NOTE: This article was written in May, 2024
On May 4, 1994, the Palestinian Authority (PA) was created by signing the Gaza-Jericho Agreement between Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Two short years later, Palestinians participated in the first-ever elections in the West Bank to rapturous cheers and excitement from the Palestinian people. Maybe, an independent Palestine was achievable.
It has been almost thirty years since the day of the Gaza-Jericho Agreement, and the Palestinian Authority persists. Optimism, however, is a relic of the past in the West Bank and Gaza. As of December 2023, the Palestinian Authority’s approval rate in the West Bank was 10%, and 21% in Gaza. The Palestinian Authority fundamentally failed in its intended goal of building the institutions that would lead to a sovereign Palestinian state. Instead, high-ranking members of Fatah established a neo-patrimonial dictatorship which undermined the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority and fostered instability and uncertainty in the West Bank.
Yasser Arafat and the Roots of Patrimonialism
Shortly after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, the inaugural President Yasser Arafat reigned over the West Bank, ostensibly as a freedom fighter. Still, his corruption and neopatrimonialism quickly began to erode his reputation. Neopatrimonialism is the modern iteration of Max Weber’s theory of Patrimonialism, a form of political domination that Weber applied to the absolute monarchies and dictatorships that existed in the early 20th century. Neopatrimonialism is often applied to African dictatorships, where political leaders use state power to buy loyalty and enrich themselves.
According to the Oslo Agreement, Israel collects tax income such as customs receipts and Value-Added Tax, which they then dispense that income to the Palestinian Authority. In the early days of the PA, this money went directly to the pockets of the President. From there, Arafat bought the loyalty of whoever he wanted in the West Bank and Gaza, while corrupt officials appointed by Arafat ate up a “third of the PA’s $800 million budget.”
Yasser Arafat was supposed to be the chosen leader of the Palestinian people, having fought so long and so hard to establish some form of self-government for the Palestinians, his actions were as damaging to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process as the actions of Rabin’s assassin, Yigal Amir. The corruption that Yasser Arafat fostered in the Palestinian Authority was immediately evident to the Palestinian people, undermining their faith in the sole institution that was supposed to deliver them nationhood. Instead, seven years after the Oslo Agreement, and six after the Gaza-Jericho Agreement, 76% of Palestinians believed that corruption existed in PA institutions, with a further 62% believing that corruption would increase or remain the same. Yet paradoxically, Arafat saw his popularity rise, as it increased from 26% in March 1999 to 39% in 2000. There are two explanations for this phenomenon. One, Yasser Arafat was still riding off the coattails of his tenure as a resistance leader, a national myth that persists to this day - you will find spray-painted portraits of Arafat in every corner of the West Bank. Second, Arafat did push forward some reform to the corruption of the PA in 2000, acceding to IMF demands that Israeli-collected tax revenue would be funneled to his Finance Ministry, not the Office of the President of the State of Palestine.
In July 2000, the Camp David Accords failed. There were many different justifications for why Camp David failed, with accusations of intransigence being thrown by both sides, but ultimately, it was doomed from the beginning. By 2000, as seen, the Palestinian Authority had failed to manifest any of the institutional changes that were promised in the Oslo Agreement, while in Israel, 64% of Israeli Jews believed that Prime Minister Ehud Barak had compromised too much. Months after the failure of Camp David, Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount complex, inflaming tensions among Palestinians and kickstarting the Second Intifada.
The Second Intifada lasted for four years, and it represented the end of Palestinian-Israeli cooperation. After the Second Intifada, Sharon, previously the leader of Likud, was forced out of the party by his main rival, Benjamin Netanyahu. During the Second Intifada, a new figure rose to national prominence within the Palestinian Authority. Mahmoud Abbas, considered a preferential leadership candidate by the US due to his moderate stances, began to publicly spar with Arafat, disavowing violence as a means of negotiation with Israel. Despite Arafat’s corruption and tight grip on dissent, he was unable to dislodge Abbas as Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority. With tensions of a greater showdown seeming imminent, Yasser Arafat, long the hero of the Palestinian people, died in 2004.
The Rise of Abu Mazan
Mahmoud Abbas, commonly known by his kunya, Abu Mazan, was one of the founding members of Fatah in 1959. Over the next forty years, Abbas established himself as a political moderate, calling for dialogue with moderate Israelis, and was one of the “first senior PLO officials to recognize Israel.” Abbas maneuvered himself to succeed Arafat, and upon the PLO founder’s death in 2004, Abbas was elected as the President of the Palestinian Authority. However, Abbas’ election was fraught with controversy, foreshadowing what was to come in his Presidency.
The elections of 2005, though deemed fair and free by observers, were an ominous threat to the Palestinian Authority as the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), boycotted the elections. Despite this, Abu Mazan still won a large majority of the votes, but it cast doubt upon the legitimacy of the results and worried many, as the 2006 legislative elections seemed primed to inflame tensions between Fatah and Hamas.
Hamas won the 2006 legislative elections for the PA, convincingly. In elections deemed by international observers to have “compared favorably to international standards…with polling results reflect[ing] the will of the people,” Abbas, Fatah, and the Palestinian establishment suffered their most major defeat since Arafat’s death. At this moment, Mahmoud Abbas could have established a democratic legacy in Palestine. Unpopular, Abbas could have stepped aside after the elections, letting a more popular, charismatic leader take over Fatah and serve as a new counter to the Islamic extremism that Hamas represented. Abbas even said that he would not run for re-election.
Attempts to form a unity government between Fatah and Hamas after the elections proved to be futile, and beginning in 2006, Palestinian Authority Security Forces (PASF) began to engage Hamas militants in firefights in Gaza City and around the West Bank. The PASF, created with the Gaza-Jericho Agreement, had long been a tool for enforcement of the neopatrimonial regime in Ramallah, running a “protection racket in Gaza for gasoline and cigarette imports.” However, this internal instability, promoted by Arafat and maintained by Abbas, led to the PASF’s decisive defeat by a numerically inferior Hamas force in 2007, cutting off Gaza from the PA’s authority and effectively dividing Palestine between the West Bank and Gaza. This defeat, despite the superior training and equipment of the PA, is a result of the division, corruption, and incompetence fostered by Arafat during his Presidency. These issues would come to typify the PASF’s activities in the West Bank.
Mahmoud Abbas refused to step aside after the toppling of the PA in Gaza, and in 2009, the Palestinian Liberation Organization indefinitely extended the term of Mahmoud Abbas. This was, and continues to be, the lynchpin of the corruption and illegitimacy of the Palestinian Authority. Mahmoud Abbas had the opportunity to let someone new take his place, first in 2006, and then again after the fall of Gaza in 2007. Instead, Abu Mazan doubled down on his pursuit for power, extending his term, and in doing so, erasing what little faith Palestinians had in him.
Abbas, still holding on to power as President, appointed Salam Fayyad, a neoliberal reformist, to the position of Prime Minister. Fayyad was, and continues to be, the most effective Prime Minister in the history of the PA. Fayyadism, the name for Fayyad’s institution and legitimacy-oriented policies of statecraft, had remarkably effective results in modernizing and reforming the PASF, while economically, Fayyad even earned praise from the World Bank.
Yet the lingering specter of Abbas loomed over Fayyadism. Already, there was hierarchical confusion due to the undefined nature of security organization in the PA, with responsibilities being unevenly distributed between the Office of the President, the Council of Ministers, and the Interior Ministry of the West Bank. Even despite Fayyad’s efforts, Abbas still meddled in the appointment of top PASF officials, while promotions and seniority depended on Fatah affiliations, not merit. It is clear that even in an era of reformism, Mahmoud Abbas’ policies of power, patrimonialism, and dominance were going to undermine the Palestinian Authority’s effectiveness.
It is also important to note that Fayyadism coincided with the rise of Benjamin Netanyahu to the position of Prime Minister and Leader of Likud in 2009. Unlike his Likud predecessor, Ariel Sharon, Netanyahu always opposed a two-state solution, seeking to undermine the Palestinian Authority. Despite public assurances to the United States that he supported a two-state solution, Netanyahu turned around and ignored Abbas’ efforts at Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation in 2010. Israel is not free from blame when examining the Palestinian Authority’s failures. Arguably, they are the catalyst for many of them. However, Mahmoud Abbas had the opportunity to change the Palestinian Authority from within after the death of Yasser Arafat. The chance to end patrimonialism in Palestine was for the taking.
Getting Worse
Instead, Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Salam Fayyad in 2013. The dismissal of Fayyad marked an end to the attempts at reform, and for Abbas, a commitment to corruption, neopatrimonialism, and the delegitimization of the Palestinian Authority. Mahmoud Abbas, from 2013 onwards, began to cut wages and eliminate opposition. Abbas was reelected to Fatah party leadership in 2016 by a unanimous vote of 1,400 delegates, as party members who opposed him were purged and delegates were pressured to support him. When asked about their opinions of Abbas, two-thirds of Palestinians sought his resignation in 2017.
The impact of Abbas on instability and the failure of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process can not be understated. For there to be any chance of success in negotiating a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine, the Palestinian people must have confidence in their government and their negotiators to make the right decision. On the other side of the literal wall, Israelis must feel like they are negotiating with a credible, legitimate partner that will not go and renege upon any potential peace agreement. For there to be a legitimate chance at a peace agreement, the Palestinian Authority must have the support of its people and the international community.
By 2018, it had neither. A Human Rights Watch report detailed the systemic abuse and corruption within the PASF, illustrating how Abbas used state power to ensure the stability of his dictatorship and crush dissent. Issa Amro, a Palestinian activist living in the H1 area of al-Khalil (Hebron), was arrested by the PASF after Amro criticized the lack of free expression in the PA. Abbas, always eager to crack down on dissent, detained Amro for a week, accusing him of endangering “the public order of the state.” Actions such as this are so incredibly harmful to stability within the West Bank, as it fosters a state of fear and insecurity that by the date of writing this article, has completely eroded trust in the PA as an institution. This is not only due to the corruption of the PA and PASF but also due to the practices of both institutions.
The PASF has essentially replicated the extrajudicial violence that Palestinians have experienced at the hands of the Israelis, instead this time it is the Palestinians inflicting extrajudicial violence upon fellow Palestinians. Shabeh is the specific form of torture used by the IDF and Shin Bet, which has been exported and is now used by the PASF and Hamas. Shabeh is defined by B’tselem as
“The combination of methods, used for prolonged periods, entailing sensory isolation, sleep deprivation, and infliction of pain. Regular shabeh entails shackling the detainee's hands and legs to a small chair, angled to slant forward so that the detainee cannot sit in a stable position. The interrogee's head is covered with an often filthy sack and loud music is played non-stop through loudspeakers. Detainees in shabeh are not allowed to sleep. Sleep deprivation is achieved by using the aforementioned methods and by having a guard wake up any detainee who dozes off.”
The PASF’s usage of shabeh against Palestinians is not only morally unconscionable, but it also illustrates the non-democratic, dictatorial nature of the modern Palestinian Authority. No longer it is an institution built to deliver the Palestinian people to nationhood, but it is a vehicle of Mahmoud Abbas’ power.
The PA after October 7th
It is abundantly clear that the Palestinian Authority has lost all credibility due to the neopatrimonialism of Abbas and the policies of the PASF. 87% of Palestinians believe the PA is corrupt. 78% want him to resign. 62% believe the PA is a liability to peace. For there to be any hope of peace, the PA must be rehabilitated.
There is potential for trust to be rebuilt between the PA and its people. A study from an-Najah National University in Nablus showed that in municipalities where governance principles of “accountability, efficiency, and sustainability” were implemented, then the performance of Palestinian municipalities improved as well. These three principles are in direct contravention of neopatrimonialism, which deemphasizes accountability through political clientelism, erodes efficiency through mass corruption, and eliminates sustainability by emphasizing short-term solutions to long-term problems.
After October 7th, the world woke up to the excesses of Abu Mazan, and from the United States in particular, calls for a reformed or “revamped” Palestinian Authority intensified. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan called for a new look at “how the Palestinian Authority does governance.” Elimination of shabeh in prisons would be an extremely overdue first step.
Yet as of March 15th, every step taken by Mahmoud Abbas has been a step backward. Instead of appointing a neutral new Prime Minister who would begin to reforge the PLO and Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas decided to appoint Muhammad Mustafa, one of Abbas’ longtime advisors, according to the former foreign minister of the PA Nasser al-Qudwa, “the situation will remain just as it has been.” On the other side of the metaphorical aisle, Hamas attacked the appointment of Mustafa as “unilateral” and damaging to national unity.
This is a deeply concerning, yet wholly unsurprising stance taken by Abbas. Previously, in 2009, Abbas had the opportunity to step aside and let Palestinian democracy develop. Instead, Abbas has implicitly reiterated his intent to hold on to power, despite the immense implications that it would have for Palestinian stability. Options for external pressure seem to be waning, as Abbas continues to refuse to bow to pressure to resign, whether that pressure is international or domestic, he does not seem to care.
While the next day is debated, it is clear that the impact of Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority on the Palestinian people has been negative. Taking the foundation of state excess and abuse left to him by Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas perfected the patrimonialism of Arafat and refined it. Stymied attempts at reform only led Abbas to double down on his desire for power and control over the West Bank, as the PASF turned into his tool of enforcement and oppression over a populace that began to hate him more and more.
The hopelessness that Palestinians feel is not entirely the fault of Mahmoud Abbas, Yasser Arafat, and the Palestinian Authority. Over a decade of right-wing rule in Israel has exacerbated the violence of the occupation, while expanding settlements have threatened the already fragile day-to-day life of Palestinians in the West Bank. However, the Palestinian Authority could control something, to make life marginally better, and to foster some form of hope, security, and stability for Palestinians in the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority could have been a genuine democratic experiment if norms were established and protected from the very beginning. If the PASF did not torture anyone who criticized the government, where municipal elections were held regularly, and where institutions were built and maintained. It would make the next day after October 7th one of hope, where Gaza and the West Bank would be reunited and Palestine would be free.