And when Abbas goes?

Senior Fellow Nadia Hijab and Alaa Tartir, Program Director of Al-Shabaka, on the future of the Palestinian political leadership: 

It is difficult to see how Abbas’s succession plan will make a difference in protecting Palestinians or fulfilling their rights. The Palestinians made many sacrifices to ensure that the PLO was recognized as their sole legitimate representative. The PLO’s legitimacy has, however, been seriously undermined since Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo accords with Israel. Under Abbas’s tenure, the PLO’s representativity has shrunk to dislocated enclaves in the West Bank, where PA security forces have served as Israel’s sub-contractor and enabled its illegal settlement project.