Is Abbas Still Relevant?

In TIME, here

"......This week, Obama will encounter a second major obstacle: Abbas may be committed to the two-state solution, but his political authority over his own people is so limited that he is unable to effectively negotiate on their behalf. (See pictures of Israel's Gaza offensive in January.)

Abbas controls only the West Bank. The other Palestinian enclave, Gaza, remains in the hands of the Islamist Hamas movement, which doesn't recognize either Israel or the Palestinian Authority President's writ. Hamas, which says Abbas' term of office expired in January, no longer recognizes his presidency. (Abbas' supporters claim that he can rule legally until next January.) Hamas, moreover, is the ruling party of the democratically elected Palestinian legislature, which is supposed to approve the appointment of a government — but the legislature is unable to convene because of the large number of Hamas legislators in Israeli detention. Last week, Abbas named a new government chosen by its Prime Minister, the U.S.-anointed favorite Salam Fayyad. Fayyad is a competent technocrat whom the West is backing so he can build the structures of governance and security for a future Palestinian state. But he has no political base among Palestinians and is not even a member of Abbas' Fatah movement. Fatah, in fact, sees the Prime Minister and his government as having been imposed from outside, and publicly opposed its formation. Abbas' appointment of a government opposed by both Hamas and Fatah demonstrates just how precarious his political position has become, largely a result of his doing Washington's bidding, often against his own instincts. Palestinian polls and Israeli intelligence concur that if a new Palestinian election were held now, Abbas and his movement would likely lose to Hamas.With U.S. tutelage arguably having gotten him into such a dismal political situation, Abbas will expect Obama to answer tough questions. Abbas became President with U.S. backing after Yasser Arafat died, and the Bush Administration arranged a few photo opportunities with then Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon in order to create the impression of a peace process. But Washington also insisted that Abbas proceed with the legislative election scheduled for January 2006, despite the Palestinian leader's misgivings.Abbas' doubts were well founded. He had read the mood of his people more accurately than the Bush Administration had. Frustrated at the failure of more than a decade of negotiation with Israel to end the occupation, voters gave Hamas a landslide victory. The Bush Administration then made things more complicated for him. Having championed the primacy of the government chosen by the elected parliament when Arafat was alive, Washington now demanded that Abbas reclaim for the presidency the control over finances and security forces for which it had so sharply criticized Arafat. And when Abbas agreed to enter a Saudi-brokered unity government with Hamas, the Bush Administration pressured him to walk away.With Washington the key to delivering Israeli agreement on a two-state solution, Abbas saw little alternative but to do what the Americans asked of him. But the U.S. and Israel declined to give him the concessions necessary to validate his choices in Palestinian eyes, resulting in Abbas' losing even more ground to Hamas over the past two years.The Obama Administration ... expect Abbas to immediately enter unconditional talks with Netanyahu, ..... Such noncommittal talks would do little to advance any peace process, but they would damage whatever credibility Abbas retains in Palestinian eyes. The Administration would also like Abbas — or Fayyad — to continue building up the Palestinian Authority's administrative and security capacity in the West Bank. But absent progress toward ending the occupation, that too risks further weakening Abbas. Indeed, the frustration of Fatah's membership with its leader, and the continued siege of Hamas-controlled Gaza, raises the prospect that both major Palestinian organizations, Hamas and Fatah, may decide to signal their opposition to Abbas and Fayyad by renewing attacks on Israelis...."