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Mr. Abbas Goes to Moscow and Ankara
Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during their meeting in Sochi, Russia November 23, 2021. Sputnik/Evgeny Biyatov/Kremlin via REUTERS
JNS.org – Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, has clung to power for so long that an entire generation of Palestinians and Israelis have grown up not knowing any other leader in that role. First elected in 2005, he was to serve a four-year term ending in 2009. Abbas, however, wasn’t prepared to leave, and so he extended his term by another year. Fifteen years later, he’s still there—and still encouraging the perception that when he does finally vacate the office, he’ll be going out feet first.
As his indefinite term as president has dragged on, the 88-year-old has become increasingly irrelevant in terms of the situation on the ground, both diplomatically and militarily. Israel has taken a “better the devil you know” approach to him, reasoning that a gerontocratic PLO leader with dictatorial tendencies is a more sensible option than retaking those parts of the West Bank under P.A. control or allowing the emergence of a more radical leader. The outside world, particularly the European Union, has thought in similar terms, continuing to bankroll the notoriously corrupt P.A.—in the E.U.’s case, with nearly $1.5 billion over the last three years—and treating it as a state-in-the-making.
Yet from his perch in Ramallah, Abbas has failed to deliver security guarantees for Israelis. He’s failed to deliver any kind of prosperity to Palestinians in the West Bank, where more than 30% of the workforce is unemployed. He’s failed to achieve any kind of unity with Hamas, his bitter Islamist rival, or rein in the desire of Hamas and allied groups to inflict monstrous atrocities upon Israelis, as illustrated by the Oct. 7 pogrom in southern Israel. Most significantly of all, Abbas is hated by the vast majority of Palestinians. According to the latest poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, which is based in Ramallah, 85% of respondents are dissatisfied with his performance, and 90% want him gone.
Paying heed to public opinion is not something that Abbas has ever done, and he’s hardly going to start now. Desperate to prove that Hamas isn’t calling all the shots, he continues to travel the world, presenting himself as the legitimate, elected leader of Palestine, rather than a petty tyrant who has remained in the post despite the objections to him doing so voiced from all sides. On some of those foreign visits, Abbas has demonstrated better than any of his critics why he should retire from politics. On a trip to Germany two years ago, he launched into an extraordinary tirade when asked by a journalist whether he had an apology for the families of the Israeli Olympic athletes murdered by Palestinian terrorists in Munich 50 years previously, accusing the Israelis of having carried out “50 holocausts.” Such comparisons are particularly unpalatable in Germany, and this one left Abbas’s host, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, crimson-faced at their joint press conference.
During the last week, Abbas has been on the road again but this time visiting countries where crudely antisemitic Holocaust analogies don’t attract opprobrium. His first stop was in Moscow, a city he knows well because that was where he wrote his doctoral thesis holding the Zionist movement—and not the Nazis—responsible for the Holocaust of 6 million Jews. As he met with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, just as Ukraine’s military launched a courageous and much-welcome counter-offensive in Russia’s Kursk region, Abbas declared that the Palestinians have taken the Russian side “without the slightest doubt.” Russia was “one of the dearest friends of the Palestinian people,” Abbas said, adding: “We believe in you, we trust you, we feel your support.” For his part, Putin reacted warmly, telling his Palestinian guest that “we are doing everything to support Palestine and the Palestinian people” and underlining, without any sense of irony, given Russia’s numerous war crimes against the Ukrainian population, that Moscow is concerned above all with “civilian losses.”
After glad-handing the Russian president, Abbas made his way to the Turkish capital of Ankara. That visit was a little more complicated, insofar as his arrival there came off the back of a spat with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. A previous invitation to address the Turkish parliament was turned down by Abbas, who cited Ankara’s alignment with Hamas as the reason, leading Erdoğan to claim angrily that the P.A. leader “owes us an apology.” Having smoothed over their differences, Abbas delivered a speech to the Turkish parliament on Aug. 15 to a chamber in which all those present draped themselves in white scarves specially designed for the occasion, bearing the Palestinian and Turkish flags.
At a private meeting before the speech, the two leaders issued full-throated condemnations of “the massacres committed by Israel in the Palestinian territories,” a theme much in evidence in Abbas’s remarks to the Turkish parliamentarians. The centerpiece of the speech was his pledge to visit Gaza personally, encouraging Muslim leaders to travel there alongside him. “I have decided to go to Gaza with all my brothers in Palestine,” Abbas said to applause. “I will go even if the price is my life. My life, our lives, are not more valuable than the life of any child who died in Gaza.”
All very noble, though Abbas didn’t name a date for his journey. Moreover, he would have been acutely aware that several Parliament members were brandishing portraits of his rival, Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader assassinated in Tehran on July 31. In many ways, the speech was Abbas’s attempt to remind politicians in a country that has embraced Hamas and its genocidal agenda that the P.A. can be sufficiently radical, too.
It’s tempting to dismiss all this talk as just that; hot air that Abbas has no intention of following up on. But doing so ignores the fact that once the war is over, governance of Gaza is a key issue for negotiators. If Hamas isn’t going to be permitted to rule and Israel is opposed to reinstating direct rule, then who will run the territory? For many Israelis, the suggestion that the P.A. should do so (on the grounds that as bad as it is, it isn’t Hamas) isn’t very persuasive. Neither are the alternatives to Abbas—like the Fatah terrorist Marwan Barghouti, who is currently serving a life sentence in an Israeli jail—overly appealing. In his jaunts to Moscow and Ankara then, Abbas has merely reinforced the very message he hoped to undermine; namely, that there are no credible, trustworthy leaders on the Palestinian side. That is a headache for everybody concerned, but above all, for the Israelis.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
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