The Baltimore Sun
December 26, 2004 Sunday
FINAL EDITION
Palestinian campaign requires delicate balance;
Campaigns begin with Abbas trying to shore up image
Peter Hermann, SUN FOREIGN STAFF
EL-BIREH, West Bank – The front-runner in next month’s election to
succeed Yasser Arafat as Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, launched
his campaign yesterday, appealing to voters who worry that he might
surrender core tenets of their long fight for statehood.
The silver-haired, pragmatic 69-year-old reassured a hall filled with
800 supporters in a municipal building here, paying homage to Yasser
Arafat and using language to please militant ears, while not
repudiating previous moderate statements. He shared a dais with
teenagers wounded in the conflict, former prisoners of Israel and
relatives of dead gunmen.
They took turns giving Abbas their support in what was the
candidate’s attempt to reach out to people who have felt slighted by
him in the past, to shore up an image hurt by the tacit support he
enjoys from the United States and Israel and by his urgings for an
end to the armed conflict.
There are six candidates in addition to Abbas; one is under house
arrest in the United States, accused of supporting terrorist groups.
Yesterday was the first day of official campaigning, opening a
two-week process leading up to the vote, scheduled for Jan. 9, to
replace Arafat, who died last month.
`Hopes and the pains’
“The people at this table represent the hopes and the pains of the
Palestinian people,” Abbas said, after the group raised their joined
hands in a show of solidarity.
Addressing some of the concerns emanating from the street while
embracing Arafat’s legacy, he added, “We need only to be faithful to
our people.”
Abbas avoided any mention of his previous calls for gunmen to
surrender their arms, nor did he repeat his unpopular assertions that
militarizing the uprising was a “historic mistake.”
He pushed for national unity and the rule of law but appeared to rule
out a police crackdown on militant groups.
“We will not raise weapons in the faces of our brothers,” he said to
cheers from teenagers in the audience, who represent a young
generation of Fatah political party leaders who feel left out by the
entrenched old guard, epitomized by Abbas.
The only other relatively well-known candidate, Mustafa Barghouti, a
doctor from Ramallah, began his campaign in a more traditional style,
by visiting several Palestinian cities on an opening-day tour to get
close to the people.
Uncomfortable speaking
Abbas, widely known as Abu Mazen, is uncomfortable giving public
speeches, and he spent the past several weeks traveling and meeting
Arab leaders.
Last week, Abbas met with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and on
Friday he attended midnight Mass at the Church of the Nativity in
Bethlehem – carefully choreographed events in which he is clearly at
ease.
Yesterday’s campaign event was designed to quell concerns resonating
from a speech Abbas made last year at a peace summit in Jordan in
which he renounced violence and did not mention the plight of
thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Abbas sat between the Muslim cleric who had pronounced Arafat dead in
Paris and an Armenian priest.
Next to them sat Israel’s longest-held Palestinian prisoner, released
when Abbas was prime minister, along with the son of a man killed by
Israel and a teenager wounded in the conflict.
Also on the stage was Fadwa Barghouti, the wife of jailed uprising
leader Marwan Barghouti, who bowed out of the race this month under
pressure from Fatah, whose leaders were worried that his popularity
would split the dominant party and endanger Abbas’ candidacy.
Inclusive language
Abbas made sure not to leave out any part of his constituency,
especially those still involved in a conflict he wishes to end.
The song that preceded his remarks opens with the line: “We are not
terrorists, Muslims and Christians; we are struggling for freedom; we
are an Arab nation; we are struggling to liberate Palestine; they hit
us with missiles; we hit them with stones.”
He appealed to the young, often disillusioned Palestinians, saying,
“We know the suffering of our youth.”
He promised never to give up on Jerusalem as the capital of a future
Palestine and never to surrender the rights of refugees to return to
their former homes in Israel.
“We are choosing a path of peace and negotiations,” Abbas said. “If
there is no peace here, there will be no peace in the Middle East and
in the rest of the world. We know that the others do not want us to
be in peace, so they choose to kill and demolish us. But we will
stay.”
Homage to Arafat
Abbas sprinkled his lengthy address with references to Arafat, giving
him credit as “the one who exploded our revolution.” He referred to
Arafat’s final speech to legislators, in which he urged internal
reform to end corruption and made a stark admission that he and
others made mistakes in their quest for an independent state.
Abbas referred to that speech as Arafat’s will, and promised, “We
will do it” – using Arafat’s address as a bridge to a new era, away
from the rule of one man and toward the rule of democratic
institutions.
The large crowd only occasionally reacted with enthusiastic applause.
Often, it was the small groups of young activists whose loud shouts
provided the only lively spark in what was, for Abbas, a typically
dry speech.
At one point, they chanted, using Arafat’s nom de guerre, “Abu Amr,
he is resting and we will continue our struggle. Abu Mazen, we will
follow you to liberation.”
Akiam Mazaham, a 22-year-old biology student at Birzeit University,
was one of Abbas’ liveliest supporters.
Putting down his flag and removing his scarf adorned with the
Palestinian colors, he said he is convinced that Abbas will not sell
out Arafat’s legacy.
But he acknowledged that cheering a man clad in a gray suit and tie
is a bit harder than rooting for the more animated Arafat, the
embodiment of their movement.
“Abu Mazen is a man of institutions, and that can help us build a
state,” Mazaham said. The student smiled when asked about Abbas’
subdued speaking style, saying diplomatically, “He acts more than
talks.”
A campaign aide, Mohammed Ishtyeh, told reporters that Abbas planned
a vigorous schedule.
“Wherever he can go, he will go,” Ishtyeh said. “We want him to react
to the people, and we want the people to react to him, even though we
know what the end result will be.
“We want to keep up the momentum of the democratic process.”