Arafat’s Nephew Makes His Move to Succeed Abbas

The Jerusalem Post reports: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has not made a significant move to signal whom he wants to succeed him as the head of the PA, the PLO or Fatah.

Nonetheless, Palestinian leaders, vying for one or all three of the leadership roles, have launched their campaigns to garner support from the Palestinian public and international community.

Nasser al-Qudwa (pictured above), known best as the nephew of Yasser Arafat, is one of those leaders.

Qudwa, born in 1953, first rose to the upper echelons of the Palestinian leadership when he served as PLO ambassador to United Nations in the 1990s and early 2000s. He gained a reputation as a shrewd diplomat with the ability to navigate the international scene. In 2005, after his uncle died, he returned to Ramallah and assumed the role of foreign minister in then prime minister Ahmed Qurei’s government.

However, Qudwa, a strong personality, struggled with President Abbas, who had wanted to manage much of Palestinian foreign policy from his Mukata headquarters, and resigned from the position a year later.

Read more here.