The Last Palestinian: The Rise and Reign of Mahmoud Abbas [Hardcover]

The Last Palestinian is a gripping story, compellingly told. It is required reading for anybody who wants to understand the crisis of the Palestinian national movement and the failure of the peace process.?Walter Russell Mead, Distinguished Scholar at Hudson Institute and author of Special ProvidenceThis is a serious political biography of a man whose life embodies the hopes, challenges, struggles, and failures of the Palestinian national struggle. An important account for anyone wishing to understand the history, evolution, and politics of Palestinian peacemaking.Robert Danin, Council on Foreign Relations and Harvard Kennedy School, former Head of the Office of the Quartet Representative, JerusalemThis important and fair-minded book adds an important, and badly needed, element to the puzzle of contemporary Palestinian domestic politics. It should be read carefully by everyone who wants to understand the current status of Israeli-Palestinian dynamics and the broader political landscape in the Middle East.?Hussein Ibish, senior resident scholar, Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, DCMahmoud Abbas is the last of the generation of Fatahs founding leaders. Abbas was always outshone by Yasser Arafat and his two key lieutenantsAbu Iyad and Abu Jihadbut he also outlived them to become leader of the Palestinian national movement in 2005. The Last Palestinian is an essential read, for it tells the story of a complex personalityopposed to violence, doggedly in favor of the two-state solution, intent to lead but with a shrinking followingin pursuit of a vision of an independent Palestine that has thus far eluded him. The authors have assembled a textured picture of the man, his strengths and shortcomings, who at age eighty-two continues to lead the Palestinians, albeit in a more authoritarian direction and toward a goal of independence that appears more remote than ever.Daniel Kurtzer, Princeton University, former US ambassador to Egypt and IsraelI have lâ