Who Are the Legitimate Palestinian Leaders?

On January 25, 2006, almost 20 years ago, the Palestinian Authority (PA) held its last elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), which functions as the Palestinian parliament. The result was a landslide victory for Hamas, the genocidal terrorist organization that planned, led, and executed the October 7, 2023, massacre.

The Chairman of the PA, Mahmoud Abbas, had been elected a year earlier, replacing the deceased Yasser Arafat. Soon after his election, he traveled to Washington to meet President George W. Bush. Shortly after returning, Abbas called for parliamentary elections.¹

As a precondition to holding the PLC elections, Abbas demanded that all the so-called “Palestinian factions” be allowed to participate. When used by Abbas and the Palestinians in this context, the term “Palestinian factions” is a euphemism for including the internationally designated terrorist elements of Palestinian society, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and others.  

While Abbas and his Fatah party believed that they would easily win the elections, he took no chances. During Abbas’s visit to Washington, President Bush had publicly promised to give him $50 million, but also, more quietly, approved an additional $2.3 million officially given “to support the elections,” but which many observers allege was designed to bolster the image of Abbas and his Fatah party.² Abbas also decided, in breach of the Oslo Accords, to change the voting system and enlarge the PLC from 88 to 132 members.

Despite all the cash and Abbas’s maneuvers, the final count of the votes gave Hamas an outright majority – 74 seats – in the PLC. Shortly after, embarrassed by his loss, Abbas had no alternative but to invite Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh to form the PA government.³ On March 29, 2006, Haniyeh formed the Hamas government, and gradually started taking control of the PA apparatus.

Israel, the United States, the European Union, and others refused to cooperate with, and more importantly, refused to continue funding, the elected PA government.⁴

While Abbas was doing his utmost to prevent the collapse of the now terror-controlled PA, Hamas wasted no time, particularly in the Gaza Strip, to assert its authority.

Immediately upon election, Hamas ramped up its terror activities. In 2006 alone, Hamas and the other terror groups fired over 1,700 rockets from Gaza, indiscriminately targeting Israel’s civilian population. ⁵ Hamas terrorists carried out hundreds of additional terror attacks, including the June 2006 infiltration into Israel that resulted in the killing of two Israeli soldiers and the kidnapping of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. Having taken almost complete control of the Gaza Strip, using tunnels dug under the border with Egypt, during 2006 alone, Hamas managed to smuggle in 28 tons of explosives, 14,000 assault rifles, 5,000,000 rounds of ammunition, 40 missiles, 150 RPGs, 65 grenade launchers, and 30 anti-tank missiles.⁶

Despite initially tolerating the Hamas-formed government, in early 2007, following a succession of events, Abbas deposed the Haniyeh government and replaced it with an alleged non-affiliated, so-called technocrat government.

Rejecting Abbas’s illegal coup, Hamas seized the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007. While senior, privileged Fatah representatives, such as Mohammad Dahlan, managed to save themselves, other less fortunate Fatah representatives in Gaza were killed by Hamas, some being thrown from the top of buildings.⁷

Before Abbas deposed the Hamas government, the elected members of the PLC took their seats and appointed its speaker: Hamas member Aziz Al-Dweik.

The position of Speaker of the PLC is more than just ceremonial. According to PA law, should the president become incapable of performing his duties, the speaker of the parliament takes over for two months as PA interim president until presidential elections are held.

To avoid a situation in which Al-Dweik and Hamas would seize control of the PA, in 2018, Abbas decided to dissolve the PLC elected in 2006. At the time, he promised elections for the new PLC would be held within six months. No elections were ever held.

To further sully the picture, and in the hope that no one would notice, or at the very least no one would truly understand, Abbas later integrated the PA institutions into those of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The PLO has its own internal legislative body, open only for the elections of PLO members. He then announced that should he become unable to perform his duties, the speaker of the PLO parliament, Rawhi Fattouh, would take over as interim president until new elections are held. ⁸

If one were to apply Western democratic values and give the PA elections their legitimate value, the inevitable conclusion, however unreasonable and unfathomable, is that Hamas is the legitimate leader of the PA.

Since 2006, nothing in the PA political map has changed. The Palestinians still despise Abbas and his corrupt Fatah party and, if given the choice, they would again elect Hamas.

This, however, is not just a historical tale. Abbas, 90, shows no sign of ever stepping down, but reality will inevitably take its course, and one day, sooner or later, the vacuum he leaves will have to be filled.

Allowing the hated Fatah to seize control automatically would require the Western funders of the PA to positively admit the colossal failure of any remnant of the Palestinian democracy, and to admit that the PA is a simple dictatorship. Allowing Hamas and the other terrorists to participate in the elections would mean that the Western funders accept a potential terrorist victory.

Whatever reality the Western funders face, Israel must never again agree to the participation of internationally designated terrorist groups in whatever future PA elections may take place. Furthermore, while PA elections are not in sight, Israel would do well to make this stipulation clear to all without any delay.

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