By Daniel Siryoti, Israel Hayom—
There is still no clear answer to the question about whether the Palestinians will be holding legislative elections. Still, more and more people are starting to think that in light of the fracture in the Fatah movement – which has split into three different parties, in contrast to the unified Hamas list, which also has the support of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, whose own representatives decided to boycott the elections – and the polls that paint a grim picture for Fatah and its leader Mahmoud Abbas, both in the legislative and presidential elections, Abbas might tell the international community that there is no point in holding elections at all if Israel will not allow them to take place in east Jerusalem and is preventing east Jerusalem residents from taking part in the PA’s celebration of democracy.
It’s no coincidence that high-ranking PA officials like Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki have starting pointing the finger as Israel as the entity doing everything to torpedo the PA elections though various bans. These alleged measures start with Israel rejecting the PA Central Elections Commission’s request to set up polls in east Jerusalem and include Palestinian claims that Israel has informed European election monitors that it will bar them from accessing the PA because of COVID travel restrictions.
Plenty of PA officials are willingly admitting that cancelling the scheduled elections and blaming it on Israel offers Abbas an ideal way out of the corner into which he has backed himself and a way to continue ruling with an iron fist like he has for 15 years, all the while firing barbs of criticism at Israel.
However, in closed talks those same officials say that the situation is actually much more complicated and that Israel’s denial of the PA election commission’s request is a lifeline for Abbas. Continue Reading….
