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Palestinian leaders in the Israeli-occupied West Bank met this week for the first gathering of its kind in years. Their mission: to allow Mahmoud Abbas, the aging Palestinian Authority president, to appoint a longtime loyalist to a newly minted senior position. <\/p>\n
On Saturday night, Mr. Abbas formally named Hussein al-Sheikh, a close confidant, as his deputy. Some analysts believed Mr. al-Sheikh\u2019s promotion indicated that Mr. Abbas, 89, was signaling that Mr. al-Sheikh was his preferred heir, while others saw it as a cosmetic reshuffle to placate Arab officials frustrated by the Palestinian leader.<\/p>\n
For many Palestinians, their leadership\u2019s focus on palace politics as the war in Gaza has raged, and a sweeping Israeli military operation in the northern West Bank has displaced tens of thousands of people, has further underscored the complacency of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe ship is sinking, and everyone\u2019s fighting over who\u2019s going to be seated at what table,\u201d said Ghaith al-Omari, a former adviser to Mr. Abbas and a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a research group. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
More than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel\u2019s campaign against Hamas in Gaza, according to local health officials, who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The war began with Hamas\u2019s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, which killed about 1,200 people and took roughly 250 hostage. <\/p>\n
The war cast a spotlight on the Palestinian cause and spurred worldwide protests. But the frail and internally divided Palestinian Authority \u2014 the Palestinians\u2019 internationally recognized representative \u2014 has struggled for relevance. <\/p>\n
In an hourlong speech on Wednesday addressing the conference, Mr. Abbas mostly reiterated <\/span>familiar talking points condemning Israel\u2019s campaign in Gaza. He also denounced his Hamas rivals, calling them \u201csons of dogs\u201d and demanding that they release the remaining hostages. <\/p>\n Created during Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in the 1990s, the Palestinian Authority still oversees parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Many Palestinians hoped the body would one day govern an independent state, but negotiations to that end foundered in the early 2000s in the face of rising violence. <\/span><\/p>\n A significant part of the governing Israeli coalition support indefinite Israeli control in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel also regularly confiscates and withholds large chunks of the Palestinian budget, financially hobbling Mr. Abbas\u2019s government. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n At home, an overwhelming majority of Palestinians want Mr. Abbas to step down, opinion polls show. Some support his Hamas rivals, arguing that the Palestinian Authority\u2019s diplomatic approach has failed. In response, Mr. Abbas has consolidated power and cracked down on his critics.<\/p>\n Amid the war in Gaza, the Biden administration and its Arab allies urged Mr. Abbas to overhaul the authority. Many Western officials have viewed it as the sole feasible alternative to Hamas and have hoped that it could run the Gaza Strip after the war. <\/p>\n But U.S. and Arab officials have proposed that Mr. Abbas give up at least some power, which he has been loath to do. Palestinians have not had national elections since 2006, when Mr. Abbas\u2019s Fatah faction lost to Hamas at the ballot box. <\/p>\n One request was for Mr. Abbas to appoint an empowered prime minister to rehabilitate the Palestinian Authority\u2019s governance and fight corruption. Instead, he named one of his closest aides, Mohammad Mustafa, to the post, which many observers saw as more of the same<\/a>. <\/p>\n Arab leaders also pressed Mr. Abbas to deal more seriously with the question of who might succeed him, including by appointing a deputy who would try to assure continuity in the event of his death, according to two Palestinian officials and a Western diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss such sensitive details. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n During a meeting in the summer of 2024, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia pressed Mr. Abbas to appoint a vice president, the Palestinian officials said. <\/p>\n On Saturday night, the Palestine Liberation Organization\u2019s executive committee assented to Mr. Abbas\u2019s request to give Mr. al-Sheikh the title of deputy chairman of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Mr. al-Sheikh also said on social media that he now bore the title of \u201cvice president of the State of Palestine.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAbbas\u2019s primary goal is to relieve himself of the pressure from the Arabs,\u201d said Jehad Harb, a Ramallah-based political analyst. \u201cBut it\u2019s still unclear whether he\u2019s actually giving up power.\u201d<\/p>\n Saudi Arabia welcomed Mr. al-Sheikh\u2019s appointment on Saturday, saying it was poised to \u201cstrengthen the Palestinian political system.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. al-Sheikh has long worked closely with his Israeli and American counterparts, who often describe him as a pragmatic moderate. Many Palestinians see him as emblematic of the failures of the Palestinian Authority and a symbol of the deadlocked status quo. <\/p>\n But what might happen should Mr. Abbas die in office remains nebulous, as he has declined to appoint a clear heir, step down or allow for democratic elections. The result has been a power struggle among senior Palestinian officials jockeying for position before his death. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n