Mahmoud Abbas Archives - Voice of the Cape

Abbas battles Fatah party discord ahead of Palestinian elections

Facing elections for the first time in 15 years, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is battling a growing rift within his powerful Fatah party that poses a new threat to his dominance over Palestinian politics, reports Reuters. A breakaway bid by one of Abbas's party allies has intensified speculation he might cancel a presidential vote planned for July, fearing a potential challenge by Marwan Barghouti, a popular Palestinian leader jailed by […]

8 March 2021

International News

Mahmoud Abbas meets Hamas chief to discuss US plans

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has called for a comprehensive national dialogue, and said the Fatah and Hamas movements must initiate a dialogue to endorse ways to end the division according to the principle of "one people and one political system". During a video conference on Thursday with heads of the Palestinian groups in Ramallah and Beirut, Abbas said: "From now on, no one is authorised to speak on our behalf. […]

4 September 2020

International News

Palestinian President Abbas says accords with Israel, US are void

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced on Tuesday that his administration considers all agreements signed with Israel and the United States null and void, after Israel declared it would annex parts of the occupied West Bank, according to local media reports. Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that Abbas made the announcement during an emergency meeting held in Ramallah to discuss the Israeli plans. "The Palestine Liberation Organization and the State of […]

20 May 2020

Opinions

It is time for a Palestinian spring

On February 1, Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, succeeded in extracting from the Arab League a rejection of US President Donald Trump's Middle East plan by warning its leaders that neither he, nor they, could afford to go down in history as the ones who "sold Jerusalem" and the Al-Aqsa Mosque to Israel. This is the same argument the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat made to justify […]

5 February 2020

International News

Abbas illness sparks succession race for Palestinian presidency

On record, Palestinian officials are keen to play down President Mahmoud Abbas’s admission to hospital for pneumonia, stressing it is business as usual in Ramallah's halls of power. Behind the scenes, it's a different story. The 82-year-old’s condition now appears so serious, that those same Palestinian officials are scrambling to prepare for his succession. Abbas is no stranger to hospitals – the chain-smoking octogenarian has been admitted for various ailments […]

24 May 2018

International News

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas admitted to hospital

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been admitted to hospital in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian official said, providing no further details on his condition. It was the third time Abbas, 82, had been admitted in a week. He underwent minor ear surgery on Tuesday and was released a few hours later and admitted to hospital briefly again on Friday, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA said. Abbas […]

21 May 2018

International News

PLO: Palestinians Will Not Be Part of Any Peace Plan Proposed by US

Saeb Erekat, secretary general of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said that the Palestinian side will not be part of any peace plan proposed by US president Donald Trump. During a meeting with Sweden’s State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Annika Söder, and the accompanying delegation in Ramallah, Erekat said that the Palestinian stance is firm and that Trump has isolated himself from the peace process, following […]

3 May 2018

International News

Mahmoud Abbas slams Trump over ‘slap of the century’

Mahmoud Abbas has sharply criticised Donald Trump, saying the Palestinian Authority (PA) will never accept the US president's decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital. The PA president made his comments on Sunday at the start of a two-day central council meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Ramallah. "Politically, Jerusalem is our capital; in our religion, it is our capital; geographically, it is our capital," said Abbas. "But […]

15 January 2018

Opinions

How Trump betrayed both Abbas and Abdullah of Jordan

By David Hearst On 21 August 1969, an Australian citizen called Denis Rohan set fire to an 800-year-old wooden pulpit, a gift to al-Aqsa mosque from the Islamic hero Saladin (1137-1193), who led the military campaign against the Crusaders. Apart from being considered mentally ill, Rohan thought he was acting on divine instructions. These were to enable the Jews to build the temple on the ruins of the mosque, thus […]

15 December 2017

Mahmoud Abbas

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