifada that broke out in September 2000, a document that Abu Mazen prepared with Youssi Belin, an Israeli Labor Party member, was unveiled to be a draft for final status negotiations between Israel and the PLO.

The document is to the effect that a Palestinian State is to be established within safe and recognized borders and Jerusalem is to remain undivided and open for followers of the three holy religions of different nationalities.

The document also includes the provision that no Israeli residential districts is to be established in the Palestine State and that Israelis remaining within the Palestinian borders will be subject to Israeli sovereignty and the provisions of the Palestinian Law.

During the last few months, Abu Mazen presided over Fatah’s delegation to the negotiations, sponsored by the Egyptian Intelligence, between the Palestinian sects in Cairo, during which Hamas and Gihad movements called for a one-year truce.