Palestinian Authority Government ‘Resigns’ in Fake Display of Reform for U.S.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) government performed the empty gesture of resignation on Monday — with the notable exception of President Mahmoud Abbas — in an attempt to appease U.S. pressure for “reform” as a condition for governing postwar Gaza.

CNN noted:

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh and his government have submitted their resignations, he announced Monday.

…

The government, which is dominated by the Fatah political party, held administrative control over Gaza until 2007, after Hamas won the 2006 legislative elections in the occupied territories and expelled it from the strip. Israel has rejected the prospect of the PA returning to Gaza after the war, and has dismissed the idea of establishing a Palestinian state in the territories.

The US however favors a reformed PA being in control of both the West Bank and Gaza as part of a future independent state.

In effect, the resignations are merely cosmetic, as Abbas is still in charge of the PA.

President Abbas was elected in 2005 and is now in the 20th year of his first four-year term. The PA is regarded as corrupt by Palestinians and is not trusted by Israelis. Notably, the PA has failed to condemn the Hamas terror attack of October 7. Recently, Shtayyeh said the attacks should be forgotten, and said that the Fatah party that runs the PA was ready for “unity” with Hamas.

President Joe Biden has said that he wants the PA to return to postwar Gaza in a governing capacity. Israel is opposed to the idea, though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not rule it out explicitly in a plan for postwar Gaza presented to his cabinet.

The PA government’s resignations are an effort to help the Biden administration implement its vision for postwar Gaza, which no longer appears to rule out a role for Hamas.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.