Yasser Abbas ( ar, ياسر عباس; born 8 February 1962) is a multi-millionaire Palestinian-Canadian businessman, and the son of

Palestinian Authority The Palestinian National Authority (PA or PNA; ar, السلطة الوطنية الفلسطينية '), commonly known as the Palestinian Authority and officially the State of Palestine,

President

Mahmoud Abbas Mahmoud Abbas ( ar, مَحْمُود عَبَّاس, Maḥmūd ʿAbbās; born 15 November 1935), also known by the kunya Abu Mazen ( ar, أَبُو مَازِن, links=no, ), is the president of the State of Palestine and the Palestinian Natio ...

. His conspicuous wealth has caused controversy in the

Palestinian Territories The Palestinian territories are the two regions of the former British Mandate for Palestine that have been militarily occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967, namely: the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip. The I ...

Early life

Yasser Mahmoud Reda Abbas is the second of three sons of

and his wife Amina. He was named in honor of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. In 1983, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from

Washington State University Washington State University (Washington State, WSU, or informally Wazzu) is a public land-grant research university with its flagship, and oldest, campus in Pullman, Washington. Founded in 1890, WSU is also one of the oldest land-grant unive ...

Career

Despite Abbas' father being accused—by former economic advisor to Yasser Arafat, Mohammed Rachid, of taking $100 million from the Palestinian government for himself, Abbas claims that his wealth comes from his own businesses.The Brothers Abbas; Jonathan Schanzer; Foreign Policy; June 5, 2012 In the late 1980s/early 1990s, Abbas lived in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

, Canada, where he had a company which was mainly involved in renovating apartment buildings, and was able to obtain Canadian citizenship. Abbas worked for a number of contracting firms from the Persian Gulf from the 1980s until he left to

Ramallah Ramallah ( , ; ar, رام الله, , God's Height) is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank that serves as the ''de facto'' administrative capital of the State of Palestine. It is situated on the Judaean Mountains, north of Jerusale ...

to start his own company in 1997. Abbas is the owner of Falcon Tobacco, the company that controls all American-made cigarette sales in all Palestinian territories. Abbas also is the chairman of the Falcon Holding Group, a Palestinian investment firm that owns Falcon Electric Mechanical Contracting Company (FEMC). However, FEMC's success didn't come without the assistance from the U.S. government: The Company had been rewarded a contract for $1.89 million from the U.S. government during the Iraq war to build a sewage system in the town of

Hebron Hebron ( ar, الخليل or ; he, חֶבְרוֹן ) is a Palestinian. city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judaean Mountains, it lies above sea level. The second-largest city in the West Bank (after East J ...

.Firms run by President Abbas's sons get U.S. contracts; Adam Entous; Reuters; April 22, 2009 As well as his tobacco business, Abbas is the head of an insurance company, a civil engineering firm and a real-estate business, all of which are headquartered in Ramallah, effectively the capital of the

West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

. Together with his brother, Tariq Abbas, he also owns an advertising agency in the West Bank. In October 2013, a judge dismissed a libel case brought by Abbas against

Jonathan Schanzer Jonathan Schanzer is an American author and senior vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He oversees the work of the organization's experts and scholars. Professional overview Schanzer was a Research Fellow at ...

, a political analyst and vice president of the Washington DC-based

Foundation for Defense of Democracies The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit think tank and registered lobbying organization based in Washington, D.C., United States. The group's political leanings have been described as hawkish and neoconservative ...

. In June 2012, Schanzer had written an online opinion piece for ''

Foreign Policy A State (polity), state's foreign policy or external policy (as opposed to internal or domestic policy) is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterall ...

'' magazine, which questioned the legitimacy of the wealth of President Mahmoud Abbas's two sons (Yasser and Tariq). In August 2015, he was reported to be "tied to a corruption scandal" involving the misuse of public funds, and had paid $50,000 to acquire apartments in a luxury complex in Ramallah, for which Bahrain's foreign minister had been asked for $4 million to fund the private complex for Palestinian officials.

Personal life

Abbas has two sons and a daughter from a previous marriage. In 2015, he married a Lebanese BBC Arabic Television presenter, Malak Jaafar.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abbas, Yasser Palestinian Sunni Muslims Canadian people of Palestinian descent Living people 1962 births