The Palestinian Authority is willing to take a role in governing the Gaza Strip as long as the United States commits to promoting a two-state solution, and thus the establishment of a Palestinian state, according to the New York Times.
The report cited Hussein Al-Sheikh, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, who is seen as a possible successor to Mahmoud Abbas.
Al-Sheikh revealed that he spoke with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken last week, saying that the Palestinian Authority was seeking “a commitment from the US government, with a comprehensive political decision that would include the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem”.
“Without a comprehensive policy initiative from the US,” he said, post-war Gaza will be “fertile ground for radicalization.”
A comprehensive deal, according to Al-Sheikh, must resolve key issues that have stood in the way of peace talks: Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank, home to more than 700,000 Jewish settlers, and resolving the status of East Jerusalem.
Speaking from Ramallah, the West Bank city where the Palestinian Authority is based, al-Sheikh said Palestinian leaders were looking for “a serious American initiative that would force Israel to abide by it, to commit to it. He even estimated that “the current US government is capable of doing this”.
Of course, as Al-Sheikh said, he does not believe that the current Israeli government, which is trying to annex large parts of the West Bank, would agree to these terms.
It is worth noting that, for his part, American President Joe Biden has publicly supported the two-state solution. “There has to be a vision of what comes next,” he said recently of the war between Israel and Hamas. “In our view, it should be a two-state solution.” But he has yet to lay out a road map to get there and, so far, has done little to indicate that his government will invest in such a project.
It is recalled that Mahmoud Abbas is the president of the Palestinian Authority and a leading figure of Fatah, which is the biggest opponent of Hamas. The Palestinian Authority is dominated by Fatah, which is also the driving force behind the Palestine Liberation Organization. Fatah was expelled from Gaza in 2007 when Hamas took power.
Al-Sheikh’s message is both a relief and a challenge for the White House, the NYT comments, adding that even if Israeli troops succeed in eliminating Hamas, the Palestinian Authority’s legitimacy as the group’s successor in Gaza is far from over. secured. Hamas militants ousted it from power in the enclave in 2007, and in the years since, the Palestinian Authority has been plagued by accusations of corruption, lack of power and accountability.
