This time the Palestinian president may make good his resignation threats, reports Khaled Amayreh from Ramallah Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has signalled his intention to resign as PA chairman. A visibly desperate Abbas told reporters earlier this week that "soon you will not be speaking with me in my capacity as president". A Palestinian journalist travelling aboard the presidential plane reported that Abbas told him and other reporters that "this is the last time you will be travelling with me as president of the PA". Abbas has threatened to resign on a number of occasions yet he has remained at the helm of both the PA and Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). More importantly, he has maintained his position as the leader of Fatah. But sources close to the decision-making process in Ramallah now intimate that Abbas is more disillusioned than ever with the "futility and pointlessness" of the peace process and that he may well depart "in order to retire with his dignity intact". Many Palestinians criticise Abbas, often harshly, for indulging in an open-ended process that has diluted the Palestinian cause and allowed Israel to drag the Palestinians into a maze of secondary details. Others, especially within the Islamic movement, have accused him of surrendering Palestinian sovereignty to regional powers -- a not too subtle allusion to Egypt. The Palestinian leader's latest thoughts of resignation come amid a stark crisis besetting Palestinian-Israeli talks following the all-out resumption of Israeli settlement activities. Palestinians argue that peace talks are meaningless as long as Israel is allowed to devour the remainder of the West Bank, making the goal of establishing a viable and territorially contiguous Palestinian state unattainable. Abbas was widely expected to give a speech this week in which he would declare the collapse of the peace process and consequently his own resignation. It seems, though, that the Palestinian leader has been asked by the Obama administration, and perhaps by some regional powers, to reconsider such a move, at least for the time being. From the other direction Abbas faces constant warnings from the Fatah movement and factions within the PLO not to succumb to Israeli and American pressure. He seems finally to have succumbed to those warnings and insists Israel must stop settlement expansion activities before peace talks can be resumed. This week the PLO executive committee, the highest-ranking Palestinian decision-making body, told Abbas not to give in to American pressure and return to the talks without a total settlement freeze in the West Bank. Fatah has also warned Abbas that the manner in which the peace process is being managed is hurting the movement's image and allowing Hamas to make propaganda gains. The prospects of Israel agreeing to a new settlement freeze do not look encouraging. The settlers, and their powerful political allies within the Israeli government, seem too powerful to allow Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to order a new settlement freeze, supposing he is in favour of a freeze in the first place. Israeli media sources report that Netanyahu is trying desperately to get pro-settler cabinet ministers to agree to a two-month freeze in order to relieve pressure from Washington, and more importantly hurl the ball back into the Palestinian court. It has also been reported that Washington is offering Netanyahu a package of military and diplomatic inducements to encourage the Israeli premier to push for an extension. It is unclear why the Obama administration is so keen on prolonging the freeze for a few more weeks. Some observers suggest that the American position has more to do with creating a better atmosphere for the upcoming Congressional elections than with any considerations on the ground. A full-fledged crisis in talks, they say, would not auger well for the Democrat's election chances. Hence the efforts to avert such a crisis until the elections are over. A two-month settlement freeze would make little difference since Israel, Palestinian negotiators say, refuses to discuss issues such as Jerusalem and refugees, let alone ending the occupation that started in 1967, and wants talks restricted to security matters. Abbas's growing disillusionment may well be attributable to a belated realisation that Israel does not really want peace and that the Netanyahu government is only interested in gaining more time in order to create facts on the ground that render the creation of a viable Palestinian state impossible. Abbas may also have realised that the United States, Israel's guardian ally, is unable to force Israel to give up the spoils of the 1967 war, so hamstrung is it by domestic considerations. Should Abbas, so often considered the most moderate Palestinian leader ever, actually resign, the move will signal a strategic shift in the Palestinian position, and a possible abandonment of the two-state solution strategy. It is unclear how Abbas's departure might affect the situation in the occupied territories. Fatah is too divided to engineer a smooth transition to a new leader. Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is probably more popular in Europe and North America than in the West Bank. The most likely result is that a period of chaos, turmoil and instability would follow the retirement or political disappearance of the current Palestinian leader. In the absence of any hope of peace with Israel and with ordinary Palestinians prey to Israeli settler terror, a sudden outbreak of violence cannot be discounted.
