History
Yasser Arafat was the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization and became the Palestinian National Authority's first president when the governing body was created in 1994. His rule was validated by an election on January 20, 1996, but future elections were suspended. Arafat remained president until his death on 11 November 2004, at which point Palestinian house speaker Rauhi Fattouh assumed most of Arafat's duties and became interim president. However, he never formally assumed the title. New elections were held on January 9, 2005, and won by Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas's term expired on 9 January 2009, creating a constitutional crisis. Abbas unilaterally extended his term by one year and is recognised as President by the government of Salam Fayad, which governs parts of the West Bank. Since then, however Aziz Duwaik, as the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, is recognised as acting President by the government of Ismail Haniyeh that governs the Gaza Strip.
Read more about this topic: President Of The Palestinian National Authority
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“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
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“Tell me of the height of the mountains of the moon, or of the diameter of space, and I may believe you, but of the secret history of the Almighty, and I shall pronounce thee mad.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)