Israel
As Abbas era hits 10 years, Palestinians mired in political and economic muck
By SEAN SAVAGE JNS.org
May 8 marks what many consider an unceremonious 10-year anniversary of Mahmoud Abbas becoming the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), though his official term has been expired for more than six of those years.
Since Abbas took over for Yasser Arafat, who died in 2004, the political and economic situation in the West Bank has become as untenable as ever. With no clear successor to Abbas in the fold and reports of rampant corruption, nepotism, and cronyism, the PA faces an uncertain future.
“The state of affairs in the PA right now is paralysis,” Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) think tank, told JNS.org. “Abbas has a stranglehold on political power, and he appears to be intent on remaining in office for the foreseeable future. There is no vice president. There is no succession plan, and there is no oxygen for political challengers to articulate their vision for the future.”
Established by the Oslo Accords peace treaty in 1993 as an interim Palestinian government, the PA—which has been dominated by the Fatah political party and its parent organization, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), throughout its existence—has languished in political and economic limbo for the last several years under Abbas. Peace talks with Israel from 2013-14 crashed, and the Hamas terrorist group continues to grow its popularity among Palestinians.
Under Abbas, the PA has not held formal elections since 2006 and only maintains control in the West Bank after being ousted from Gaza by Hamas in 2007. Abbas has had a tenuous relationship with Israel, maintaining close security ties with the Jewish state out of a shared fear of Hamas, but also seeing Israel repeatedly cut off tax transfers to the PA, mostly recently due to Abbas’s moves to gain unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state in international agencies.
Many fear that if the Palestinians held an election, Hamas, which won the last election in 2006, would beat out the Fatah once again. Many Palestinians cite Fatah’s notorious legacy of financial and administrative corruption as their reason for supporting Hamas.
A recent poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research did find that Abbas has seen a rise in support—with 40 percent support among would-be Palestinian voters, up from 35 percent in the last such survey. Yet Abbas, according to the poll, would still lose in an election to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was supported by 47 percent of respondents. The same poll found that 77 percent of Palestinians believe that PA institutions are corrupt.
“The main concern is that the weakness of President Abbas in the West Bank could enable Hamas to gain more ground there,” Bassem Eid, co-founder of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group and a commentator on internal Palestinian politics, told JNS.org.
A recent sign of Hamas’s growing popularity in the West Bank may come from the group’s recent victory in the April 22 student council election at Birzeit University, which is located near the PA’s de facto capital of Ramallah. Hamas won 26 seats on the student council versus 16 for Fatah. Taking note of the growing threat of Hamas in the West Bank, Abbas and the PA’s security forces have launched a widespread crackdown on Hamas supporters on university campuses, with dozens of student supporters of the terror group being interrogated and detained, according to the Gatestone Institute think tank.
Meanwhile, accusations are swirling that the Abbas family has become wealthy at the expense of the Palestinian people—and even American taxpayers. On April 24, a U.S. appellate court upheld a decision to dismiss at $10 million libel suit from Yasser Abbas, one of the PA president’s sons.
Yasser Abbas filed the suit against Foreign Policy magazine for a 2012 article by FDD’s Schanzer titled “The Brothers Abbas,” in which Schanzer questioned whether or not Mahmoud Abbas’s sons—Yasser and Tarek—are growing rich as a result of their father’s political position, and whether or not U.S. foreign aid to the PA was contributing to their wealth.
According to Schanzer’s 2012 article, Yasser Abbas chairs the Palestinian corporate conglomerate Falcon Holding Group, which received $1.89 million from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to construct a sewage system in Hebron. Additionally, Yasser Abbas holds leadership positions in two other companies, Al-Mashreq Insurance Company and First Option Project Construction Management Company, which received roughly $300,000 in USAID funds from 2005-08.
The international community has also sounded the alarm on the Palestinian economy’s struggles, as the World Bank said in September 2014 that Palestinian unemployment is rising to “alarming levels,” citing the ongoing political uncertainty surrounding the PA as a contributing factor.
“The PA is a system where the rich get richer and the poor languish. The elite continue to benefit from the system while a rather educated lower and middle class struggle to cash in,” Schanzer told JNS.org.
At the same time, though Abbas recently turned 80, there has been little talk of who will succeed him.
“There is basically no plan for Abbas’s succession,” said Schanzer. “According to Palestinian basic law, the speaker of the Palestinian parliament would take over those duties temporarily. Currently, the speaker is Aziz Dweik of Hamas. Beyond that, it is unknown who would run from the Fatah faction or the PLO. Abbas has not tapped an heir apparent. Nor has he named a vice president.”
Bassem Eid said the failure to appoint a successor is largely a result of Arab cultural bias against that concept.
“The Arab culture does not allow the concept of a ‘vice president,’ the president is the only supreme ruler,” he said. “No one talks about President Abbas’s possible demise since all the Palestinians tend to say that even the prophet Muhammad died and the world survived, hence all others.”
Schanzer blames Washington for the current impasse in the West Bank, saying that U.S. peace negotiators have “failed to push the Palestinians to create a functioning system.”
One person being widely promoted as a successor to Abbas is Mohammad Dahlan, a longtime rival of the PA president.
“Mohammad Dahlan is one of the leaders of the young generation,” Eid said. “He is corrupt, but I prefer a young corrupt to the old corrupt like Abbas. I believe that the younger generation [of Palestinian leaders] will be more moderate than the older ones, who speak more about the past and history without mentioning the future.”
Dahlan, 53, represents that so-called “younger generation.” As a rising star in the PLO in the 1990s, he was promoted to head of security in Gaza. In 2006, he won a seat in the PA’s legislative body. But in 2007, when Hamas ousted Fatah and the PA from Gaza, many inside the PA blamed Dahlan for Hamas’s emergence. His fall from grace continued in 2011 when he was charged with corruption and embezzlement by Abbas, and stripped of his legislative seat. Dahlan fled the West Bank that year, and currently resides in both the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.
Nevertheless, Dahlan still enjoys popular support among some Palestinians and in recent years has worked with businesses and charities in the Arab Gulf states to support the Palestinian people, including providing funds to Gazan Palestinians who were affected by last summer’s Israel-Hamas war. In December 2014, thousands in Gaza turned out for a rally in support of Dahlan, despite Hamas’s firm grip on the coastal enclave.
According to the Financial Times, Dahlan has become a close adviser to Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, helping the prince crack down on Muslim Brotherhood Islamists. Dahlan also supported Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s ouster of former president Mohammed Morsi (a Muslim Brotherhood leader) in 2013. The Muslim Brotherhood is Hamas’s parent group.
“Abbas will leave only ruins, and who would be interested to be a president or vice president on these ruins?” Dahlan told the Associat
ed Press in 2014. “What I am interested in is a way out of our political situation, not a political position.”
Dahlan has criticized Abbas’s unilateral moves at the United Nations, telling Sky News Arabic in January that an eventually-defeated PA resolution in the U.N. Security Council resolution, which called for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, was a “hasty and reckless decision that wasn’t made with the unified consensus of the Palestinians.”
To many observers, the political situation in the West Bank may seem like a mild crisis compared with the chaos in nearby Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya. But while Abbas’s stagnant rule continues, Schanzer views the PA as a “powder keg” that could ignite at any moment.
Israel
Musings from Dizengoff Street
By BRUCE BROWN Introduction: Bruce Brown is a former Winnipegger who made aliyah to Israel over 35 years ago. Bruce first began writing for us – in his own inimitable style, in 2012, during what was known as “Operation Pillar of Defense.” His occasional musings on aspects of life in Israel that were far from what you’d typically read in other reports from Israel were hugely popular – both in the print Jewish Post & News and on this website.
We’re now glad to report that Bruce is back writing for us – this time on a regular basis. We will post Bruce’s reports as they arrive – with the date of each post at the beginning of that post.
In the past Bruce typically would give some brief biographical information at the end of his latest entry, but we’re going to depart from that practice and give you some information about Bruce – and awards he’s received for his writing, right here:
Bruce Brown. Canadian born. Now living in Israel (for a long time). Bruce works in Israel’s hi-tech sector by day and, in spurts, is a somewhat inspired writer by night. He received the American Jewish Press Association’s award for writing excellence in 2019 and 2025. And wrote the 1998 satire, “An Israeli is….” Bruce’s musings are political, social, economic and personal. With lots of biting, contrarian, sardonic and irreverent insight.
Here’s a post Bruce sent us Friday, July 31:
WARTIME MUSINGS
Should credible threats against FLOTUS and ‘FSOTUS’ (first son..) not be justification to attack first.
As for yesterday’s summit. Netanyahu really can’t win. Explainer. If Trump now attacks without victory its ’cause of Netanyahu. If Trump now attacks with victory its ’cause of Trump. And, in Israel, if Trump doesn’t attack -victory or not- Netanyahu failed in his eighth meeting with Trump. And if Trump does attack -victory or not- half the country will vilify Bibi anyway. Missing a permutation?
Ya. I know. Kinda’ need a definition of victory for that musing to work.
And here in my little shtetle. We go to sleep unsure if there will be a code red in the middle of the night. And if not. We wake up thinking it will be tonight. How do you define stress?
Seemed like an appropriate way to end this musing.
Here’s what Bruce sent us August 1:
Although both sides say they are open to diplomacy. Neither really trusts the other. And American military action, or its threat, continues. I read headlines in the middle of the night -it’s a nervous habit lately– that the Dynamic Duo of Trump and Netanyahu may again strike in unison. Possibly this weekend. Yikes! Prompting me, at 2:30 AM, to dash around the house stocking my safe room. Bottled water. Canned food. Medicines. Documents. The beat goes on….
If it’s crazy here. It’s insane in Italy. With a recent online ‘Jew Hunt’ in the Milan area. Before being removed, the digital forms urged reportings of Israelis and Italian Jews staying in local hotels. The infamous Global Sumud Movement -yes, the one coordinating ‘peace and humanitarian’ flotillas to Gaza- was somehow connected. Although they deny involvement?! This deranged decree was looking to identify Zionist tourism and Zionist neo-colonization in Italy. I’ll stick with stocking the saferoom.
Then there’s New York Mayor Mamdani, a Global Sumud Movement supporter, threatening to arrest Prime Minister Netanyahu if he comes to New York. But since discovered he has no legal right for such a grandstanding, antisemitic, anti-Israel, anti-Western, anti-democratic antic. Maybe Mandami should be arrested! Or at least impeached. For being a grandstanding, antisemitic, anti-Israel, anti-Western, anti-democratic mayor.
Israel
It’s Not Over Until It’s Over
By ORLY DREMAN (Jerusalem, Nov. 16, 2025) When the live hostages were returned a stone was lifted from our hearts. It was like going from Memorial Day to Independence Day. It is a relief after two years of sadness and worry about the hostages being tortured. With the ceasefire it feels good not to think every ambulance alarm is a siren and that we must run to the shelter. I would like to take things out of the shelter- like mattresses, chairs, water, first aid kit, a generator, flash light, batteries, games and canned food and put back the stuff that was there before when it was just a storage room, but it is not over. I do not see tranquility in the horizon. The children used to ask the grownups to take money to the shelter in case the house is destroyed and they will have nothing left. They also ask if they will have to be soldiers when they grow up and if they might die. We want a better future for our children. My two nieces, one from Tel Aviv and one from the center, plus several good friends whose houses were hit, can now return home.
In days of turmoil it is important to build hope and strength. The whole country was one big family due to our Jewishness, comradeship, the connection of each one of us to each family in Israel. We missed the days of quiet and freedom. Now you see more people shopping at the malls and going out to restaurants without feeling guilty; we would like to be bored.
We are living with uncertainty. It is not a question if Iran attacks, but when. Our people have gone through so much and lost so much. Living in existential stress, we are now going back to routine tension; however, now we already have chronic sleep disturbances. The reservists got out of the war, but the war will never leave them – what they saw and experienced – the trauma and the thoughts that never leave. Therefore, many soldiers, as well as survivors of Oct 7th, have committed suicide. The reservists are also those who paid the highest prices, not just on the battle fields, but also when they returned to civilian life. Because they served in the army during such a long war, they were fired from their jobs or lost their businesses and they are in debt.
Early in the morning we wake up to hear the news. There is no good news – only the names of those who were killed (even during the cease fire). We check if any dead hostages were returned. These are the values we were raised on; we do not leave anyone behind. Hamas is returning them slowly, one every few days. The relatives of the fallen who are still in Gaza are going through a storm of emotions. We cannot heal until everybody is back home. Then come the funerals – which are heart breaking, but it is a closure for those bereaved families. Hearing about Jews being attacked somewhere in the world is already considered normal. I recommend reading a book by Eli Sharabi called “Hostage.” After being tortured in captivity he returned to find out that his wife, his two daughters, and his brother were murdered. He tells about the starvation, the darkness, the loneliness, the physical and mental pain. He is a very brave, strong, optimistic man who chose life.
In the last few weeks there have been many reports about Iran, which is rushing to develop missiles for which they are getting the components from China and North Korea. Hamas and Hezbollah we cannot believe; they are already rearming. For every terrorist that is killed hundreds of new ones arise. We believed them in the past and then came Oct. 7th.
The ceasefire is not significant to Hamas. Only this week they returned an Israeli hostage who was taken into captivity eleven years ago during a ceasefire. If they do not return all the bodies then we feel in our hearts that it is not over. They suck hatred from birth. They are incited at the mosques and at school. Killing Jews is the most grand thing for them. They say out loud that there will never be reconciliation. Peace talk for them is a weakness because if you have talk then you cannot attack and they want to attack. Whatever we offer them – they want more and more. They know how important the holiness of life is to us, so they use it to demand more all the time. Maybe Hamas did not defeat us militarily, but they did beat us politically. The situation of Israel in the world is the worst it has ever been. We are isolated economically and socially. We feel like a child who is excommunicated by bullies.
Once again we still have hope that the words of the prophet Isaiah will happen: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning-hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore”.
Israel
Israeli Parliament Advances Death Penalty Bill for Convicted Terrorists
The Israeli parliament has advanced a bill that would mandate the death penalty for Palestinian terrorists convicted of killing Israeli citizens, with some lawmakers believing it would prevent future prisoner-release deals.
In a vote held late on Monday – the first of four needed for the measure to become law – the bill passed with 39 in favor and 16 against, out of 120 lawmakers.
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben–Gvir had called on all political factions to back the bill, which he has said was aimed at creating deterrence against “Arab terrorism.”
“This is how we fight terror; this is how we create deterrence,” he said in a statement after the initial vote. “Once the law is finally passed — terrorists will be released only to hell.”
SOME PARTIES BOYCOTTED MONDAY’S VOTE
The bill will now move to a parliamentary committee for further debate before a second and third vote. It is not guaranteed that it will become law, with several key political parties having boycotted Monday’s initial vote.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid was quoted by Israeli media as saying that he would not vote in favor of the bill.
The PLO, the Palestinian national umbrella political group, condemned the vote, with Palestinian National Council Speaker Rawhi Fattouh calling the draft law “a political, legal, and humanitarian crime”. The vote was also criticized by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
Israel abolished the death penalty for murder in 1954, and the only person ever executed in Israel after a civilian trial was Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Nazi Holocaust, in 1962.
Ben–Gvir has argued that imposing the death penalty would deter anyone considering an attack similar to the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed nearly 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and resulted in 251 hostages being taken to Gaza.
Israel stopped its ensuing military campaign against Hamas last month, when a tenuous ceasefire was agreed that included the release of 20 remaining living hostages held in Gaza, plus the remains of deceased ones in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
PRISONER RELEASE DEALS
Israel has released hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees since October 2023 in exchange for the release of the hostages that were being held by Palestinian terrorists.
Most of the hostages have been released except for the remains of three deceased Israelis and one foreigner.
Tzvika Foghel, a member of Ben–Gvir‘s Jewish Power party and chair of the parliamentary national security committee, where the bill will now be debated, said imposing the death penalty would mean no more prisoner deals.
Palestinians who have been released have included many convicted of serious crimes, including murder.
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a mastermind of the October 2023 attack on Israel, was released in 2011 as part of an exchange of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for one Israeli soldier held in Gaza. Some Israeli politicians such as Ben–Gvir have, during the war in Gaza, opposed the release of Palestinians who were involved in the killings of Israelis.
Ben–Gvir handed out sweets to fellow lawmakers after the initial vote passed. Critics noted that, in Gaza, some Palestinian militants had handed out sweets to the public after the October 2023 attack.
