The Puzzle Piece: Mahmoud Abbas

The unlegitimized, overwhelmingly unpopular, “Israel’s Handyman”, Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas is the missing piece for understanding the Partition of Palestine, the Hamas success, the decline of Fatah, and October 7th.

Our explicit thanks go to the comrades of the Palestinian Communist Party and their youth organization, who supported us despite the brutal conditions under which they currently live, with their comments and expertise in developing this article.
If we refer in the article to “Palestinian Communists,” we mean them – their notes have been translated into German.

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After Yassir Arafat’s dubious death in 2004, the “Moderate” Mahmud Abbas took over the leadership of the Palestinian Authority – not through democratic will, but supported by the USA and Israel – since then, he has canceled every upcoming election to preserve his power; his approval ratings are now at 14%. Abbas’s refusal to accept election results split Palestine in 2006 – and prevented reunification in 2021.

He tolerates continued settlement expansion, requested the Gaza blockade himself from the US, and political repression is coordinated with Israel. Abbas’s role in Palestine is not only fundamental for understanding the ongoing “conflict” – his perception as a “puppet” and destroyer of all hope for Fatah is a core reason for the success of the most reactionary organizations in Palestinian politics.

Who is Mahmoud Abbas?

Mahmoud Rida Abbas was born in November 1935 in the mixed Jewish-Muslim city of Galilee, British Mandate Palestine.
During the Nakba, 13-year-old Abbas fled with his family to Syria, where he would study law at the University of Damascus.

Since the mid-1950s, Abbas engaged in various Palestinian underground movements, before being appointed in 1961, at age 26, to the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah), founded two years earlier by Yassir Arafat.

Fatah gained rapid significance in the 1960s because it positioned itself as an independent, secular, and nationalist movement, focusing on armed struggle against Israel. Unlike other Palestinian groups often influenced or manipulated by Arab governments, Fatah acted independently and emphasized the need for Palestinian self-organization and representation:
The core of this political thinking was Palestinian nationalism – expressed through the slogan “Filastine awwalan” (Palestine first).

Fatah

Fatah differed from the PLO, which was founded in 1964 on initiative of the Arab League and under significant influence of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, through its grassroots focus and its emphasis on independent Palestinian resistance, while the PLO was initially more a political construct of Arab states. Only after the Six-Day War in 1967 and the resignation of the first PLO chairman Ahmad Shukeiri, could Fatah under Arafat’s leadership take control of the PLO and transform it into an authentic representative of the Palestinian national movement.

Initially, Fatah was indeed a progressive ideological group, programmatically committed to national liberation beyond “class-specific or social rights” – according to Fatah’s 1964 constitution, a comprehensive democratic state should be established across Palestine where “Jews, Christians, and Muslims live together in harmony as equal citizens.”[1]

In contrast to the current Palestinian Communist Party, which is the only party in Palestine that still openly adheres to Marxist-Leninist positions, as well as to groups like the PFLP and the DFLP, which continue to present themselves internationally as Marxist or communist but distance themselves from such labels within Palestine [0], Fatah also refrained from adopting a binding ideological position from the outset. While its founders initially drew on anti-colonial thinkers such as Mao, Che Guevara, and Frantz Fanon, they placed political pragmatism at the center of their strategic orientation. [2] The ideological flexibility allowed Fatah to develop a broad network of financially often contradictory supporters:
“In the 1960s, Fatah leadership received money from conservative, moderate Gulf sheikhdoms like Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, and Egypt opened a door to the Soviet Union, while Fatah fighters were trained in Algerian revolutionary camps and supplied with weapons from Syria.”[3]

After “Black September” (1971), the failed uprising against the Jordanian monarchy close to Israel, Fatah (along with all other Palestinian liberation organizations) was expelled from Jordan.

The PLO, led by Fatah Chairman Yassir Arafat since 1969, continually relocated its organization to Beirut, where it participated in the Lebanese “civil war,” triggered by Israel’s invasion in 1978 (and later 1982).
Under influence of leftist PLO factions such as PFLP and DFLP, Fatah allied with the communist-oriented Lebanese National Movement (LNM) during the Lebanese civil war.

Controversial Centrist

After Fatah and the PLO were expelled from Beirut in 1982 and their headquarters moved to Tunis, the organization faced significant challenges in the 1980s. Military defeat in Lebanon, loss of territorial base, and internal splits – such as the 1983 split of “Fatah al Intifada” – weakened Fatah substantially. During this phase, political and diplomatic work moved more into focus.

During the Lebanon War in 1982, Abbas earned his doctorate^[4] at Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with the controversial thesis “The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism,” about the Ha’avara Agreement between Nazi Germany and the early Zionist “Jewish Agency for Israel.”
His doctoral supervisor, Vladimir Ivanovich Kisilev, later said of him: “It was very interesting to speak with him. Unlike Yassir Arafat, a very emotional person, Abbas is moderate, cautious, and never takes unexpected steps.”[5]

During this period, Abbas played an increasingly important role within the leadership of Fatah and the PLO. As a close confidant of Arafat and already a long-standing member of the PLO Executive Committee, Abbas was involved in restructuring the organization in exile. He coordinated numerous political initiatives and led the development of new strategies to secure international recognition for the PLO.

Abbas’s leadership style has always been criticized – within the PLO and Fatah, he was often accused of being too compromising and lacking charisma, especially compared to Arafat.[6] Many Palestinians saw his diplomatic line as too yielding to Western interests and as a sign of lack of resolve. At the same time, Fatah lacked internal self-criticism and democratic renewal during this period, making the organization vulnerable to nepotism and internal power struggles. Abbas himself was sometimes perceived outside the PLO as a symbol of nepotism and self-enrichment.

His work focused on seeking political solutions to the Middle East conflict:
Abbas was one of the first leading PLO politicians to advocate for a two-state solution and negotiations with Israel – despite strong opposition within the PLO and Fatah. In the late 1980s, he was involved in secret contacts and exploratory talks aimed at rapprochement with Israel.

Camp David, Oslo, and Abbas

The 1978 Camp David Accords marked a turning point in Middle East policy, leading to a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel mediated by the US. This agreement largely excluded the Palestinian question and resulted in a separate peace at the expense of Arab and especially Palestinian interests. While Egypt gained territorial concessions and international recognition, the Palestinian situation remained unresolved, and Israeli control over the occupied territories remained intact:

“The Palestinians advocated for the creation of a Palestinian state based on the borders of June 4, 1967, which should live side by side with Israel… They accepted the idea of Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank to establish settlement blocs. They accepted the principle of Israeli sovereignty over the Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem – neighborhoods that before the 1967 war did not belong to Israel. And while insisting on the recognition of the right of return for refugees, they agreed that this right would be implemented in a way that preserves Israel’s demographic and security interests, by limiting the number of returnees. No other Arab party negotiating with Israel – neither Anwar Sadat’s Egypt nor King Hussein’s Jordan nor Hafez al-Assad’s Syria – ever considered such concessions.”

More comprehensive and lasting criticism was made in connection with the first Oslo Agreement in 1993. The agreements negotiated and signed with significant involvement of Mahmoud Abbas represented a paradigm shift in Palestinian policy: The PLO recognized Israel’s right to exist for the first time and committed to a political process leading gradually to self-governance in parts of the West Bank and Gaza. Central Palestinian demands – such as full withdrawal of Israel from the occupied territories, a halt to settlement expansion, or the right of return for refugees – were not actually addressed:

“As part of this agreement, negotiated behind the Palestinian people’s back, Israel agreed to partially withdraw from the occupied territories, and a Palestinian semi-state, the Palestinian Authority (PA), was established. The problem was that 60 percent of the West Bank would remain entirely under Israeli control.
In return, Yassir Arafat and the PLO agreed to recognize the State of Israel and to give up their demand for the right of return for Palestinians displaced during the Nakba. Instead, the Palestinian leadership agreed to work toward restoring the borders from before 1967, as recognized in UN Resolution 242 – exactly the conditions now demanded by the official communist parties.
Furthermore, the parties agreed to “lay the groundwork for strengthening the economic base of the Palestinian side.” This was to be achieved by integrating Palestine into a customs union with Israel. Palestine would also use the same currency, the Israeli shekel.
Finally, a Palestinian police was established, but the Israeli state retained “all powers” to ensure “internal security and order.” Israel also maintained exclusive control over Palestine’s borders and airspace.” [7]

Abbas’s pragmatic and compromise-oriented negotiation strategy was seen by many as too far-reaching a concession to Israel, especially since key issues of final status (such as Jerusalem, the refugee question, and settlements) were postponed. While Abbas’s approach was initially perceived as diplomatic opening and hope for a just solution, disappointment grew as progress stalled and Israeli settlements continued to expand – The resulting fragmentation of Palestinian territories and weakening of the national movement are often seen as direct consequences of Oslo politics and leadership decisions at the time – In retrospect, the “Oslo Peace” is considered a failure in large parts of Palestinian society and associated with policies of dependency and incomplete sovereignty:

“From our perspective as Palestinian Communists, Mahmoud Abbas’s role cannot be understood separately from the Oslo Accords project, a turning point when the Palestinian political path shifted from a national liberation struggle to a project of ‘coping with life under occupation’.” Palestinian Communists tell us.

The Oslo Accords brought profound disappointment and disillusionment among the Palestinian civil population:
Even before the genocide began, 63 percent of the Palestinian population viewed the Palestinian Authority, and thus the central result of the Oslo Accords, as a burden for Palestinians. More than half would favor an immediate abolition of the PA.[8]

The Intifada was thus ended with the Oslo peace, but so was the support for the PLO among the population; the acceptance of postponing key issues like Jerusalem’s status, the right of return for refugees, and Israel’s continued settlement expansion – decisions that large parts of the Palestinian population viewed as not only insufficient but a blatant betrayal of fundamental national interests – led to a massive loss of support for Arafat and Abbas among Palestinians.

The Palestinian comrades described it as follows:

“Abbas was not only a member of the Madrid and Oslo negotiation teams, he was one of the key architects of the agreement and its political and economic enforcer on the ground. Since then, he has acted as a guarantor of Israeli “security” through security coordination and has transformed the institutions of the Palestinian Authority into internal repression instruments directed against all forms of armed, popular, and even intellectual resistance.”

The leadership of the PLO increasingly appeared opportunistic and willing to compromise, with many Palestinians accusing it of abandoning the original goals of the national liberation struggle in favor of questionable political concessions. This criticism was reinforced by widespread reports of corruption, nepotism, and lack of transparency within the PLO structures, further damaging the already declining trust in the organization and reinforcing the image of a self-interested elite driven by personal gain.

In this climate of disappointment and political disillusionment, Hamas, which had established itself as a significant opposition force during the Intifada, was able to significantly expand its influence. It benefited not only from its consistent rejection of the Oslo process but also from its ability to provide social services and present itself as the authentic voice of resistance – Hamas learned to mobilize growing dissatisfaction among the population and to position itself as a credible alternative to the perceived compromised PLO.

When the West Bank was placed under 73% Israeli control according to the Oslo II Agreement in 1995 (Zone B and C), in exchange for autonomous governance powers of the PLO, a climate of deep mistrust and growing disillusionment with the PLO and Arafat prevailed among the Palestinian civil population.

Arafat’s End and the Second Intifada

The rapidly increasing settlement expansion, combined with disappointment in the Oslo peace and the Camp David negotiations, led in 2000, after Israeli provocation during the Temple Mount visit by the radical Zionist politician Ariel Sharon, to the start of the Second Intifada.

Arafat was aware of the PLO’s image as a surrogate party and decided from 2001 to let the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (the military wing of Fatah founded the previous year), Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PFLP, and DFLP fight together.
About one-third of the 143 suicide attacks during the Second Intifada were carried out by Fatah – a clearly drastic turn from the moderate Fatah, which just a few years earlier negotiated with Bill Clinton – a development that can undoubtedly be seen as a method to counterbalance Hamas and others:

“The emergence of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a militant offshoot of Fatah, reflected the movement’s need to demonstrate its ongoing relevance and militancy in light of criticism within Palestinian society that it was too moderate and too close to Israel and the US. By supporting the Brigades, Fatah sought to regain credibility among Palestinians – especially youth – and to compete with Islamist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad.” [9]

As a consequence of the Second Intifada, Israel erected the illegitimate barrier (“wall”) in the occupied West Bank, with only 20% running along the 1949 ceasefire line (“Green Line”) – a development that would cost tens of thousands of Palestinians their livelihoods.

Arafat was placed under house arrest by Israeli soldiers in his main office in Ramallah from 2002, and his presidential office in Palestine was destroyed during the occupation of Ramallah that same year:

“Arafat is trapped in two rooms and a bathroom, surrounded by rubble and Israeli tanks. He has no electricity, no water, and his only contact with the outside world is a battery-powered mobile phone.” [10]

Ariel Sharon, who by then was Prime Minister of Israel, declared Arafat an “enemy of Israel” – Israel and the United States refused him participation in peace processes, which from then on would be led by Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas, who was serving as Prime Minister at the time, was repeatedly heavily criticized by Arafat, not only because he rejected the Intifada as a whole (regardless of its means), but also because he was “too soft and too compromising” in negotiations with Israel.
By 2003, Abbas was considered “by many Palestinians as a puppet of the US and Israel” [11] – Arafat probably shared this view, de facto dismissing him after about 100 days in office.

The peace process stagnated and only in the following year was it to gain momentum again – but without Arafat.

Arafat Dies

Coincidentally, Arafat’s health significantly worsened shortly after Abbas’s removal.
The aging Arafat was granted special permission by Israel to be taken to the Percy Military Hospital on October 28 – where he died 13 days later of liver and multiple organ failure.

If you think Arafat’s death occurred at a suspiciously convenient time for Israel and the US, you are correct:
From all Palestinian factions, including those who previously had a poor relationship with Arafat (Hamas, Islamic Jihad), accusations immediately emerged that he was poisoned or murdered by Israel.

The debate about Arafat’s death is too complex to detail here, so to keep it short:
Bone samples from Arafat’s exhumed body in 2012 showed, according to a comprehensive study at the renowned Swiss Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV), levels of the radioactive isotope Polonium-210:

“The hypothesis that poisoning with Polonium-210 was the cause of his clinical symptoms was proposed eight years after his death, when new toxicological and radiotoxicological investigations showed unexpectedly high levels of Polonium-210 and Lead-210 activity in many analyzed samples.
Considering the above analytical limitations, mainly the time elapsed since his death and the nature and quality of the samples, the results support the assumption that death was moderately caused by poisoning with Polonium-210.” [12]

The problem with the investigation, or why it is impossible to determine the cause of death with absolute certainty, is partly due to the extremely short half-life of the isotope, and partly because the element Lead-210 was also found in the samples – since Polonium-210 is produced during the decay of Lead-210, a high amount of Lead-210 can mask an earlier Polonium poisoning: after some time, new Polonium-210 forms from Lead-210, so old traces of poisoning are no longer clearly detectable. From an assumed toxic dose, only a very small residue would be detectable at the time of exhumation – which, according to the exhumation reports, was still present in this tiny amount.

We will leave it at that; however, we think that especially given the political context in which Arafat died, forming an opinion based on the medical facts should not be difficult.

Abbas and Hamas

“The Palestinian Authority has never recovered from this time. It knows that its leaders can be put under house arrest at any moment. It knows that the Israeli army can march into Palestinian cities at any time. And so they continue to do so to this day.”[13]

After Arafat’s death, Mahmoud Abbas took over the leadership of the PLO and the State of Palestine:

“Yasir Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, was appointed in 2004 not despite but because of his unpopularity. As a ‘moderate’ politician, he was appointed by the Israeli government, the US, and the then Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak as President of the PA.”[14]

A common misconception is that Abbas won the 2005 election with 62.3% and this fact can be interpreted as initial popularity. However, this ignores that Hamas, which gained enormous social support through its consistent rejection of peace negotiations during the Second Intifada, boycotted the presidential election.

So only Abbas and his rival, Mustafa Barghouthi, who has been imprisoned in Israel since 2002, were left for the vote – the German Bundestag’s Scientific Service described how Barghouthi, like the other non-Abbas candidates, had no chance anyway:

“Election preparations and campaigning were hampered by delayed permit processing, travel restrictions, confiscation of material, arrests, and violent attacks by the Israeli army. (…) Especially the independent candidates complained that their freedom of movement was restricted and they could not reach all electoral districts.”

Furthermore, both the US and the EU threatened to suspend their financial aid to the Palestinian Authority if Hamas would take over government offices after the election. Fatah exploited this ultimatum to dissuade impoverished Palestinian voters from voting for Hamas – warning that this could jeopardize the already limited progress in infrastructure and social services heavily dependent on Western donors.[16]

By the time of the immediate peace talks after the election, Abbas had already squandered his chance – he traveled to North America, met with Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, and received $50 million from Bush alone for the “Reconstruction of Gaza.”

The fact that Abbas was not only invited to “the heart of the enemy” – Washington – but also received huge sums of money from the “West,” while Arafat was politically isolated in his last years, only confirmed for many Palestinians what they had long suspected: Abbas will not help them.

This realization was ultimately reflected in the subsequent parliamentary election: In 2006, the first since the Oslo era, the Hamas achieved a triumphant victory and became the strongest force in the Palestinian Legislative Council:

“It is more disappointment with Fatah than a sudden growth of Islamist sentiments that led to the strengthening of Hamas. The Palestinian people have a strong secular tradition, and Hamas did not emphasize its Islamic fundamentalism during the campaign. Instead, it campaigned under the slogan ‘Change and Reform,’ criticizing Fatah’s corruption and the desolate economic and social situation in the occupied territories. Hamas highlighted its role in organizing Islamic welfare organizations offering free food, health care, and education.” [17]

Abbas’s Partition of Palestine

After Hamas’s victory in 2006, the Palestinian leadership around Mahmoud Abbas proved either incapable or unwilling to accept the new reality as a reflection of the democratic will of the Palestinian population, which was mainly based on rejection of Fatah.

Abbas responded with policies of exclusion and blockade against the elected Hamas government – although Hamas, under Ismail Haniyya, initially signaled willingness to cooperate and offered to include other factions in government, Abbas refused any productive cooperation and sought to break Hamas’s power through institutional means.

At the same time, Abbas placed the entire security apparatus in Gaza under his personal control and increased the troop presence of the Fatah-allied Presidential Guard in Gaza from 90 to over 1,000 – and had them trained by US soldiers in “anti-terror tactics.”[18] He even went so far as to oppose the lifting of the Gaza blockade, arguing it would “strengthen Hamas” [19].

Israel imposed a complete blockade on the Authority, the European Union and the US cut aid, and most Palestinians working in Israel were forbidden from returning to their jobs – so much for recognizing a democratic election result.
In December 2006, an unsuccessful attack on Haniyya was attributed by Hamas leadership, Fatah, and Israel.

After a brief period of Fatah-Hamas unity, a government of national unity was formed in March 2007, with Mahmoud Abbas as President and Ismail Haniyya as Prime Minister. However, it soon faltered again when bloody clashes broke out in Gaza in June 2007 between Fatah- and Hamas-affiliated militias, some operating independently.

Abbas responded with democratic finesse: he suspended key provisions of the Palestinian Basic Law by decree, dismissed the Hamas-led government, and appointed a state of emergency government under his control, which was never confirmed by Parliament. The New York Times wrote in 2006:

“The United States and Israel are exploring ways to destabilize the Palestinian government so that the newly elected Hamas representatives fail and new elections are called, according to Israeli officials and Western diplomats. The goal is to deny the Palestinian Authority as much money and international ties as possible, forcing President Mahmoud Abbas to call new elections within a few months. The hope is that Palestinians will be so dissatisfied living under Hamas that they will bring a reformed and disciplined Fatah back to power.”

In response to the breakdown of the unity government, Hamas established its own administration and security structures in Gaza.
Henceforth, Palestine would be divided; into the democratically unlegitimized West Bank and Gaza since 2006.

Any attempts at rapprochement between Fatah and Hamas have failed since then – yet, the most realistic and promising solution for reunification currently appears in the form of the “Beijing Declaration on Ending Division and Strengthening Palestinian National Unity” – for which we recommend reading our article “The Great Peacemaker.”

The upcoming 2009 election was suddenly canceled by Abbas, citing Israel’s refusal to allow participation of voters in East Jerusalem, which was annexed by Israel – but the more probable reason was that Abbas and the Fatah leadership knew they would lose again in 2009.

“President Mahmoud Abbas’s decision to postpone the parliamentary elections scheduled for May 22 was condemned by some Palestinians as a ‘usurpation of power’… Given the fragmentation of Fatah, Hamas clearly has the advantage in possible parliamentary elections, according to polls indicating a likely landslide victory. Abbas’s postponement of the May 2021 elections stemmed from fears that the 2006 election debacle, in which Hamas won 76 of 132 seats in the Legislative Council, might repeat itself.”

Israel also could not have allowed a less submissive president to take power in Palestine, or at least in the West Bank – although there are no explicit proof, the content of the “Palestine Papers” makes it plausible that Abbas and the Israeli leadership collaborated to secure his rule.

Palestine Papers and “Napkin Maps”

On January 23, 2011, Al Jazeera published the “Palestine Papers” – a collection of around 1,600 confidential documents from official negotiations between the PLO and Israel, spanning from 1999 to 2011:

“(They) show that the PLO made concessions that would have been overwhelmingly rejected by the Palestinian public, and received nothing from an Israeli government that hardly moved on core issues.
A document showed, for example, that the PLO was willing to accept all illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem except Har Homa. Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said that the offer would give Israel ‘the greatest Yerushalayim (Jerusalem, KP) in Jewish history.’
Other documents revealed that Tzipi Livni, then Israeli Foreign Minister, proposed exchanging Arab villages in Israel for a future Palestinian state. Such an agreement would force tens of thousands of Arab citizens of Israel, who supposedly enjoy equal rights under the law, to choose between their citizenship and their land.” [21]

According to the documents, Abbas handed over “napkin maps” to then Israeli Prime Minister Olmert in 2008, which allowed Israel to annex almost all major settlements in the West Bank – with the exception of a few areas (totaling 60-63% of illegal settlers). Israel then demanded even more land, including large settlement blocs around Jerusalem, while the Palestinians would receive only sparsely populated farmland in return.

For many Palestinians, the Al Jazeera revelations were no surprise but confirmed their long-standing view that Abbas not only remains inactive toward the ongoing occupation of Palestine but directly tolerates it:

At the time of Arafat’s death in 2004, approximately 243,900 Israelis lived in illegal settlements in the West Bank, a material condition that significantly contributed to the start of the Second Intifada.
It was child’s play for Abbas: in 2012, just seven years after Abbas’s rule began, the number of settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem exceeded 600,000 – 51,000 new settlers per year.

As the Palestinian Communists aptly state in Kritikpunkt:

“Under Abbas’s leadership, the Palestinian Authority no longer represents the aspirations of the Palestinian people. Instead, it serves the interests of a parasitic capitalist class connected to the Israeli occupation and international financial institutions. This class, led by Abbas and his inner circle, actively represses the poor, refugees, students, and workers who deviate from the official line or dare to uphold the flag of resistance. In this context, the Palestinian Authority functions as a comprador elite: a local class collaborating with colonial powers to oppress their own population and preserve their privileges in return.”

Abbas’s “critique” of Israel, settlement expansion, attacks, and repression was less than a drop on a hot stone; it was a hint of moisture:

When Abbas in 2015 spoke before the UN General Assembly that “Israel has destroyed the Oslo Accords and other signed agreements through its ongoing violations and its policies of annexation and settlement activity,” Western media were shocked, but no practical consequences followed – all agreements remained in effect, settlement expansion continued, and military presence increased.

The Dilemma of Choice

After the canceled 2009 election, subsequent elections in 2013 and 2017 were also canceled – only in early 2021, after years of international pressure and cautious rapprochement between Fatah and Hamas, were new election dates set: parliamentary elections on May 22, 2021, and presidential elections on July 31, 2021.

Important: the elections were supposed to apply to the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, aiming to establish a new national unity government to end the political division between Gaza and the West Bank:

“Palestinian parties committed as early as February 2021 to recognize election results, secure the process with official, uniformed security forces, establish a special court for election disputes (to be staffed with judges from the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem), and form a government of national unity after the elections.” [22]

Three weeks before the election, Abbas suddenly said that voting could only take place if it was ensured that voters in East Jerusalem, annexed by Israel, could exercise their democratic rights[23] – which accounts for about 0.12% of the Palestinian population (around 6,000 in 2021).

The Palestinian society responded with massive demonstrations in Ramallah, Hebron, and Jenin over the election delay – it was clear that the issue of East Jerusalem, despite its great symbolic importance for national self-determination, was not the real motive for postponement.

Hamas, “which, unlike Abbas’s moderate Fatah, was predicted to do well in the elections, rejected the decision and spoke of a ‘coup’ for which there was no popular support.”[24] – and this is undoubtedly a correct assessment.

Both Abbas (not Fatah as a whole, which still held popular forces under Barghouthi) and the US and Israel could not risk that Hamas or anyone else, who was not Mahmoud Abbas, would take power in Palestine.

In 2021, 84% of the Palestinian representative population said Abbas was not capable (or “worthy,” according to a PSR survey) of continuing to hold the presidency of Palestine.
Meanwhile, 54% said Hamas was the more capable, preferred ruling force:

“73% support holding presidential and parliamentary elections in the Palestinian territories soon, 23% oppose. In Gaza, 82% support and in the West Bank 67%. However, a majority of 56% (63% in Gaza and 52% in the West Bank) believe that no parliamentary or presidential elections will take place in the near future.”

If Fatah had nominated Barghouti instead of Abbas, he would likely have won despite life imprisonment:

“If the competition was between Marwan Barghouti and Ismail Haniyeh (Hamas, KP), participation would increase to 66%, with Barghouti receiving 55% and Haniyeh 39%.”

And indeed, Barghouti wanted, if necessary through an independent list, to run against Abbas. The sensitive democrat Abbas simply canceled the election – good for Israel, which would have seen a united Palestine under new leadership with broad social support, ending settlement expansion in Palestine.

October 7 to Now

“For nearly thirty years, the political strategy of the Palestinian leadership has not changed: continued security coordination, systematic repression of resistance, silent normalization with the enemy, and stubborn adherence to the illusion of ‘economic peace.’ This is not only political failure but a direct complicity with the Zionist settler-colonial project. And Mahmoud Abbas is the most prominent symbol of this complicity.” (Palestinian Communist Party on Kritikpunkt)

October 7 was a devastating dilemma for Abbas, where the very nature of Hamas’s armed attack was a direct consequence of the Palestinian unity he prevented.

According to the PCPSR survey from late November/early December 2023, 72% of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza supported Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7 – notably, more than 70% of West Bank Palestinians saw armed struggle as the best way to end the occupation – 10% more than Gaza’s population.

Between 2022 and 2023, support for Hamas sharply declined, reaching only 27% in June 2023 (Palestine overall, “PG”), while Fatah gained a significant boost to 24% – a development linked to growing dissatisfaction with Gaza’s material conditions, Hamas’s repressive governance, and increased repression by Israel and international isolation of the Hamas government.

At the same time, Fatah benefited from increased international presence and diplomatic activity, especially in the West Bank – although its legitimacy remains questioned due to internal corruption and the lack of democratic elections.

After October 7, support for Hamas tripled to 54% (PG), and satisfaction with Fatah leadership fell to a record low of 13%. (PG) [25]
The armed resistance support in the West Bank rose from 54% in June 2023 to 68% in November 2023. Support for forming armed groups in communities attacked by settlers increased from 47% to 56% during the same period.[26]

The fact that this brutal, radical act of resistance (indeed, also terror, as we have written in detail here) of October 7 saved Hamas from its political crisis is a consequence of the “puppet of Israel”[27], Mahmoud Abbas, and the policies of the PLO under him.

Abbas is not only unelected but also unwanted – since 2006, he has ruled without democratic legitimacy, and his collusion with Israel and the US has not only split Palestine but also caused the sustained strengthening of the most reactionary political forces in Palestine, including Hamas.

The ongoing cooperation of the PA under Abbas with Israel – such as in the form of joint “security coordination,” de facto toleration of settlement expansion, and active repression of opposition forces in the West Bank – reveals its character as a dependent administrative apparatus within the imperialist order.

In its function, the PA stabilizes a ruling structure that sustains both colonial occupation and the imperial hegemony of Western powers. The events of October 7 are not just random violence but a historical antithesis to the decades-long strategy of appeasement by Abbas and subjugation to Israeli-Western hegemony – this makes October 7 not right, but historically comprehensible.

We leave the final word to Palestinian comrades:

“What is happening today in Gaza, the West Bank, and all fronts of the Palestinian confrontation cannot be separated from the development shaped by Abbas. While the Palestinian people are being massacred, the Palestinian Authority remains silent or, worse, sometimes participates in legitimizing the crimes through rhetoric of “rationality,” “wisdom,” and “dialogue.” Abbas does not represent the Palestinian people; he represents a class interest that is diametrically opposed to liberation.
For us, Mahmoud Abbas is not just an individual but the manifestation of a political system that has lost all legitimacy and has become a mechanism in the service of colonialism. This system cannot be reformed; it must be dismantled and replaced by a genuine liberation project rooted in the power of the people, restoring the central importance of resistance in all its forms, and uniting the national struggle with the class struggle.”

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[0] The Democratic Front has removed the term ‘revolutionary’ from its self-description and has instead redefined itself as a secular leftist party. The Popular Front, for its part, has softened its Marxist-Leninist orientation and now speaks of a commitment to certain Marxist ideas, Arab nationalism, and general humanistic values. The Palestinian People’s Party, too, now describes itself merely as secular.

[1] https://issuu.com/ipcri/docs/the_fatah_constitution

[2] https://www.gsi.uni-muenchen.de/forschung/forsch_zentr/forschung_3_welt/arbeitspapier/ap_562.pdf, S.13

[3] https://www.gsi.uni-muenchen.de/forschung/forsch_zentr/forschung_3_welt/arbeitspapier/ap_562.pdf

[4] Or rather, ‘Candidate of Sciences,’ the Soviet equivalent of a PhD.

[5] https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/538949

[6] The lack of charisma attributed to Abbas is absurdly overemphasized; in virtually every analysis of him – regardless of the source – his ‘lack of charisma’ is stressed to such an extent that we’ve rarely seen anything like it. It makes us wonder: how can someone possibly have so little charisma?

[7] https://marxist.com/palestine-the-failure-of-the-two-state-solution-and-the-communist-alternative.htm

[8] https://www.kas.de/documents/252038/22168750/30+Jahre+Oslo-Abkommen+%E2%80%93+ein+gescheiterter+Friedensprozess.pdf/5a4fcf0f-174c-4cf2-ed21-ef520aab50c8?version=1.1&t=1694434903611

[9] Muriel Asseburg, Der Nahostkonflikt (2016), S. 44

[10] https://www.perplexity.ai/search/der-rapide-ansteigende-siedlun-g8NQiWTGQ8y3E8Ixk88SgA

[11] https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/nach-abbas-ruecktritt-israel-lehnt-zusammenarbeit-mit-arafat-ab-a-264656.html

[12] https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/815515/expert-forensics-report-concerning-the-late.pdf , S.68 (übersetzt von Kritikpunkt)

[13] https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/palaestina-israel-konflikt-intifada-100.html

[14] https://www.akweb.de/politik/mahmoud-abbas-nachfolge-machtkampf-in-der-palaestinensischen-autonomiebehoerde/

[15] https://webarchiv.bundestag.de/archive/2011/1104/dokumente/analysen/2005/2005_01_10.pdf

[16] https://www.wsws.org/de/articles/2006/01/pala-j26.html

[17] https://www.wsws.org/de/articles/2006/01/pala-j26.html

[18] https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/u-s-training-fatah-in-anti-terror-tactics-2465370.php

[19] https://www.haaretz.com/2010-06-13/ty-article/abbas-to-obama-im-against-lifting-the-gaza-naval-blockade/0000017f-e124-d568-ad7f-f36fc3b80000

[20] https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/14/world/middleeast/us-and-israelis-are-said-to-talk-of-hamas-ouster.html

[21] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2011/12/27/palestine-papers-the-secret-negotiations

[22] https://www.swp-berlin.org/publications/products/aktuell/2021A26_Palaestinensisches_Wahljahr.pdf

[23] https://www.dw.com/de/pal%C3%A4stinenser-haben-wieder-keine-wahl/a-57382713

[24] https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2021-04/palaestinenser-wahl-verschiebung-mahmud-abbas

[25] https://www.pcpsr.org/en/node/963

[26] https://www.pcpsr.org/en/node/963

[27] https://jungle.world/artikel/2025/02/israel-hamas-westbank-die-neue-front