Abbas begins election campaign citing Arafat's legacy
By Arnon Regular, Haaretz Correspondent, and The Associated Press 26
December 2006
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/518888.html

[IMRA: Abu Mazen's hard line is not new - it is consistent with his stand
over the years.]

Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen)
began his public bid to succeed the late Yasser Arafat at a rally Saturday
in the West Bank town of Al-Bireh, near Ramallah.

Hundreds of supporters turned up to hear the candidate for the post of
chairman of the Palestinian Authority announce that the Palestinians would
adhere to the UN Resolutions 242 and 194 in order to claim their rights for
a Palestinian state through a negotiated peace.

"We are loyal to the national principles and demand the removal of the
separation fence and an end to settlements. We will not accept settlements,
and that includes Ma'aleh Adumim, Gush Etzion and Ariel," Abbas said.

One of the most dominant aspects of the Abbas campaign, in anticipation of
the January 9 elections, is the link to Yasser Arafat. Though the two had a
troubled relationship, culminating in the resignation of Abbas as Prime
Minister four months after being appointed by Arafat, Abbas stressed he
would preserve the Arafat legacy and deliver on his promise of Palestinian
statehood.

Abbas called on Israel to end its occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip
and East Jerusalem and said he favored a negotiated peace settlement and
promised to respect the rights of Palestinian refugees.

"We are choosing the path of peace and negotiation," said Abbas. "If there
is no peace here, there will be no peace in the Middle East or the rest of
the world."

Abbas appears alongside Arafat in campaign posters and advertisements that
ran in Palestinian newspapers yesterday. "Comrades in revolution," read one
poster of the two men.

More than a dozen speakers - religious leaders and representatives of
student groups, refugees and people injured during the four years of
fighting with Israel - introduced Abbas, nearly all of them invoking
Arafat's legacy and praising Abbas' commitment to follow in his path.

"Out of respect for Arafat, we are with Abu Mazen," Taissir Tamimi, a top
Islamic cleric, said.

In his speech, Abbas called for a moment of silence for Arafat, saying no
one could fill the void he left.

"Whatever you said on various occasions, whatever you talked about in
different meetings... is your will, and it is our duty to carry it out as
long as we live," he said, symbolically addressing Arafat.

Israel and the United States have quietly supported Abbas, whom they see as
a pragmatist.

He appealed for Israel to release all Palestinian prisoners, especially
jailed uprising leader Marwan Barghouti. Barghouti, a Fatah rival of Abbas',
pulled out of the race under intense party pressure.

Abbas also pledged to resolve the problem of hundreds of thousands of
Palestinian refugees, calling the issue "very important and very dangerous."

Militant group Hamas welcomed Abbas' speech, including his call for
legislative elections, but urged him to follow through. "What is important
for us is the implementation and the translation of these promises from
words to deeds," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said.

Human-rights activist Mustafa Barghouti, who is running a distant second to
Abbas in opinion polls, kicked off his campaign with his own effort to
harness Arafat's popularity, laying a wreath at the late leader's tomb.

"Put the cause in safe hands," Barghouti says in one ad, a picture of
Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock mosque in the background.

With the powerful Fatah party machinery behind him, Abbas is expected to
coast to victory.