Why Palestinian self-government is unraveling under President Abbas
Aug 17, 2023
By Taylor Luck, Fatima AbdulKarim and Neri Zilber
RAMALLAH, WEST BANK; AND TEL AVIV, ISRAEL-Mohammed strolls down the corridor, stopping to gaze at glassed-in panels marking milestones in the life of Yasser Arafat and modern Palestinian history: the first intifada, the Oslo Accords, a Nobel Peace Prize, the second intifada.
The Chilean Palestinian, who asks that his full name not be used, lingers at the final panel on the 2004 death and funeral of Mr. Arafat, the longtime chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and first president of the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Mohammed says every time he visits his family in the West Bank village of Turmus Ayya, he comes to the Yasser Arafat Museum and Mausoleum, a pilgrimage to what he considers symbols of Palestinian identity and yearned-for statehood, to “feel connected to my nation and my roots.”
“All of this is our story,” he says, motioning to the display cases. On this weekday afternoon he seems puzzled to be the only visitor.
A few yards away, the Mukataa presidential compound, which buzzed with life under President Arafat, is nearly just as empty.
It’s no coincidence. Mr. Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, whose elected mandate ended 14 years ago, has shut off the Mukataa and PA, the institutional embodiments of Palestinian autonomy, to everyone but himself and his inner circle.
And while the succession process triggered by the passing of Mr. Arafat was an orderly affair that followed a nascent constitution and political consensus, plans for succeeding the 87-year-old Mr. Abbas are far from clear.
This vagueness is by design – and aimed at self-preservation.
Over the past 12 years, the president, also known as Abu Mazen, has ousted and exiled potential rivals, detained opposition figures, and quashed dissent, both within his Fatah movement that dominates the PA and across the West Bank.
With the Palestinian parliament dissolved, judiciary sidelined, and his party hollowed out, Mr. Abbas and a handful of allies now rule the West Bank alone.
The result, observers and Palestinians say, is a self-inflicted leadership crisis: The PA commands little popular support, its control over territory is diminishing rapidly, and the one man holding together the PA – a legacy of the 1993 Oslo Accords with Israel – may soon be responsible for unraveling it.
For Palestinians, uncertainty over the succession process comes amid a whirl of public apathy, rising settler violence under a far-right Israeli government, spiraling crime, and the emergence of militias targeting Israelis and clashing with PA security services.
With the United States and the West preoccupied with Ukraine, Israel consumed with internal divisions, and the Palestinian cause a lower priority for many Arab states, the brewing crisis is one that many countries and Palestinians themselves see coming, but are unable – or unwilling – to avert.
“All my family tell me that this isn’t the Palestine that I knew, that they knew,” Mohammed says of the uncertainty swirling in Ramallah. “Everyone is anxious and has no idea where we are going, who will lead us.” “
Stability vs. democracy
Who will take over from Mr. Abbas has become a guessing game among the few Palestinians still invested in a leadership that many say “does not represent us.”
Marwan Barghouti, a Fatah rival to Mr. Abbas jailed in Israel, consistently polls as Palestinians’ preferred successor – double that of Hamas’ Ismael Haniya. In a June poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, Mr. Barghouti beats Mr. Haniya in a head-to-head matchup 57% to 38%.
Leading contenders among Mr. Abbas’ inner circle and the Fatah old guard include PLO Secretary-General Hussein al-Sheikh, the PA’s key liaison with Israel; Majed Farraj, head of Palestinian intelligence; Mohammed Shtayyeh, the technocrat prime minister; Fatah veteran Mahmoud al-Aloul; and Fatah Secretary-General Jibril Rajoub.
One scenario discussed in Ramallah, Jordan, and Egypt is a triumvirate of three senior PA officials, each managing a separate portfolio: administrative affairs, security, and diplomacy. Israeli officials consider the rule-by-committee scenario likely.
Members of Mr. Abbas’ inner circle say continuity in leadership is “crucial” for Palestinians to keep the PA alive, maintain critical health and education services, cooperate with the international community, and safeguard against encroaching settlers and annexation attempts by Israel.
Those goals, they argue, supersede the need for elections.
Continuity and the process will be respected,” says Social Development Minister Ahmad Majdalani, a PLO Executive Committee member and Abbas ally. He dismisses succession worries: “Right now, policy is more important.”
Yet few Palestinians believe the PA can survive a transfer of power without elections or transparency.
“Post-Abu Mazen, there will be chaos. There will be a collapse of Fatah and the PA. But instead of offering solutions to prevent the chaos, we are forced to be spectators,” says Jassir Ghafri, one of hundreds of young Palestinians who have been driven from Fatah in recent years.
“We have a crisis in leadership and a crisis of ideas. There are no visions on where to go from here or how to improve our lives,” he says. Thanks to Mr. Abbas’ crackdowns, “we have no national project, no vision, no direction. Only arms.”
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