PA Chairman Abu Mazen returned to Ramallah from the Arab Summit Conference in Algeria where he demanded that Arab countries act to convene an international peace conference and obtain international protection for the Palestinians from Israeli attacks.
The PA was not surprised by the defeat of the Lapid Gantz government in the Knesset elections, the PA leadership strictly follows the moods in Israel and from their point of view the change of government in Israel was expected.
Pessimism now surrounds PA chairman Abu Mazen and his associates Hussein al-Sheikh and Majed Faraj, for whom the right-wing government led by Benjamin Netanyahu and the heads of religious Zionism Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich is a continuous nightmare for the next four years.
On the other hand, they will try to squeeze this lemon to the last drop and present the new Israeli government to the world as an extreme and racist fascist government with which there is no chance of negotiating and reaching a political agreement.
Therefore ,they will demand the international community and its institutions to force Israel to withdraw to 1967 lines in order for a Palestinian state to be established in the West Bank with East Jerusalem as its capital.
The assessment of the situation by the Palestinian leadership is that the results of the elections in Israel will lead to the Oslo Accords being buried even deeper in the ground, therefore the PA plans to launch an aggressive international campaign against the new right-wing government led by Netanyahu.
PA leadership is concerned that the new right-wing government in Israel will expand the construction of settlements and increase visits of Jews in the Temple Mount , therefore, PA Chairman Abu Mazen, in coordination with King Abdullah of Jordan, intends to contact President Biden and the European Union so that they will put pressure on the future Netanyahu government to refrain from this.
Abu Mazen fears the loss of the Democratic Party led by President Biden in the midterm elections in Congress, such a loss will limit the freedom of action of the Biden administration to exert pressure on the Netanyahu government.
PA chairman Abu Mazen has so far failed in his policy towards Israel, he has no political achievements, at the top of Fatah he is criticized for not being able to mobilize President Biden for the benefit of the Palestinian cause and for opening the American consulate in East Jerusalem and for failing to negotiate with the government Lapid Gantz to bring about the renewal of negotiations with Israel.
That is why Abu Mazen is threatening again to suspend the Oslo Accords and stop security coordination with Israel, this is a broken record he has been playing for the past seven years and no one is taking his threats seriously.
Abu Mazen will wait until the new government in Israel is formed to see What positions will Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich receive and to hear what Prime Minister Netanyahu’s policy will be towards the PA and the possibility of resuming negotiations, only then will he outline his strategy.
Abu Mazen’s assessment is that the two-state solution is disappearing from the horizon and that Netanyahu will try to find a suitable opportunity during his new term to re-promote the idea of annexing territories in the West Bank.
It is still not clear who will be the next defense minister, but Abu Mazen has lost the address he had in terms of security and politics, whose name was Benny Gantz.
He will continue to meet occasionally with Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, but it is likely that his designated successor Hussein al-Sheikh will try to contact Prime Minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu as he did with former Prime Minister Yair Lapid.
Senior Fatah officials are calling on Abu Mazen to formulate a strategy new to the right-wing government led by Netanyahu, to implement the decisions of the Central Council of the PLO regarding relations with Israel and to reach a national reconciliation with Hamas in order to face the new challenges in view of the collapse of the two-state solution.
