On November 27, the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, who recently turned eighty-nine, at last appointed someone to replace him should he die or become incapacitated: Rawhi Fattouh, currently chairman of the Palestinian National Council (PNC). To understand the significance of this decision, it’s necessary to understand the three overlapping organizations of Palestinian self-government in the West Bank. First there is Fatah, a terrorist group founded by Yasir Arafat and now led by Abbas. Fatah is the dominant faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), governed by the PNC. Lastly there is the Palestinian Authority (PA), established by the Oslo Accords as a successor to the PLO and ruled by Fatah.

Maurice Hirsh presents a brief overview of the relations among these institutions and explains the significance of Abbas’s move:

Having now merged the PA institutions into the PLO structure, and replacing the [PA parliament] with the PNC, Abbas’s choice of Fattouh as his interim replacement was not a positive appointment of a successor, but rather a function of Abbas finally imposing the PLO on the PA.

To avoid openly saying that Abbas had dismantled the PA’s electoral and governing mechanisms, as designated by the Oslo Accords, and replaced them with the PLO, the wording of the announcement published by Wafa, the official media mouthpiece of the Palestinian leadership, was intentionally misleading.

Abbas’s choice of Fattouh as his interim replacement effectively allows him temporarily to placate all of the other Palestinian leaders, such as Hussein al-Sheikh, Mahmoud al-Aloul, Marwan Barghouti, Jibril Rajoub, Majed Faraj, Muhammad Dahlan, et al., who all see themselves, each for his own reason, as his replacement.

In other words, Abbas has eliminated even nominal fealty to the idea of a democratic PA, replacing it entirely with the undemocratic PLO, while sidelining his rivals.

For more than a year, the Iran-backed Houthis have been launching drones and missiles at ships traversing the Red Sea, as well as at Israeli territory, in support of Hamas. This development has drastically curtailed shipping through the Suez Canal and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, driving up trade prices. This week, the Trump administration began an extensive bombing campaign against the Houthis in an effort to reopen that crucial waterway. Burcu Ozcelik highlights another benefit of this action:

The administration has a broader geopolitical agenda—one that includes countering China’s economic leverage, particularly Beijing’s reliance on Iranian oil. By targeting the Houthis, the United States is not only safeguarding vital shipping lanes but also exerting pressure on the Iran-China energy nexus, a key component of Beijing’s strategic posture in the region.

China was the primary destination for up to 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports in 2024, underscoring the deepening economic ties between Beijing and Tehran despite U.S. sanctions. By helping fill Iranian coffers, China aids Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in financing proxies like the Houthis. Since October of last year, notable U.S. Treasury announcements have revealed covert links between China and the Houthis.

Striking the Houthis could trigger broader repercussions—not least by disrupting the flow of Iranian oil to China. While difficult to confirm, it is conceivable and has been reported, that the Houthis may have received financial or other forms of compensation from China (such as Chinese-made military components) in exchange for allowing freedom of passage for China-affiliated vessels in the Red Sea.