Leader of Fatah movement, seen as a moderate by the west, to sit out forthcoming election according to reports in West Bank
Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
Abbas, who was elected nearly five years ago, had been expected to run again, despite the deep factional divisions among his own people and the deadlock in returning to peace talks with the Israelis.
"The president insists on not running in the upcoming election," an official from the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation told Reuters. Abbas announced his decision today at a meeting of the PLO, which he chairs.
He was expected to give a speech later in the day, but some senior Palestinian figures said they were still trying to dissuade him from stepping down.
It is not clear if Abbas intends to go ahead with his decision or whether it is an attempt to encourage the US administration to apply more pressure on Israel so that peace talks can resume.
Presidential and parliamentary elections are scheduled for January next year, but are widely expected to be delayed until June at the earliest because of a deep rift between the West Bank, run by Abbas's Fatah movement, and Gaza, run by its Islamist rival, Hamas. An election in both areas is unlikely without a reconciliation between the factions, but that has proved increasingly elusive.
If Abbas does not run in the next elections that might open the way for Marwan Barghouti, a popular leader from the same Fatah party who is now serving five life terms in an Israeli jail. Barghouti, who was elected to Fatah's central committee this summer, has always balked at running against Abbas, but is widely regarded by Palestinians as one of their most popular leaders. He was jailed in 2002 for involvement in the killing of four Israelis and a Greek monk during the Palestinian second intifada.
Abbas is a moderate who has tied his political career, first as prime minister then as president, to a negotiated two-state peace agreement. He has refused to resume talks with the Israelis until all settlement construction is halted, an Israeli obligation under the 2003 US road map, which remains the basis of Middle East peace talks.
Earlierthis year, Washington also insisted Israel stop all settlement activity, but has since significantly softened its position, asking instead for Israeli "restraint". That change in approach culminated last weekend in when Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, provoking Palestinian and Arab anger by praising as "unprecedented" a partial settlement freeze offer from Israel.
Israel says it will offer a temporary freeze but with significant caveats, including the continued construction of 3,000 settler homes, as well as continued building in east Jerusalem settlements and of all public projects in settlements. The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, leads a rightwing cabinet that is largely supportive of the settlement project.
Yesterday, the Palestinian chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said the Israeli proposal effectively meant more settlement homes would be built in the next two years than in 2008 and 2009. There are now nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers living in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, although settlement on occupied land is illegal under international law.
Erekat said the international community faced a "critical moment" in the Middle East and that it may be time for the Palestinians to start arguing in favour of a one-state solution, a bi-national state of Jews and Arabs on the same land. Israel bitterly opposes such an idea.
"President Abbas will have to come to his moment of truth and tell that to his people, tell them that we tried but now it's not an option to talk about two states because Israel destroyed it with settlements and walls," Erekat said. He said the Palestinians were not walking away from negotiations, but wanted the US to create a "realistic political track" for two-state peace talks.
Abbas has seen his credibility among Palestinians damaged in recent months. First, he agreed to meet Netanyahu in New York in September, just days after insisting there would be no meeting without an Israeli settlement freeze. Then last month, under US pressure, he withdrew Palestinian support for a UN human rights council resolution endorsing a report into the Gaza war, by the South African judge Richard Goldstone. Within days, Abbas reversed his decision and the report was endorsed by the council and is also likely to be endorsed by the UN general assembly this week.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009
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