from
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2023/0817/Why-Palestinian-self-government-is-unraveling-under-President-Abbas

Why Palestinian self-government is unraveling under President Abbas
By Taylor Luck Special correspondent
Fatima AbdulKarim Special contributor
Neri Zilber Special contributor
August 17, 2023
| 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.”

WHY WE WROTE THIS
A story focused on
RESPONSIBILITY
Palestinians’ trust in their leader and government is failing. Mahmoud
Abbas, the aging and autocratic president, has been holding together the
Palestinian Authority. But with no succession plan in place, predictions
of chaos are proliferating.

“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.

Amr Nabil/AP
View caption
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.

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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.”

Taylor Luck
View caption
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.”

The disillusioned 27-year-old runs an upscale Ramallah cafe and now
avoids politics.

Taylor Luck
View caption
“You can plan two months ahead, but planning for a year is impossible,”
says Abdullah Rafidi, a 23-year-old baker in Al Bireh, adjacent to
Ramallah, who cites rising crime. “I expect a civil war when the
president dies.”

Gaith al-Omari, an analyst and former PA official who worked with both
Mr. Arafat and Mr. Abbas as a negotiating team adviser, sees the PA as
weakened.

“Whoever comes after Abbas needs political support. In times of crisis,
you need your public to rally around you, but he has pushed them away,”
he says.

“Today Palestinians are checking out; they feel they have no voice and
that a small clique controls everything,” he says. “There is a
widespread sense of, ‘This is not ours; why should we bother?’”

Stateless, institutionless
Indeed, Mr. Abbas’ consolidation of power has come at the expense of
Palestinian institutions, hailed as important safeguards that eased the
leadership transition in 2005.

One, the Palestinian Legislative Council, or parliament, has been
shuttered since 2007, after fighting erupted between Fatah and its main
rival, Hamas, which then held a majority.

Today, pigeons have taken roost in the council’s domed entrance. Exposed
wires poke out from the ceiling, and bits of broken drywall and concrete
litter the floor as if a bomb had gone off 16 years ago.

In an adjacent building, Ibrahim Khreisheh, secretary-general of the
council, watches over the shuttered parliament from his smoke-filled,
third-floor office.

Like many, he believes democracy is the only path out of Palestinians’
current crisis.

“The four of us in this room are Fatah,” he says, pointing to himself
and three colleagues. “Not even two of us can agree on the same
[successor]. That is why you need general elections.”

Yet they do agree that a prolonged interim period without elections
would be “chaos.”

“The Palestinian Authority would lose all legitimacy,” says Mr.
Khreisheh. “These institutions will be no more. We will be in a
post-Oslo era and a post-Authority era. We are afraid that this will
only lead to a vacuum and violence.”

Taylor Luck
View caption
Political opportunities?
Watching and waiting is the Islamist militant Hamas, the target of
protests in Gaza even as it enjoys a resurgence of support among West
Bank residents who have never experienced its rule.

Reconciling Fatah and Hamas is a priority for many Palestinians, who
blame the schism in part for their leadership woes. The latest efforts
at reconciliation – by Turkey and Egypt in late July – made no headway.

Hamas is urging officials to follow the Palestinian Constitution’s rules
for succession, in which the speaker of parliament serves as interim
president for 60 days during which presidential elections “shall take
place.” The last speaker was Hamas member Aziz Dweik.