At the age of eighty-two and reportedly in poor health, the Palestinian Authority (PA) president faces declining popularity, yet has made no effort to appoint a successor. He has also taken a much harsher line with Hamas, slashing payments for fuel and, more recently, for hospitals—perhaps out of concern with the threat the organization poses to his rule. Grant Rumley analyzes Abbas’s position with respect to the most recent outbreak of violence:

The [recent rioting in Jerusalem] was finally resolved when Israel removed the security cameras and metal detectors and re-opened [the entrance to the Temple Mount] where the initial terrorist attack took place, but the impact of this near-catastrophic escalation will linger. Palestinians see the massive protests that rocked Jerusalem as the reason for Israel’s acquiescence. When tensions flare again, they’ll look to a political leadership willing to support them in these tactics.

And they may start to look elsewhere for [that] leadership. . . . Abbas has . . . clamped down on political expression, regularly arresting students and shutting down websites critical of his government. To top it off, he spends most of his time outside the West Bank. His people have responded with varying levels of unrest: a majority of Palestinians want him to resign, and refugee camps in the West Bank have become flashpoints for clashes with the PA. The Balata camp in Nablus and the al-Amari camp between Jerusalem and Ramallah have seen sustained fights against PA forces in recent years.

Abbas’s policies [toward Hamas] have also come under heavy scrutiny. . . . A majority of Palestinians view Abbas’s actions as a cruel punishment of everyday Gazans. . . .

Many Palestinians—including his own allies and rivals—have begun to plan for the post-Abbas era. The events of the past month have Palestinians convinced that wide-scale, coordinated protest is the way forward. At some point, they’ll want a leadership that fully endorses it.

Robert Satloff has some harsh words for the U.S. government in this regard, words I take especially seriously because Satloff is someone inclined to political moderation. Why, he asks, have American diplomats failed to achieve anything in their endless rounds of talks in Doha and Cairo? Because

there is simply not enough pressure on Hamas to change course, accept a deal, and release the remaining October 7 hostages, stuck in nightmarish captivity. . . . In this environment, why should Hamas change course?

Publicly, the U.S. should bite the bullet and urge Israel to complete the main battle operations in Gaza—i.e., the Rafah operation—as swiftly and efficiently as possible. We should be assertively assisting with the humanitarian side of this.

Satloff had more to say about the hostages, especially the five American ones, in a speech he gave recently:

I am ashamed—ashamed of how we have allowed the story of the hostages to get lost in the noise of the war that followed their capture; ashamed of how we have permitted their release to be a bargaining chip in some larger political negotiation; ashamed of how we have failed to give them the respect and dignity and our wholehearted demand for Red Cross access and care and medicine that is our normal, usual demand for hostages.

If they were taken by Boko Haram, everyone would know their name. If they were taken by the Taliban, everyone would tie a yellow ribbon around a tree for them. If they were taken by Islamic State, kids would learn about them in school.

It is repugnant to see their freedom as just one item on the bargaining table with Hamas, as though they were chattel. These are Americans—and they deserve to be backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.