In a recent speech, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has suggested reviving the long-moribund peace plan proposed by Saudi Arabia in conjunction with other Arab states. That 2002 initiative, however, includes an unrestricted right of return to Israel for all 1948 Arab refugees as well as their descendants. Nor does it allow for adjustments of the pre-1967 lines to accommodate Israel’s security or the longstanding Jewish communities on the West Bank, even though such adjustments have been confirmed by UN resolution and in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. But the real problem, writes Zalman Shoval, is the lack of interest in peace on the part of Palestinian leadership:

The way toward an independent Palestine for Arafat was a combination of cheating and violence—and for Abbas it is to play the UN card. Peace doesn’t come into it, certainly not if that were to be contingent on concessions on such items as refugees, Jerusalem, borders, etc. Thus for Abbas it isn’t “peace now,” but “state now”—with peace, whatever its contours, later or not at all.

If the Arab peace initiative had been presented, as Jordan’s esteemed foreign minister, Marwan Muasher, suggested at the time, as a straightforward “simple and powerful explanation of the Arab position” and not as an “either-or” dictate, it could perhaps have served as a suitable platform for meaningful negotiations. In its present form, it is not.

When he called upon Hamas to end the war and release the hostages last week, the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas was also getting ready for a reshuffle within his regime. On Saturday, he appointed Hussein al-Sheikh deputy president of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which is intimately tied to the PA itself. Al-Sheikh would therefore succeed Abbas—who is eighty-nine and reportedly in ill health—as head of the PLO if he should die or become incapacitated, and be positioned to succeed him as head of the PA as well.

Al-Sheikh spent eleven years in an Israeli prison and, writes Maurice Hirsch, was involved in planning a 2002 Jerusalem suicide bombing that killed three. Moreover, Hirsch writes, he “does not enjoy broad Palestinian popularity or support.”

Still, by appointing Al-Sheikh, Abbas has taken a step in the internal reforms he inaugurated last year in the hope that he could prove to the Biden administration and other relevant players that the PA was up to the task of governing the Gaza Strip. Neomi Neumann writes:

Abbas’s motivation for reform also appears rooted in the need to meet the expectations of Arab and European donors without compromising his authority. On April 14, the EU foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas approved a three-year aid package worth 1.6 billion euros, including 620 million euros in direct budget support tied to reforms. Meanwhile, the French president Emmanuel Macron held a call with Abbas [earlier this month] and noted afterward that reforms are essential for the PA to be seen as a viable governing authority for Gaza—a telling remark given reports that Paris may soon recognize “the state of Palestine.”

In some cases, reforms appear targeted at specific regional partners. The idea of appointing a vice-president originated with Saudi Arabia.

In the near term, Abbas’s main goal appears to be preserving Arab and European support ahead of a major international conference in New York this June.