As Israeli airstrikes reduce entire city blocks to rubble in Gaza and settlement expansion accelerates in the West Bank, many Palestinians are asking a single, bitter question: Where is Mahmoud Abbas?
The 88-year-old President of the Palestinian Authority (PA), now in the 19th year of what was meant to be a four-year term, is facing an unprecedented wave of public rage. Once seen as the global face of Palestinian diplomacy, Abbas is increasingly viewed by his own people as a passive spectator to what they call a dual catastrophe: the flattening of Gaza and the slow annexation of the West Bank.
In the streets of Ramallah, Hebron, and Nablus, the mood has shifted from despair to indictment. Critics argue that Abbas has not only failed to protect his people but has actively collaborated in their disenfranchisement.
Security Coordination Under Fire
The PA’s most controversial policy—security coordination with the Israeli military—has become a rallying cry for those demanding Abbas’s removal. While Israeli forces conduct nightly raids in the West Bank, PA security officers are accused of suppressing dissent and policing on behalf of Israel.
“He is not a president; he is a security contractor for the occupation,” said Ahed Tamimi, a prominent activist recently released from Israeli detention. “While Gaza is being erased, Abbas’s forces are arresting our youth for chanting against Israel.”
Following the October 7 attacks and the subsequent Israeli war on Gaza, Abbas’s initial response—a vague condemnation of violence against civilians on both sides—pleased no one. Since then, he has largely watched from his West Bank compound as Israel has killed over 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health officials, and as settler violence has surged in the West Bank, displacing entire Bedouin and farming communities.
Diplomacy Without Results
Abbas has long staked his legitimacy on the promise of a two-state solution through negotiation. But with over 700,000 Israeli settlers now living across the West Bank and East Jerusalem—a physical obstacle to any viable state—Palestinians see his diplomatic strategy as a corpse left to rot.
His decision to cut security and civil ties with Israel last month, a threat he has made repeatedly over the years, was dismissed by most Palestinians as performative. Within days, the ties were quietly restored.
“Abbas has turned the PA into an administrative arm of the occupation,” said Ghassan Khatib, a former Palestinian Authority minister. “He pays salaries, issues ID cards, and arrests dissidents—but he cannot stop a single bulldozer from taking more land.”
The Succession Void
Why has Abbas not been overthrown already? Analysts point to a calculated survival strategy: the PA provides a buffer that Israel prefers over chaos, while the international community (namely the U.S. and EU) continues funding it to prevent total collapse.
But inside Palestinian cities, younger generations see no future under Abbas. With no elections since 2006 and a deeply unpopular prime minister, Mohammed Shtayyeh, the leadership is seen as detached, corrupt, and irrelevant.
“He is watching Gaza die and the West Bank get eaten, village by village,” said Ibrahim, a university student in Ramallah who requested anonymity for fear of arrest. “If he won’t lead a resistance, he should step down. If he won’t step down, the people must remove him.”
Calls for Intifada—or Revolution
While some factions call for a third armed intifada against Israel, a growing number of Palestinians are instead demanding an internal intifada against Abbas’s rule. Protests have erupted in Ramallah and Jenin, with demonstrators chanting, “Yasghut, Yasghut” (“Down, down”)—the same cry once reserved for Hosni Mubarak and Arab dictators.
Whether those protests reach critical mass remains uncertain. The PA still controls security forces, and Israel has little interest in seeing Abbas fall, fearing an Islamist takeover. But with no peace process, no elections, and no end to the war in Gaza, many Palestinians now see the removal of their own president as the first step toward any meaningful change.
“The occupation,” one protester in Nablus said, “could not destroy us as much as our own leadership has.”
