Updated on 08/18/2022 at 14:55
- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has long been controversial.
- In Germany, he is now causing a scandal that has never happened before. – and thus harms its own Palestinian interests.
- In the West Bank, he was greeted with expressions of solidarity.
- However, Abbas is also under pressure: he has not run for democratic elections in a long time.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been unpopular with his own people for years. With his remarks about the Holocaust in Berlin, the 86-year-old may have moved even further from the backstage internationally. In the presence of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Abbas accused Israel of “50 holocausts” against the Palestinians – and thus also got his host in trouble.
The Palestinian president then backtracked and claimed that the Holocaust was “the most heinous crime in modern human history”. But the political damage remains.
Government Spokesperson: Chancellor’s Trip to Ramallah “Difficult to Imagine”
Abbas really wanted to campaign for more international support for the Palestinian question in Berlin. Because Palestinians feel increasingly marginalized from the international agenda, once again since the start of the war in Ukraine. From their point of view, many also complain about Germany’s lack of political support. Now, however, Abbas’ words did the opposite.
German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit has already made it clear that the incident will overshadow the personal relationship between Scholz and Abbas. A trip by the chancellor to Ramallah is “hard to imagine” in the near future. However, the government will remain in contact with the Palestinians.
The Palestinians also could not afford to sever relations. According to the Ministry of Development, Germany is one of the biggest donors. The Federal Republic has therefore pledged more than 1.2 billion euros for bilateral development cooperation. Last year alone, €150 million went to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). And Abbas’ statements also caused outrage among the biggest Palestinian donor. They are “unacceptable”, European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas wrote on Twitter.
Received by declarations of solidarity
However, it is doubtful that his scandal has harmed him in his own ranks. On his return to Ramallah on Thursday, he was greeted by hundreds of his supporters in a show of solidarity. His Fatah party had already asked for this.
“His popularity has already been hit, for various reasons, such as the failure of the peace process he supported (with Israel), corruption, restrictions on freedom and the failure to hold elections,” he said on Thursday. However, he also makes it clear that Abbas should not have used the term in Berlin “because of the sensitivity of the subject in Germany”.
More than three quarters of Palestinians resign
The 86-year-old president has ruled in an authoritarian manner and without democratic legitimacy for years: he was elected in 2005 for a four-year term and has not been confirmed in office since. He canceled a planned new election last year. Officially, he cited a dispute with Israel over East Jerusalem as the reason. However, some observers took this as an excuse. They suspected that Abbas and those around him were worried about possible defeat because of deep divisions in the Fatah movement and the widespread popularity of Islamist Hamas.
Abbas’ rating in opinion polls has been very bad for a long time. According to a survey, more than three-quarters of respondents favored the resignation of the Palestinian president, who was in poor health.
Will radical Hamas take power after Abbas?
However, for a long time he was a welcome guest on the international stage. There, his role in the Middle East peace process and his commitment to a two-state solution with Israel were at the forefront. However, the peace process has stalled since 2014. There is also concern that, after an era of Abbas, Hamas could also seize power in the West Bank. So far, it only controls the Gaza Strip. It is also unclear whether a successor to Abbas would continue his security cooperation with Israel.
Abbas has repeatedly spoken out in favor of non-violence. However, right-wing Israelis in particular regularly accuse him of supporting terrorism against their country.
Holocaust witness could strengthen ties with Israel
However, the Israeli government under Naftali Bennett and now Jair Lapid tried to improve contact with Abbas. In particular, Defense Secretary Benny Gantz has met with him several times since December to promote confidence-building measures. In July, Prime Minister Lapid also called Abbas. It was the first direct conversation between Abbas and an Israeli prime minister in years. But now his latest statements are shaking up newly established relationships.
In just a few months, Israel will elect a new parliament. Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing conservative party has already highlighted the danger of “compulsive” cooperation with a “Holocaust denier” on Twitter and stressed that it does not want to become dependent on Abbas’ supporters. Netanyahu, Lapid and Gantz’s biggest contender, could play into the hands of the Abbas scandal in the Nov. 1 election. (dpa/fab)
Updated on 08/17/2022 at 08:00
In a press conference with Olaf Scholz, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accuses Israel of several “holocausts”. The chancellor reacted with indignation but did not directly contradict his guest when they appeared together. (Photo credit: picture Alliance / photothek / Janine Schmitz)