When Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appointed Hussein al-Sheikh as vice president of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), he sent many signals to multiple audiences—all of which sparked debates about the future of al-Sheikh’s role in the PLO and the Palestinian Authority (PA), and how Palestinians will be governed after the 89-year-old Abbas leaves the scene. The appointment presents distinct issues that deserve special attention: the political personalities of Abbas and al-Sheikh, evolving dynamics within the PLO and its factions, the outcome of Israel’s assault on Gaza and the West Bank, and the impact of erratic American policies across the Middle East.
For now, al-Sheikh’s appointment seems to augur badly for the wellbeing and rights of the Palestinian people, since his passive leadership style is likely to continue Abbas’ neutering of the PLO and the PA that aligns with American and Israeli preferences—and perhaps those of some Arab states, especially in the Arabian Gulf. This neutering of the two organizations showed as paralysis in the last year and a half during the single greatest existential threats to Palestinians in the last century: Israel’s genocide in Gaza, moves to pacify and perhaps annex the occupied West Bank, and widespread criminalization of Palestinian advocacy across the West.
The moribund Palestinian leadership has practically distanced itself from the Palestinian people at a moment when the impact of Hamas’s actions and future status remain unpredictable, as does the western world’s position toward the prevailing international law order of the last 75 years that has by and large ignored Palestinian rights. This makes it impossible to anticipate al-Sheikh’s impact on Palestinian national politics if he takes over from Abbas as president of the PA—which itself is not guaranteed, given opposition to him among some factions and individuals. In either case, al-Sheikh will have to address several structural realities that now define Palestinian national political action and leadership.
- The PLO does not function as a coherent political body that reflects a universal Palestinian consensus on issues of war or peace with Israel.
- The PLO lacks the ability and the desire to revive a national consensus that could unite all factions behind a single strategy that enjoys wider Arab, Islamic, and global support. Recent attempts to reconcile Fateh and Hamas, the key actors, have basically been stillborn.
- Since both the PLO and the PA seem to have abdicated for now their historical struggle for Palestinian self-determination and statehood, Hamas has emerged as the only active faction whose armed struggle reflects widespread Palestinian sentiment. But this has come at a very high price in Gaza and all of Palestine, and allowed Israel and western governments to exploit this support to criminalize expressions of Palestinian identity or national rights because they see Hamas as a terrorist organization.
- The PA seems unable to play any significant role beyond the borders of Ramallah and Nablus in the West Bank; and even there, Israeli settler and state attacks limit the PA’s impact.
- Palestinians now have little hope of holding credible elections for a new leadership, since Abbas postponed the last scheduled legislative and presidential vote in 2021. With al-Sheikh, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza should expect to live under governance-by-decree for many years.
Governance-by-decree and personal connections best describe al-Sheikh’s political style and legacy, and he offers no evidence of changing. His entire public career reflects his close ties to leaders, especially Mahmoud Abbas, with whom he cemented the current model of Palestinian leadership. This relationship has shaped his career, especially since Abbas in 2007 appointed him head of the Civil Affairs Commission, which gave him much power due to his role as the main coordinator with Israel via the civil liaison office, including finances and approving requests for Palestinians to travel to Israel. His early years included joining Fateh and being jailed in Israel in 1978, where he learned Hebrew and started to mix with Israelis. He was a member of the First Intifada’s National Unified Leadership, and after the Oslo Accords he joined the PA security forces. He rose in Fateh to become secretary in 1999, and a decade later was elected to its Central Committee.
He represents a new cohort of Palestinian leaders—the second generation after the Oslo Accords—whose power comes from their proximity to top officials like Abbas, his advancement via decrees in his favor, and from his extensive contacts with Israel and the United States. His power and legitimacy among the public is functional and services-based, while the previous generations of Palestinians, including a younger Mahmoud Abbas, had public legitimacy through armed struggle that typically included many years of imprisonment in Israel. The jailed Palestinian leaders helped to shape the Palestinian national consensus on resistance and negotiations with Israel, including producing the National Conciliation Document (The Prisoners Document) in 2006.
Al-Sheikh’s limited impact outside Ramallah and the central West Bank means he will have difficulty to credibly represent Palestinians everywhere. His career focus on Palestinian security issues and coordination with Israel may not serve him well in the future among the Palestinian public. As Amherst College visiting scholar Ahmad Khalidi told this author, “al-Sheikh came from outside the inner circle of Fateh’s historic leadership and was on the fringe of the first intifada graduates.”
Indeed, many Palestinians with more “resistance legitimacy” than al-Sheikh are lined up, ready to challenge his post-Abbas leadership, including the jailed Marwan Barghouti, and people like Jibril Rajoub, Mohammad Dahlan, Mahmoud Aloul, and Majed Faraj, most of whom have security services legacies. If al-Sheikh plans to battle politically to gain the top position one day, he would have to make moves that would strengthen his popular legitimacy.
Still open to speculation is how al-Sheikh would respond to new attempts to reconstitute the PLO via a Fateh-Hamas reconciliation, which Palestinians desire but the United States and Israel reject. He opposed Hamas strongly in 2006, but in 2017 was named to a committee to bridge PA-Hamas divides. A now weakened Hamas might be more conducive to a reconciliation, although Israel feels its military superiority can pacify all Palestine and would prefer its political factions to remain at loggerheads.
For now, the Palestinian leadership under Mahmoud Abbas and Hussein al-Shaikh seems set to cement and probably perpetuate its current limitations, but future trends are difficult to discern due to the many moving parts in the Palestinian, Arab, Middle Eastern, and global political arenas. Moreover, Palestine reflects the dynamics of the prevailing Arab governance that include non-democratic and personalized rule, citizen-state alienation, a focus on materialistic survival by citizens and state alike, and powerlessness before the dictates of the United States and Israel.
The views expressed in this publication are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab Center Washington DC, its staff, or its Board of Directors.
Featured image credit: x/NezamMahdawi
