Increasingly isolated Mahmoud Abbas is in a difficult position. He has been abandoned by the Arab members of the Abraham Accords, who have ignored his wishes and gone ahead with normalization of ties with Israel that have already led to nearly $2 billion in deals between Israel and just one of those states, the U.A.E., and to a $500 million sale of Israeli weapons to Morocco. He has felt the sting of Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman’s exasperation with him. He has seen the Arab donors in the last few years reduce their contributions to the P.A. to nearly zero. The P.A. is effectively broke and has now had to rely mostly on American aid, and on two loans from Israel in 2021 that amounted to 600 million shekels. Abbas has still been unable to persuade the Biden Administration to reopen the “consulate to the Palestinians” in east Jerusalem, or to allow the PLO to reopen its office in Washington.
Abbas knows that right now, even just after he appeared at the UN, where, pretending to be a World Leader, he made on Sept. 22 his usual “two-state solution” demand followed by his standard denunciation of the Jewish state, delegations from Pakistan and Indonesia, the two most populous Muslim countries, with populations greater than those of all 22 Arab states combined, were in Israel discussing an improvement in ties, and perhaps the possible adherence of these countries to the Abraham Accords. Should either or both countries join, that would be colossal defeat for the Palestinians. Abbas’ standing among the Palestinians continues to sink. His corruption and mismanagement – Abbas and his two sons Tarek and Yasser have amassed a fortune of $400 million – has led 80% of Palestinians to declare that they want him to resign. And right now, in Nablus and Jenin a wave of violence has pitted the P.A. security forces against Hamas, Palestinian Jihad, and other terror factions. The violence began when P.A. security men arrested two Hamas terrorists wanted by Israel. For now, these men are being held in a jail in Jericho, but Abbas will have to release them to head off a renewal of violent challenges to his ever-decreasing authority. His writ now does not run much beyond Ramallah.
Given such a dismal situation, Mahmoud Abbas wanted to be seen at the UN meeting with fellow world leaders, making him appear, for the Palestinians at home, that he is a leader of substance, who as their leader bestrode the world stage, meeting with heads of state on an equal footing. It was nonsense, of course, as can be seen by the list of those with whom he met from his arrival on Sunday to Thursday morning. A report on those he met with can be found here: “Here are the world leaders Abbas has met so far in New York (update),” Elder of Ziyon, September 22, 2022:
Ronald Lauder of the World Jewish Congress
The Prime Minister of Spain
The Secretary General of the UN
The head of the ICRC
The king of Jordan
The Foreign Minister of Norway
The President of Nigeria
The Foreign Minister of Algeria
“A group of Palestinian Americans
This is not exactly an All Star team of world leaders.…
Nine meetings over four days means about two meeting each day; these meetings never last more than an hour. We are expected to believe that two hours a day – at most – of these encounters amounts to a very busy schedule of “around-the-clock” meetings.
(UPDATE: On Thursday, Wafa reported that Abbas met with some other leaders during a reception at the American Museum of Natural History. They included Libyan President Mohamed Al-Manfi, UK Prime Minister Liz Truss, and Prime Minister of Malta Robert Abella. It is difficult to know whether his “meeting” with Truss was a handshake.)
Abbas attended a reception at the American Museum of Natural History. Such a gathering does not lend itself to a meeting of any significance. You shake hands, or perhaps even sit for a few minutes of forced smiles for photographers. Nothing important takes place in such a setting.
So in his first four days In New York at the UN itself, and at a reception outside where brief encounters took place, of the 193 countries that are members of the UN, Mahmoud Abbas managed to meet, in some cases only for a few minutes at a reception, with the following representatives of countries:
The Prime Minister of Spain
The king of Jordan
The Foreign Minister of Norway
The President of Nigeria
The Foreign Minister of Algeria
Libyan President Mohamed Al-Manfi
UK Prime Minister Liz Truss, and
Prime Minister of Malta
Of the eight countries with whose representatives Mahmoud Abbas met, three were from Arab lands – Jordan, Libya, Algeria — and one from half-Muslim Nigeria. The representatives of only four non-Muslim countries — Spain, Norway, U.K., and Malta – out of 136 non-Muslim states at the U.N., bothered to see Abbas. The Palestinians at home were not likely to have been impressed. Nor was the rest of the world.
