TimesOfIsrael May 30, 2024
[EU] foreign policy chief Josep Borrell says countries include Spain, Ireland, Belgium, Slovenia and Malta, as Arab and European officials discuss end to Gaza conflict in Riyadh</big>
Several European member states are expected to recognize Palestinian statehood by the end of May, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Monday at the sidelines of a World Economic Forum special meeting in Riyadh.
He said these included Spain, Ireland, Belgium, Slovenia and Malta.
The meeting between European and Arab officials took place on the sidelines of a two-day World Economic Forum special meeting in Riyadh, with the sides discussing shared partnership in advancing a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict….
...Since 1988, 139 out of 193 United Nations member states have recognized Palestinian statehood.
No names of involved Arab states, nor Arab diplomats, are specified in that article.
The Palestinian National Authority, commonly known as the Palestinian Authority and officially the State of Palestine,
is the Fatah-controlled government body that exercises partial civil control over West Bank areas "A" and "B" as a consequence of the 1993–1995 Oslo Accords. ...The Palestinian Authority controlled the Gaza Strip prior to the Palestinian elections of 2006 and the subsequent Gaza conflict between the Fatah and Hamas parties, when it lost control to Hamas; the PA continues to claim the Gaza Strip, although Hamas exercises de facto control. Since January 2013, the Palestinian Authority has used the name "State of Palestine" on official documents, although the United Nations continues to recognize the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) as the "representative of the Palestinian people".[10]
The Palestinian Authority was formed in 1994, pursuant to the Gaza–Jericho Agreement between the PLO and the government of Israel, and was intended to be a five-year interim body….
At the end of February 2024, PA Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh (in office 2019 to 2024), submitted a letter of resignation to Mahmoud Abbas, elected President 2005 over both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. His term expired in 2009. In 2018, he dissolved parliament, which by law is meant to approve the government. National election plans occasionally announced have never transpired, most recently in 2021, called off by Abbas, who cited Israel's refusal to allow voting in annexed east Jerusalem. Polls at the time predicted a Hamas victory. Opinion polls in recent years consistently find the majority of Palestinians wanting Abbas to resign.
According to Al mayadeen,
the resignation of Shtayyeh's government was a preemptive step taken by Abbas in the face of pressures faced by the Palestinian Authority (PA) from regional countries, the international community, and the United States.
According to the source, the decision aims to put the ball in these sides' court to stop the war on the Gaza Strip, secure international guarantees for the full withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from Gaza, halt Israeli incursions into the occupied West Bank, and lift the financial siege imposed on the Palestinian Authority….
Abbas was urged by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to make reforms when the two men met in January.
Shtayyeh’s accepted resignation included the entire cabinet. Abbas requested they remain in a demissionary capacity, with Shtayyeh heading a temporary transitional government, until a new government would be formed.
On March 14, after filling West Bank regional governor seats empty since August, Abbas appointed his longtime ally and economic advisor, Mohammad Mustafa, as incoming Prime Minister. (“In April 2016, Mustafa, was named in the Panama Papers, where it was claimed he used Mossack Fonseca to ensure the transfer of money from Arab countries to the Palestinian Authority.[8]) Mustafa Mustafa received a master's degree and a Ph.D. at Washington, D.C.'s George Washington University, has worked at the World Bank, and held a range of major Palestinian business and government positions across his career, including currently chairing the board of the Palestine Investment Fund,
On March 28, Abbas issued a presidential decree announcing formation of a new cabinet.
...Interior Minister Ziad Hab al-Rih is a member of Abbas’s secular Fatah movement and held the same portfolio in the previous government. The Interior Ministry oversees the security forces. The incoming minister for Jerusalem affairs, Ashraf al-Awar, registered to run as a Fatah candidate in elections in 2021 that were indefinitely delayed….
...At least five of the incoming 23 ministers are from Gaza, but it was not immediately clear if they are still in the besieged territory….
...The PA has little popular support or legitimacy among Palestinians, in part because it has not held elections in 18 years…. Opinion polls in recent years have consistently found that a vast majority of Palestinians want the 88-year-old Abbas to resign….
Other new cabinet members include Mohammad Mustafa Najem, minister of religious affairs and endowments, and Mona al-Khalili, minister of women’s affairs, also head of the General Union of Palestinian Women
the official representative of Palestinian women within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). ...The GUPW was established in 1965 as a body in the PLO with the goal of creating an active role for women in the social, economic, and political spheres of the Palestinian territories. The GUPW advocates a democratic government and a sovereign Palestinian state as a precursor to attaining women's social and political rights... [editorial emphasis added.]
...The new PA cabinet includes four women and six ministers from Gaza. Among them is former Gaza City mayor Majed Abu Ramadan, who has been assigned the health portfolio.
The cabinet also includes Varsen Aghabekian, a member of the Palestinian Armenian community who has taken the role of “state minister” in the foreign ministry, which is nominally under the control of Prime Minister Mustafa. She is the first Palestinian Armenian to take up a ministerial post since the establishment of the PA…
...In addition to the new cabinet, the PA is in the final stages of talks with the Biden administration about reforming its controversial welfare policy, which includes payments to terrorists and their families, two sources familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel on Friday….
The PA has long been
stained by divisions, corruption scandals and authoritarian tendencies, and Abbas's recent measures have so far done little to reassure diplomats eager to find an able and reliable Palestinian partner when the war ends….
...Arab and Western powers want to see a reformed PA that could one day be in charge of an independent state in the both West Bank and Gaza.
Mustafa, 69, is not a member of Abbas's Fatah party, but pundits [note] his rich past as financial adviser to the president, deputy premier and economy minister in Fatah-led governments.
[In one view, his] experience at the World Bank meant he knows "all international donors", which may come in handy for the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority -- particularly if it takes on the colossal task of rebuilding war-battered Gaza….
From Al-Monitor email, April 25, 2024
Palestinian leaders are hoping that they can improve public morale after the establishment of Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa's technocratic government. Abbas gave impetus to the one issue that has hobbled his rule, namely the absence of the legitimization of elections. Abbas issued a presidential decree on April 20 reformulating the Central Election Commission headed by former Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah. The new commission will need strong political will to hold legislative and general elections.
No one thinks that elections can happen for some time, even after the war on Gaza ends. So, the new nine-member commission (comprised of seven men and two women) will not be under any rush to supervise elections in the foreseeable future, but hopefully they will be around when the time comes.
The median age of the commissioners is 74, which is equivalent to the life expectancy of Palestinians but still younger than 86-year-old [some sources say 88] Abbas. The median age of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza is a mere 19.
Senior Hamas member
Bassem Naim criticized Abbas's policies. "His hijacking of the unified Palestinian decision-making" is dangerous for "our cause at this very critical stage in the history of our people," he said.
He said Hamas had "proposed sitting down for the sake of national dialogue and rebuilding the political system ... but Abbas blocked all these attempts."
Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine issued a joint statement earlier this month declaring that Mustafa's appointment would only deepen Palestinian divisions.
People on the streets of Ramallah, where the authority is based, were equally skeptical….
AP reported on March 28 that
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said it was too early to make any broad assessments of the new Cabinet and whether it would deliver on the “credible and far-reaching reforms” that the Biden administration has called for.
Hamas has rejected the formation of the new government as illegitimate, calling instead for all Palestinian factions, including Fatah, to form a power-sharing government ahead of national elections.
It has warned Palestinians in Gaza against cooperating with Israel to administer the territory, saying anyone who does will be treated as a collaborator, which is understood as a death threat.
For negative Palestinian views of the PA: ■ "Whispered in Gaza" the Anti-Hamas & Anti-PA Palestinian Movements [dk diary]
