Without a meaningful voice, disconnected from his people and facing the wrath of the streets, the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas appears to be the political collateral damage of the war between Israel and Hamas.

The Oslo peace process, which he was one of the architects of in 1993 and which would have led to the creation of a Palestinian state, has been deadlocked for more than a decade but Abbas insists on a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

And this despite the expansion of Jewish settlements that have fragmented the West Bank to the point of effectively preventing the creation of a contiguous, viable Palestinian state, despite the increase in violence between the Israeli army and armed Palestinian organizations, and despite the increasingly frequent attacks by Jewish settlers against Palestinians in this area, which Israel occupied in 1967.

Since the start of the war, on October 7, with Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel, Abbas has remained highly discreet, while many Palestinians, both Hamas supporters and non-Hamas supporters, have taken to social media to hail what they see as a “humiliating defeat ” of Israel and express their support for the armed Palestinian organization.

“Abbas, go away!”

On October 16, a statement by Abbas, broadcast by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, in which he said that “the policies and actions of Hamas do not represent the Palestinian people,” sparked outrage before he withdrew.

The next strike – the origin of which is a matter of controversy – against al-Ahli al-Arab Hospital in Gaza killed hundreds of people. Hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets of the West Bank, chanting “Abbas go! leave!” before they were violently dispersed.

“Abbas bet on the international community, believing that he would force Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories in order to give the Palestinians a state,” estimates Ubai Abudi, director of the Bisan Center for Research and Development, based in Ramallah.

“But the international community has shown that it does little in cases where Palestinian blood is shed (…) hence the popular anger,” he adds.

According to a poll published in September by Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey research (PSR), before the war 78% of Palestinians were in favor of the departure of the 88-year-old Abbas. In power since 2005, his Palestinian Authority controls only parts of the West Bank after being expelled in 2007 from the Gaza Strip by Hamas.

Furthermore, 58% of respondents favored “armed combat” to end the Israeli occupation, compared to 20% who preferred a negotiated solution and 24% who said they wanted “peaceful resistance”.

Lost

In the eyes of those who question it, “the Palestinian Authority is increasingly assimilating Israel’s politics, either through inaction or through security cooperation,” the political scientist estimates. Xavier Guinard expert on the Palestinian territories.

“There are complaints that Abbas was incapable of reacting to the height of what was happening in Gaza,” adds the Noria Center expert.

For Hugh Lovat, researcher at European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), “with Palestinian public opinion hardening in favor of armed resistance, the Palestinian Authority risks defeat if it continues to fail to follow the voice of the Palestinian people.”

Abbas’s position is increasingly difficult as he is “pushed by the US and Israel to crack down harder on Hamas and other armed groups in the West Bank, which further undermines his position,” Lovat points out.

“Torn between public opinion and American expectations, the Palestinian Authority has so far avoided taking a clear stance, which is also not helping them. So he is in a position where, whatever he does, he is lost,” adds the analyst.

THE Omar Khatiba young man who demonstrated on Friday in Ramallah in favor of the Palestinians in Gaza, does not mince his words: “the resistance is fighting against Israel in Gaza and we are fighting against the Palestinian Authority because it is nothing more than a tool in the hands of the occupation to suppresses in the West Bank”.