Mansour Abbas represents a political possibility that the current Palestinian leadership has repeatedly failed to offer: preserving Palestinian identity while accepting reality, condemning terrorism without hesitation, and using politics to improve people’s lives. 1
Abbas is an Arab, a Muslim, a Palestinian by national identity, and an Israeli citizen . He does not pretend that these identities are simple or free of tension. Instead, he demonstrates that identity does not have to become a prison. A Palestinian can remain attached to his history and culture without defining his entire political existence through opposition to Israel.
Abbas
Following the Hamas-led massacre of October 7, 2023, Abbas condemned the atrocities clearly. He called them a violation of Islam, Palestinian values, Arab identity, and basic humanity. He rejected attempts to excuse the murder of civilians and demanded the release of Israeli hostages. 1
That should not have been an extraordinary position. It should have been the minimum expected from any responsible leader.
Unfortunately, much of the Palestinian leadership has made moral clarity appear revolutionary.
Hamas Turned Palestinians Into Instruments of War
Hamas claims to defend the Palestinian people, but its political model has brought Palestinians authoritarian government, militarization, international isolation, and devastating war.
Its leaders transformed Gaza into a base for an endless armed struggle they could not realistically win. They invested political energy and resources in tunnels, rockets, armed factions, and ideological indoctrination while ordinary Palestinians needed stable employment, functioning institutions, international investment, and freedom from political repression.
The October 7 attack did not bring Palestinians closer to independence. It produced mass death, displacement, destruction, and deeper Israeli control. Hamas may describe this suffering as sacrifice, but leaders who repeatedly demand that civilians sacrifice everything while offering them no achievable political destination are not liberators. They are custodians of permanent catastrophe.
Hamas also denied Palestinians the right to choose a different direction. It took control of Gaza in 2007 and never submitted its rule to another free national election. Armed power replaced democratic legitimacy.
In July 2026, Hamas selected Khalil al-Hayya as its new overall leader. 4 The internal selection of another figure associated with its armed strategy cannot substitute for a mandate from the Palestinian public. Palestinians are a people, not an audience expected to applaud decisions made by armed organizations behind closed doors.
Resistance without a realistic political objective becomes a machine that consumes the very people it claims to defend.
The Palestinian Authority Preserved Power Instead of Building a State
The Palestinian Authority represents a different failure.
Mahmoud Abbas was elected president in 2005 for a four-year term. More than two decades later, he remains in power without another presidential election. Palestinian institutions have stagnated, political competition has been restricted, and an entire generation has grown up without participating in a meaningful national election.
The Palestinian Authority was supposed to help prepare Palestinians for statehood. Instead, it increasingly came to represent bureaucracy without sovereignty, authority without accountability, and leadership without democratic renewal.
Its officials continue speaking about international recognition while failing to build the public trust required for a functioning state. Allegations of corruption, nepotism, favoritism, and abuse of power have damaged its legitimacy. The continued weakness of its courts, legislature, public administration, and electoral institutions makes it difficult to argue that recognizing a Palestinian state alone would solve the underlying crisis of governance. 3
International recognition can provide diplomatic legitimacy. It cannot manufacture responsible leadership.
Appointing officials and rearranging institutions from the top is not democratic reform. A genuine transition requires transparent elections, independent oversight, freedom of political expression, accountable public finances, and leadership that can be removed peacefully.
The Palestinian people should not have to choose between the authoritarian militancy of Hamas and the exhausted bureaucracy of Fatah.
Two Leaderships, One Political Dead End
Hamas and the Palestinian Authority present themselves as rivals, but both have contributed to the same tragedy.
Hamas uses resistance to justify armed control. The Palestinian Authority uses the fear of Hamas to justify political stagnation. One promises victory through violence. The other promises statehood through diplomatic statements while postponing democratic accountability.
Both benefit from keeping Palestinians trapped in a politics without renewal.
This does not remove Israel’s responsibilities. Settlement expansion, restrictions on movement, extremist violence, military operations, and the absence of a credible Israeli political strategy have also deepened Palestinian despair. Criticizing Palestinian leadership must not become an excuse to pretend that every Palestinian grievance is invented.
But Palestinian suffering cannot excuse Palestinian leaders from accountability either. A people facing occupation, conflict, and displacement require better leadership, not lower standards.
Blaming Israel for every internal failure may be emotionally satisfying, but it cannot explain why Palestinian elections remain absent, why political opponents are suppressed, why public institutions remain weak, or why armed groups are permitted to decide the fate of millions without their consent.
What Mansour Abbas Offers Instead
Mansour Abbas
Abbas’s approach begins with a simple principle: politics must produce improvements in people’s lives.
His priorities have included safer Arab communities, stronger schools, better healthcare, modern infrastructure, recognition of Bedouin villages, and action against organized crime. In 2021, his Ra’am party crossed a historic boundary by joining an Israeli governing coalition. 2
This did not resolve discrimination against Arab citizens, nor did it settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It demonstrated something equally important: an Arab political movement could negotiate, participate, influence budgets, and pursue concrete results without surrendering its identity.
Mansour Abbas
Abbas acknowledges Israel as a Jewish state while demanding equality for its Arab citizens. He rejects the idea that accepting Israel’s existence requires Palestinians to erase themselves. He also rejects the fantasy that refusing to recognize reality will somehow make that reality disappear. 1
His model is not perfect. His Islamist party holds socially conservative positions that deserve criticism. His political strategy has not delivered every result he promised. He is a politician, not a symbol beyond scrutiny.
Nevertheless, Abbas understands something that Palestinian leaders have avoided for generations: recognizing reality is not surrender. It is the starting point for changing reality.
Palestinians Need a Leadership of Life
The Palestinian people deserve leaders who value their children more than their slogans.
They deserve leaders who can condemn the murder of Israelis without adding a justification. They deserve leaders who reject collective punishment while also rejecting terrorism. They deserve elections, transparent institutions, independent courts, responsible security forces, and an economy that is not permanently held hostage by war.
Most importantly, they deserve a political project built around life.
Such a project would pursue Palestinian rights through diplomacy, institution-building, regional cooperation, economic development, and negotiations grounded in what is achievable. It would recognize that Israel is not temporary, and Palestinians are not going anywhere either.
Mansour Abbas
Mansour Abbas does not offer a complete solution to the conflict. He offers evidence that another kind of Arab politics is possible. It is possible to remain Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian while rejecting terrorism. It is possible to acknowledge Israel while demanding equality and dignity. It is possible to replace theatrical resistance with measurable progress.
The central Palestinian crisis is not a shortage of courage among ordinary Palestinians. It is a shortage of accountable leaders prepared to tell their people the truth.
Hamas has offered destructive confrontation. The Palestinian Authority has offered indefinite stagnation. Palestinians deserve a third path: democratic, pragmatic, peaceful, and focused on building a future rather than endlessly glorifying the wounds of the past.
Sources and Further Reading
American Enterprise Institute, “Mansour Abbas Is an Arab and a Proud Israeli” The Washington Institute, “An Arab Leader in Israel: A Conversation with Mansour Abbas” Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, Public Opinion Poll No. 96 Reuters, “Hamas Names Khalil al-Hayya as New Overall Leader”