The Palestinian Liberation Group (PLO), below stress to nominate a second-in-command to its ageing chief, Mahmoud Abbas, created a vice chairman place after assembly with senior officers on April 24.
Abbas, who can be president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), promised throughout an emergency Arab summit in early March that the place can be created. But it stays unclear who will finally fill the submit.
The goal is to stop an influence battle after Abbas vacates his submit – a state of affairs that Israel may exploit to trigger the collapse of the PA, absolutely annexe the occupied West Financial institution and ethnically cleanse Gaza, specialists advised Al Jazeera.
But Dianna Buttu, a former authorized adviser to the PLO, believes making a vice chairman submit within the PA is not going to avert an influence battle as soon as Abbas is gone – fairly, it may exacerbate battle.
“The extra fragmented the PA turns into, the extra it’s going to create an influence vacuum … and that vacuum will probably be crammed by exterior actors and primarily by the People and Israelis,” she warned.
Legitimacy disaster
Abbas, 89, assumed management of the PLO and PA after Palestinian chief Yasser Arafat died in November 2004 and has ruled without a popular mandate since dissolving parliament in 2007.
His Fatah occasion dominates the PA and PLO. The long-defunct parliament has light away, and critics have slammed Abbas for seeming to undermine makes an attempt to carry elections that would revive it.
Within the absence of parliament, the PLO controls the succession, a job Abbas has postponed, together with by decreeing final yr that Rawhi Fattouh, head of the Palestinian Nationwide Council, would change into interim president if the place turned vacant instantly till elections are held.
“Abbas has put this off out of worry that if he introduced anybody ahead, then they might be a rival,” stated Khaled Elgindy, a visiting scholar at Georgetown College’s Heart for Modern Arab Research.
The PA was created by the Oslo Peace Accords, signed by Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1993 and 1995.
Tasked with governing the West Financial institution and Gaza till a Palestinian state was created alongside Israel, the PA misplaced credibility amongst Palestinians as Israel’s occupation turned extra violent and oppressive, and land grabs for Israeli settlements continued.
Since Oslo, the inhabitants of settlements, unlawful below worldwide regulation, constructed on Palestinian land has risen from about 200,000 to greater than 750,000.
In 2007, a violent cut up with Hamas in Gaza constrained the PA’s authority to the elements of the occupied West Financial institution that it had some restricted management over.
The PA did handle to change into the de facto Palestinian consultant on the worldwide stage, changing the PLO.
However at dwelling, Abbas’s reputation slipped as folks’s struggling elevated and the PA continued its safety coordination with Israel, which was outlined within the Oslo Accords.
The PA can be seen to have failed to guard Palestinians from Israeli troops and settlers whereas utilizing its authority to crack down on civil activists and opponents.
This has resulted in a state of affairs wherein whoever he appoints, “Abbas’s handpicked successor in all probability gained’t win folks over”, Elgindy advised Al Jazeera.
The identify prompt most frequently is Abbas’s shut confidant and secretary-general of the PLO Govt Committee, Hussein al-Sheikh.
Al-Sheikh additionally heads the PA’s Normal Authority for Civil Affairs, which points the Israeli-approved permits that allow a couple of Palestinians to navigate the motion restrictions Israel has applied within the occupied West Financial institution.
Human rights teams and the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice – the very best authorized physique on this planet – see Israel’s motion restrictions towards Palestinians as apartheid.
Sheikh’s long-standing relationship with the Israeli authorities has led critics to accuse him of appearing as a liaison for the occupation.
“No person likes him [among Palestinians],” stated Omar Rahman, an knowledgeable on Israel-Palestine with the Center East Council for World Affairs. “[Al-Sheikh] is tainted by his relationship to Israel and perceptions [that he is embroiled in] large corruption.”
Exterior stress
The stress on Abbas concerning succession has ebbed and flowed over time, intensifying over latest months as Arab states push him to nominate a successor to stop the PA from dissolving into chaos, analysts advised Al Jazeera.
Egypt is especially keen to make sure succession, in keeping with Rahman.
In March, Egypt known as and hosted an Arab League summit, throughout which it unveiled its reconstruction plan for Gaza to counter United States President Donald Trump’s proposal to ethnically cleanse Gaza and switch it right into a “Center East Riviera”.
Egypt was talked about as one of many international locations the place Palestinians might be “moved to”, an concept it firmly rejected and countered with its reconstruction plan.
The proposal included making a Palestinian technocratic administration, supervised by the PA, to supervise the reconstruction of the devastated enclave with out displacing anybody.
The trail to PA administration of Gaza is by no means clear, nonetheless, as each Hamas and Israel object to it – Hamas as a result of it administers Gaza at present, whereas Israel has panned the PA as ineffective.
Abbas seems to have gone on the offensive, delivering angry broadsides towards Hamas through the conferences and blaming the group for permitting the continuation of Israel’s genocide in Gaza by not handing over captives and disarming.
Nonetheless, many Arab states blame Abbas for failing to reconcile his Fatah faction with Hamas, making them desirous to see a change of guard within the PA, in keeping with Tahani Mustafa, an knowledgeable on Palestinian inner politics with the Worldwide Disaster Group
Since 2007, Fatah and Hamas have signed several agreements to heal their divisions after the preventing that cut up the Palestinian nationwide motion.
“I feel there was a variety of frustration [among Arab states] that [Abbas] has been extra of a spoiler and impediment to making an attempt to get a united Palestinian entrance, which has given Israel a pretext to proceed doing what it has been doing in Gaza,” Mustafa advised Al Jazeera.
Can a vice chairman revive the PA?
As an alternative of making a brand new political submit, Buttu believes Abbas ought to maintain elections for Fatah, the PLO and the PA.
The final time voting was held was simply earlier than the battle between Hamas and Fatah in 2006. Hamas won a huge majority in these legislative elections.
The selection to create a brand new vice chairman submit, she fears, gained’t remedy the legitimacy disaster or energy vacuum as soon as Abbas is gone, given what she described as Abbas’s lack of political will to revive Palestinian establishments.
“In typical vogue, Abbas is doing the naked minimal to get [Arab states] off his again,” she advised Al Jazeera.
Elections, she acknowledged, may show technically tough as a result of Israel’s devastating struggle and genocide in Gaza in addition to its violence and motion restrictions within the West Financial institution.
Nonetheless, she stated Palestinians may nonetheless discover methods to vote, maybe by way of a web based portal or course of.
“Inside Fatah itself, there’s a variety of pushback on this appointment of a vice chairman. They’re all saying there must be elections as an alternative,” Buttu advised Al Jazeera.
“[Abbas] is placing a Band-Support on a wound so open that it requires surgical procedure,” she stated.
