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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.
The post Mr. Abbas Goes to Moscow and Ankara first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.