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The Palestinian Succession Crisis
A Contest to Succeed President Abbas Could Destabilize the Region
By Ghaith al-Omari
May 16, 2023
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, West Bank,
January 2023
Ronaldo Schemidt / Reuters

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In 2005, Mahmoud Abbas was elected to a four-year term as president of
the Palestinian Authority, filling the vacancy left by the death of
Yasir Arafat. Since then, there have been no elections; 18 years later,
Abbas is still in office.

The PA was established by a 1994 agreement between Israel and the
Palestine Liberation Organization. Although legally subordinate to the
PLO, with powers limited to the West Bank and Gaza, the PA swiftly
became the center of gravity in the Palestinian political system. The
authority’s structure was modeled on the governments of Egypt, Syria,
and Tunisia, with a theoretical separation of

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GHAITH AL-OMARI is a Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near
East Policy and a former adviser to the Palestinian peace negotiation team.
MORE BY GHAITH AL-OMARI
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