By Ramzy Baroud
"....it is Mahmoud Abbas who is running out of options. Unlike Olmert, Abbas has no real, measurable powers. For one, his popularity amongst his own people has never been high. Past quarrels with late Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat during the early years of the Palestinian Uprising singled Abbas out as an untrustworthy opportunist. Late professor Edward Said once called him ‘moderately corrupt.’ The formidable intellectual died before seeing the moderate corruption of Abbas morphing into a wholesale onslaught on democracy, freedom and every noble principle the Palestinians ever fought for. I wonder what Said would have said after seeing the people of Gaza suffering beyond comprehension while Abbas and Olmert meet in the latter’s Jerusalem residence, exchanging words of praise and vowing their undying commitment to ‘peace’.....
Yet, unlike other Arab ‘moderates’, Abbas lacks all leverage. He ‘presides’ over an ever shrinking entity, itself under military occupation. Many of his people regularly accuse him of ‘treason’, or at best, of ‘selling out’. On top of this, his party is falling apart. Mohammed Dahlan is already acting with the air of presidency. Now based in Egypt, he has been gathering support for himself amidst scattered talks about his desire to form an alternative party to Fatah.....
If Abbas, however, tried to rethink his relations with Hamas, he would be abandoned by Israel and the US, and might find himself a victim of a calculated coup led by his party’s strongmen. If he continues with the charade of endless and futile talks with Israel, the patience of his people would eventually run out. Considering all of this — Abbas’ shared responsibly for the plight of Gaza, his anti-democratic legacy and his inability to reunite his faltering party — the president seems condemned to a lose-lose scenario, one which would take no less than a miracle to put right."
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