The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), under pressure to appoint a second in command of its aged leader, Mahmoud Abbas, created a vice president post after meeting with senior officials on April 24.
Abbas, who is also president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), promised CASH an emergency Arab summit in early March that the position would be created. However, it is not clear who will possibly fill the position.
The objective is to avoid a struggle of power after Abbas empty its publication: a scenario that Israel could explode to cause the collapse of the AP, completely annexed to the ethnic ethnic gaza occupied, said experts in Al Jazeera.
However, Dianna Buttu, a former legal advisor of the PLO, believes that creating a vice president in the AP will not avoid a struggle of power once Abbas is gone; Rather, it could exacerbate the conflict.
“The more fragmented the PA, the more it will create a void of power … and that void will be filled by external actors and mainly by Americans and Israeli,” he warned.
Crisis of legitimacy
Abbas, 89, assumed the control of the PLO and the AP after the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat died in November 2004 and has ruled without a popular mandate since the Parliament dissolved in 2007.
His Fatah party dominates the PA and the OP. The long and deceased Parliament has vanished, and critics have criticized Abbas for seemingly attempts under the celebration of elections that could revive it.
In the absence of Parliament, the OP controls the succession, a task that Abbas has postponed, even by decree last year that Rawhi Fattou, head of the Palestinian National Council, would be intermediate until suddenly Sane Het Heal Het.
“Abbas has discouraged this for fear that if he brought someone forward, then he would be a rival,” said Khaled Elgindy, a visiting academic at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies of the University of Georgetown.
The PA was created by the Peace Agreements of Oslo, signed by Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1993 and 1995.
In the task of governing the West Bank and Gaza until a Palestinian State was created together with Israel, the AP lost credibility among the Palestinians as the occupation of Israel became more violent and oppressive, and the hoarding of land for Israeli continued.
From Oslo, the population of settlements, illegal according to international law, built on Palestinian lands has increased from approximately 200,000 to more than 750,000.
In 2007, a violent division with Hamas in Gaza limited the authority of the autil authority to the occupied West Bank parts that had limited control.
The AP managed to become the de facto Palestinian representative on the international stage, replacing the PLO.
But at home, the popularity of Abbas fell when the suffering of people increased and the AP continued its security coordination with Israel, which was described in the Oslo agreements.
It is also seen that the AP has not been able to protect the Palestinians from Israeli troops and settlers while using their authority to take energetic measures against civil activists and opponents.
This has resulted in a situation that is designated, “Abbas’ successor probably won Win People,” Elgindy told Al Jazeera.
The suggested name is often the close confidant of Abbas and the general secretary of the OLP Executive Committee, Hussein al-Sheikh.
Al-Sheikh also directs the General Civil Affairs Authority of the AP, which are the permits approved by Israelis that allow some Palestinians to navigate the restrictions of the movement that Israel has implemented in the occupied west.
The human rights groups and the International Court of Justice, the highest legal body in the world, see the restrictions of the Israel movement against the Palestinians as apartheid.
Sheikh’s long data relationship with Israeli authorities has led critics to accuse him of acting as a link for occupation.
“Nobody likes [among Palestinians]”Said Omar Rahman, an expert in Israel-Palestine with the Middle East Council for Global Affairs.”[Al-Sheikh] Is contaminated by its relationship with Israel and perceptions [that he is embroiled in] Mass corruption. “
External pressure
The pressure on Abbas with respect to the succession has decreased and fluid over the years, intensely in recent months as the Arab states push him to name a successor to prevent the AP from dissolving in chaos, analysts told Al Jazeera.
Egypt is particularly anxious to guarantee the succession, according to Rahman.
In March, Egypt called and organized a Summit of the Arab League, the duration presented by its reconstruction plan to counteract the proposal of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, to Ethnic Gaza and made him a Riviera Aast. “
Egypt was mentioned as one of the countries where the Palestinians could be “transferred”, an idea that rejected and responded firmly with its reconstruction plan.
The proposal included the creation of a Palestinian technocratic administration, supervised by the AP, to supervise the reconstruction of the devastated enclave without displacing anyone.
However, the path to the administration of PA de Gaza is not completely clear, since both Hamas and Israel oppose him, Hamas because Gaza manages currently, while Israel has worked on the AP as an ineffective.
Abbas seems to have gone to the offensive, delivering to the sides angry at the duration of Hamas the meetings and blaming the group for allowing the continuation of Israel’s genocide in Gaza by not delivering about captives and screams.
However, many Arab states blame Abbas for not reconciling his Fatah Facion with Hamas, making them anxious to see a guard change in the AP, according to Tahani Mustafa, an expert in Palestinian internal policy with the International Group of Crisis.
Since 2007, Fatah and Hamas have signed several agreements to heal their divisions after the struggle that divided the Palestinian National Movement.
“I think there has been a lot of frustration [among Arab states] That [Abbas] It has been more a spoiler and an obstacle to trying to obtain a united Palestinian front, which has given Israel a pretext to continue doing what it has in the leg in Gaza, ”Mustafa told Al Jazeera.
Can a vice president relive the AP?
Instead of creating a new political position, Buttu believes that Abbas should hold elections for Fatah, the OP and the AP.
The last time the vote was Hero was just before the conflict between Hamas and Fatah in 2006. Hamas won a large majority in those legislative elections.
The choice to create a new position of vice president, fears, won to resolve the crisis of legitimacy or power emptiness once Abbas has gone, given what he described as the lack of political will of Abbas to revive the Palestinian institutions.
“Typically, Abbas is doing the minimum to obtain [Arab states] Outside his back, “he told Al Jazeera.
He acknowledged that the elections could be technically difficult due to the devastating war and the genocide of Israel in Gaza, as well as its violence and movement restrictions in the West Bank.
However, she said that the Palestinians could still find ways to vote, perhaps through a portal or online process.
“Within Fatah Iself, there is a lot of recoil in this appointment of a vice president. Everyone says there should be elections instead,” Buttu to Al Jazeera told Al Jazeera.
“[Abbas] He is putting a curite in a wound so open that it requires surgery, “he said.