Twelve days after Mahmoud Abbas was appointed Palestinian Authority prime minister in the spring of 2003, he hosted a joint news conference with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in the West Bank city of Jericho.
Television networks from Arab nations, the United States and Britain carried the appearance live. Palestinian television stations played cartoons.
"I asked the information minister why," Abbas recounted in a closed-door resignation speech before Palestinian lawmakers four months later. "And he said, 'There were instructions,' meaning from the president [Yasser Arafat], under whose orders they broadcast cartoons at that time."
On his first official day in office Saturday, Abbas, popularly known as Abu Mazen, faced many of the same frustrations that prompted him to resign as appointed prime minister 16 months ago. Friday night, on the eve of Abbas's inauguration as the newly elected president of the Palestinian Authority, Israel announced it was suspending contacts with Abbas's government because of a deadly attack by Palestinian militants that killed six Israelis at a border crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip on Thursday.
"It appears that my style and plan are not acceptable to anyone," Abbas told the lawmakers in the private resignation speech on Sept. 6, 2003, large parts of which were published weeks later by Palestinian and Israeli newspapers. "Israel says, 'He's good,' and strikes us. Hamas says, 'He is an honest man,' and strikes us. The Palestinian leadership gives us a stick and then accuses us of threatening Palestinian legitimacy."
In the end, Abbas lamented, he had become "the punching bag."
Today there is one change in that laundry list of obstacles: Yasser Arafat is dead.
Out of the shadows
After spending decades in Arafat's shadow and most of his career avoiding a public political role, Abbas must attempt to win the support of competing factions among his people while addressing Israeli and international demands that he help resolve the four-year-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has claimed more than 3,000 Palestinian and 1,000 Israeli lives.
"He's the one now," said Ziad Abu Amr, a Gaza representative in the Palestinian Legislative Council who served as a cabinet minister during Abbas's brief 2003 government. "He believes in power-sharing, he believes in inclusion. ... It gives him clout. He can deliver."
But throughout much of his political career, Abbas has walked away from conflict.
"He gave up too soon," said Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashwari of Abbas's resignation as prime minister. "Now, the main difference is he sees he's been given the mandate and he has legitimacy. When you have a vote of confidence from the people and a mandate to carry out your own agenda, then you won't be so suspicious and sensitive. Hopefully he will develop a thicker skin."
Abbas has been a key participant in every major effort to negotiate peace between the Palestinians and Israelis for more than a decade. He wrote a book about his experiences in shaping the 1993 Oslo peace accords.
"I think Abu Mazen almost never has taken a personal risk in pushing forward" new ideas during negotiations between the two sides, said Gilead Sher, one of his Israeli counterparts during the failed 2000 Camp David talks.
At Camp David, Abbas was one of "the toughest, most dogmatic" of the Palestinian negotiators, Sher said.
Militant groups remain a problem
One of the biggest obstacles faced by Abbas remains the fact that militant organizations, as well as a large percentage of the Palestinian population, are opposed to his call for an end to the armed resistance. In Thursday night's attack at the commercial truck crossing into Gaza, three Palestinian militant groups asserted responsibility, including the Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the militant wing of Abbas's Fatah movement.
As prime minister in 2003, Abbas helped negotiate a cease-fire among the Palestinian factions. On the campaign trail in recent weeks, gun-wielding al-Aqsa members hoisted him on their shoulders during appearances in many West Bank cities.
Abbas has called for an end to the armed conflict, but has insisted he will provide protection for the fighters.
In Abbas's meetings with militant leaders, "there is a high level of civility and respect," said Abu Amr, the former cabinet member and a participant in the negotiations leading to the temporary cease-fire in 2003.
At meetings, Abbas greets the militants with the traditional handshake, followed by three kisses on the cheeks, according to participants.
"They sit together, they differ, they smile," Abu Amr said. "They may differ with him on the formula, but they don't have any doubts about his motives. People trust his motives."
Although Abbas often invoked Arafat's name during his campaign and wrapped his neck in the black-and-white checkered keffiyeh that was Arafat's signature apparel, the two men's relationship remained frigid from Abbas's resignation in September 2003 until Arafat became seriously ill in October of 2004, according to numerous associates.
Though he was no longer prime minister, Abbas retained an influential role as the number two official of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the group that oversees international Palestinian interests. Arafat headed the PLO until his death, when Abbas took over as its leader.
Legislator: Don't expect 'complete transformation'
Abbas has granted few interviews in recent years and none since his election last week. Instead, he writes copious notes on each day's events and meetings in a personal journal that has occasionally been expanded into richly detailed books and articles.
"I thought he would never campaign — he hated to be in crowds," said Ashwari, the Palestinian legislator. "Gradually he began to enjoy the reception, the enthusiasm, the exuberance. I saw some transformation of him coming out of the shadows."
She added, "I don't think you will see a complete transformation. He's not going to become a populist or charismatic character."
Abbas was born in 1935 in the town of Safed, now a part of northeastern Israel about six miles from the Syrian border. His father was a prominent cheese merchant in the town, which was famed for its cheese production. In 1948, after the creation of Israel, the Abbas family fled Safed along with the rest of its 10,000 residents. The family moved to Damascus, where Abbas received a law degree from the University of Damascus. He earned a doctorate in history from Moscow's Oriental College.
He spent his early adulthood teaching elementary school, then working in a government ministry in Qatar. In the late 1950s, Abbas joined the young Arafat's newly formed Fatah movement and spent the next half century in leadership roles within Fatah and the PLO.
Abbas and his wife had three sons — Mazen, Yasser and Tareq. As is the custom of many Arabs, Abbas took the name of his eldest son as his nickname, becoming known as Abu Mazen, translated as father of Mazen. His son, Mazen, died of a heart attack in 2002 at the age of 43.