{"id":178581,"date":"2015-09-05T14:06:20","date_gmt":"2015-09-05T14:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=178581"},"modified":"2015-09-05T14:06:20","modified_gmt":"2015-09-05T14:06:20","slug":"palestines-crisis-leadership-abbas-destroy-palestinian-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/palestines-crisis-leadership-abbas-destroy-palestinian-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Palestine\u2019s Crisis of Leadership: Did Abbas Destroy Palestinian Democracy?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/programs\/wesun\/transcripts\/2002\/jun\/020623.neary.html\" target=\"_blank\">crisis of leadership<\/a> throughout Palestinian history did not<br \/>\nstart with Mahmoud Abbas and will, regrettably, be unlikely to end with his<br \/>\ndeparture. Although Abbas has, perhaps, done more damage to the credibility<br \/>\nof the Palestinian leadership than any other leader in the past, he is also<br \/>\na byproduct of a process of political fraud that started much earlier than his<br \/>\nexpired Presidency.<\/p>\n<p>Abbas\u2019<br \/>\nunforeseen announcement on August 27 that he, along with a few others, will<br \/>\nresign from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee<br \/>\nand his call for an emergency session of the Palestine National Council (PNC)<br \/>\nis a testament to his poor management. More, it shows his utter disregard for<br \/>\nthe minimally-required threshold of responsible leadership.<\/p>\n<p>Abbas, like his predecessor Yasser Arafat, has used and discarded the PLO and<br \/>\nits various, now near-defunct, institutions as his personal political playground:<br \/>\nsummoning PNC members to vote on predetermined and decided agendas and to cast<br \/>\nand recast roles within the PLO\u2019s Executive Committee as a way to punish and<br \/>\nreward.<\/p>\n<p>Now, at the age of 80, Abbas is obviously concerned about his legacy, the fate<br \/>\nof the PLO and his Palestinian Authority (PA), once he is gone. Whatever <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2015\/08\/critics-slam-mahmoud-abbas-plo-resignation-farce-150827081457810.html\" target=\"_blank\">political maneuvering<\/a> he has planned for the future (including<br \/>\nthe selection of new Executive Committee members, which will be overseen by<br \/>\nhim and by his allies) is hardly encouraging. According to the Unity deal signed<br \/>\nbetween Abbas\u2019 faction, Fatah and Hamas, the restructuring of the PLO as a prerequisite<br \/>\nto include both Hamas and the Islamic Jihad in one unifying and relatively representative<br \/>\nPalestinian body was a top priority.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/original.antiwar.com\/ramzy-baroud\/2015\/09\/03\/palestines-crisis-of-leadership-did-abbas-destroy-palestinian-democracy\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The crisis of leadership throughout Palestinian history did not start with Mahmoud Abbas and will, regrettably, be unlikely to end with his departure. Although Abbas has, perhaps, done more damage to the credibility of the Palestinian leadership than any other leader in the past, he is also a byproduct of a process of political fraud [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-178581","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}