Abbas Strives to Project Palestinian Stability, but Threats to His Rule Remain

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas delivered a defiant speech Wednesday in the West Bank city of Bethlehem amidst rumors of ill health and the potential collapse of the Palestinian Authority. Speaking to reporters in his first address of 2016 – and only his second major speech since October – Abbas vowed to sustain the PA until it is “followed by a Palestinian state.”

The speech’s timing and location was ostensibly intended to extend Christmas wishes to Palestinian Orthodox Christians, yet Abbas’ performance was also targeted at his critics. Rumors swirled last weekend that the chain-smoking octogenarian leader had suffered a stroke, and was in Amman for emergency medical treatment. Abbas’s health has been a recurring theme raised by his rivals in recent years; a rumor that Abbas had suddenly died in late 2014 forced the Palestinian leader to make a rare appearance on the streets of Ramallah.

This time, however, Abbas’s health wasn’t the only target of speculation. Rumors of the PA’s impending collapse have been in the news for the last week after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned ministers at a cabinet meeting of just such a scenario. Palestinian officials responded by accusing Netanyahu of “plotting” the PA’s downfall, and Abbas’s speech Wednesday echoed such accusations. The PA, he declared, is a “national achievement,” chastising anyone who “should dream that it would collapse.”

Beyond the symbolic, Abbas’s speech focused on the PA’s campaign to convene an international conference on the peace process. This plan is not new: Palestinian officials have in recent months been gravitating towards the idea of an international negotiating team – similar to the “P5+1” that reached last year’s Iran nuclear deal – for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As a top official in Abbas’s Fatah movement argued in November, “If there was a Geneva Conference for Iran, with the successful 5+1 formula … why shouldn’t there be an international conference for Palestine?”

The proposed conference is the latest international initiative in the “Palestine 194” campaign for international recognition of Palestinian statehood, which has also included upgrading Palestine’s status at the UN General Assembly, joining dozens of international organizations, acceding to the International Criminal Court, and earning recognition from several European parliaments.

For Abbas, however, the returns on these diplomatic endeavors have been low. While a majority of Palestinians support his international campaign, a similar majority – frustrated with corruption, lack of movement towards statehood, and the fact that he is 11 years into a four-year term – also wants him to resign. His surprise speech on Wednesday may have been designed to outflank his rivals, but in offering what amounts to window dressing for his international campaign, Abbas likely only emboldened them.

Grant Rumley is a research analyst at Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow him on Twitter @GrantRumley