[3] Yasser Abed Rabbo started his political career in the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), a pan-Arabist organization.

In 1968, a leftist faction of the PFLP led by Nayef Hawatmeh split from the movement and formed the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP).

During the 1980s, Abed Rabbo became closely allied with PLO chairman Yasser Arafat and supported his attempts to negotiate a two-state solution.

The two disagreed about Abed Rabbo's participation in Arafat's diplomacy regarding the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the extent of the DFLP's political activities in Jordan, where Hawatmeh was based.

[4] He headed the Palestinian negotiating team in final status peace talks with the Israelis between September 1999 and May 2000, and later took part in the Camp David II Summit in July 2000.

Women's rights activist Zahira Kamal had been chosen in an internal election to replace him as minister in the government of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), but Abed Rabbo refused to step down, and instead left the party.

[4] These initiatives, coupled with his public condemnations of suicide bombing attacks during the Second Intifada, strengthened Abed Rabbo's image as a pro-peace moderate, and he is often presented as a Palestinian "dove".

Anonymous Palestinian officials claimed the two had long been at odds over budget allocations and that Abbas viewed Abed Rabbo as a threat to his presidency with financial support from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).