In Appointing a New Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas Focuses on His Rivalry with Hamas

March 21 2019

On March 10, Mahmoud Abbas appointed Muhammad Shtayyeh the new prime minister of the Palestinian Authority (PA), replacing Rami Hamdallah who had tendered his resignation in January. Pinḥas Inbari explains the political considerations behind Shtayyeh’s appointment and the challenges he faces in forming a new government. At issue are the tensions between Abbas’s ruling Fatah faction and the other groups that make up the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO):

Shtayyeh is not [considered] a Fatah “fighter,” [since he has not] spent time in an Israeli prison. . . . Fatah’s main concern now is that its senior officials be promoted to key positions [in preparation for] the day after Mahmoud Abbas [dies or otherwise leaves office]. . . . The reason Abbas is not interested in promoting any of the senior Fatah fighters is to avoid inflaming the succession struggle now.

Instead of a Fatah government as such, Abbas is more interested in a PLO government [that includes other factions] due to his struggle with Hamas over the legitimacy of the PLO’s authority. . . . But here lies the main problem: [the other] leading PLO organizations, including the Popular Front, the Democratic Front, and Islamic Jihad, are aligned with Hamas rather than with Ramallah. It is now taken for granted that they will not join Shtayyeh’s new government. . . .

It is [nevertheless] expected that Shtayyeh will “open the door” to those organizations, which are terrorist according to every conceivable definition, thereby putting the continuation of international financial aid to Ramallah at risk. . . .

All of the above is linked to the Jerusalem issue. Ramallah wants to make the fight for Jerusalem the leading national struggle, while for Hamas, the central battle is along the borders. Abbas’s aim is to attract the PLO organizations to join Ramallah at the expense of Gaza.

Read more at Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

More about: Fatah, Hamas, Israel & Zionism, Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority, PLO

The Democratic Party Is Losing Its Grip on Jews

Since the 1930s, Jews have been one of America’s most solidly Democratic ethnic groups. Although, true to form, a majority again voted for Kamala Harris, something clearly has shifted. John Podhoretz writes:

Over the course of the past thirteen months, Jews in America have been harassed, threatened, seen their ancestral homeland derided as a settler-colonial genocidal state. They have seen Jewish kids mistreated on college campuses. And they have seen the Biden administration kowtow to Muslim populations hostile to Jews and the Jewish state in Michigan. They have heard the criticisms of Israel’s efforts to defend itself, and have noted the silence from the administration when it came to anti-Semitic assaults and the refusal of college presidents to condemn the treatment of Jews and Jewish topics under their ambit.

And Jews have acted.

The initial evidence from last night’s election is that there has been a significant shift in the Jewish vote from previous elections, a delta of anywhere from 10 to 40 percent overall.

Read more at Commentary

More about: 2024 Election, American Jewry, Anti-Semitism, Democrats, U.S. Politics