Region | Palestinian Territories
Abbas weakened by Israeli assault
Mahmoud Abbas hasn't been in this much trouble with his people in four years as Palestinian president. Never very popular, he is widely dismissed here as ineffective and now he seems to have misread popular sentiment regarding Israel's war on his Hamas rivals in Gaza.
- AP
- Published: 23:31 January 12, 2009
- Image Credit: AP
- Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas seems to have misread popular sentiment regarding Israel's war on his Hamas rivals in Gaza.
Ramallah, West Bank: Mahmoud Abbas hasn't been in this much trouble with his people in four years as Palestinian president. Never very popular, he is widely dismissed here as ineffective and now he seems to have misread popular sentiment regarding Israel's war on his Hamas rivals in Gaza.
With continued international support, the Western-backed moderate will likely be able to stay on, despite Hamas' insistence that his presidency ended on Friday. But his declining popularity at home does not bode well for the inevitable next round in the battle between Hamas fighters and Palestinian moderates seeking a peace deal with Israel.
At the start of Israel's invasion, Abbas, widely known as Abu Mazen, said the territory's Hamas rulers were at least partly to blame, because they provoked Israel with constant rocket fire.
Many West Bankers, even those who oppose Hamas' violent ideology, view the war in Gaza as an assault on all Palestinians. Israel says it's targeting Hamas strongholds in Gaza, but hundreds of civilians have also been killed.
"When it comes to Israel, we are all Hamas," said Nablus resident, Hanan Izzat, 42.
Abbas' security forces have been trying to contain pro-Gaza rallies in the West Bank, fearing Hamas will turn them into vehicles of revolt against Abbas. Hamas wrested control of Gaza from Abbas' forces in June 2007.
Protest broken up
Since the start of the Gaza offensive, helmeted Palestinian riot police have barred marchers from approaching Israeli checkpoints. On Friday, baton-swinging troops in the West Bank city of Ramallah broke up a march of hundreds of Hamas supporters, after they scuffled with pro-Abbas demonstrators.
Khalil Shekaki, a respected Palestinian pollster, said he has no updated surveys on Abbas' approval ratings since the Gaza crisis, but that there are signs that Hamas' popularity in the West Bank is on the rise.
"The big political loser in this [Gaza war] is Abbas," said Robert Blecher of the International Crisis Group, a research centre.
The outpouring of sympathy for Hamas comes at a time when Abbas' own legitimacy is being questioned. Abbas was elected to a four-year term in January 2005, and Hamas says his presidency ended on Friday.
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