The Palestinian leader’s efforts to secure a place in history appear likely to backfire in disastrous fashion. Recently, Palestinian politics have presented more questions than answers. For instance: Why has the Palestinian Authority (PA) urged Israel to send less electricity to the Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip? Why is Egypt helping Hamas? Who is Mohammed Dahlan, and why is Hamas meeting with him? And why did one of the most astute observers of Palestinian politics just declare “the end of the so-called two-state solution”? As we shall see, this drama has more to do with Palestinian and Egyptian strategic interests than with Israel’s actions. The story begins with Mahmoud Abbas’s legacy, or lack thereof. Abbas, the President of the PA, is now 82 years old and in poor health. He is on the way out and he knows it. Worse, he knows that his people, the Palestinians, are no closer to a state of their own than they were when he became President in 2005. Worse still, they remain poor and divided between his Fatah party, which runs the West Bank, and Hamas, the terrorist group in control of Gaza. Deeply unpopular, Abbas most likely realizes that he will be remembered as the leader who crushed Palestinian democracy in its infancy, entrenched corruption, and left the movement with no clear successor.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/449357/hamas-mohammed-dahlan-mahmoud-abbas-legacy-implodes