Likely in a gesture of good will toward the Biden administration, the Palestinian Authority (PA) announced that it will be holding elections in the summer. Mahmoud Abbas, who is eighty-six years old and in the sixteenth year of his four-year term as president, will run for reelection on the Fatah faction’s ticket. Hussein Aboubakr takes stock of the situation, and the attitudes of Palestinians as well as other Arabs:

For most Palestinians, the idea that Fatah would abdicate power is simply unthinkable. The last time they held elections, it resulted in a civil war which broke down any dreams of national cohesion the Palestinians might have built up in the post-Oslo years. Thus, in recent polls, the Palestinians rightfully express ambivalence towards an electoral process they know they can’t really decide. Endemic infighting even causes many to doubt that the elections will even be held.

But all the talk of elections and power struggles also shows the primary flaw in the Palestinian national project itself. For all the election-related issues under discussion, there is seldom any talk of political agendas, economic plans, or issues other than power, and certainly no discussion of political rights, democracy, or women’s issues. The promise of new Palestinian elections, supposedly the fruit of decades of national struggle, are a facade hiding a struggle between the brokers of the holy cause. As if the Palestinians themselves are a one-dimensional people who only exist to be represented by others in a sacred struggle for power.

Perhaps the most curious absence in the conversation about Palestinian elections is any discussion of democracy, a word beloved by so many both in the West and the East. This is not surprising since, historically, the reservoir of legitimacy for Palestinians lies not in popular will, but in defying all common modern political sensibilities.

In the wider circle of Arab politics, the behavior of Palestinian politicians risks turning the symbol of the Palestinian people from an icon into a caricature.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”