Promises, promises.
[IsraelTimes] Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....
The last legislative elections in the Paleostinian territories of the West Bank and Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
were held in 2006, when Hamas
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...won, defeating Abbas’s Fatah party, which had previously dominated Paleostinian politics.
As a result, the Paleostinian Legislative Council (PLC), which is the parliament of Abbas’s Paleostinian Authority, has not met since 2007.
"The presidential decree calls on the Paleostinian people in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to participate in free and direct legislative elections to elect members of the Paleostinian Legislative Council on the date specified," the official Wafa news agency reported, citing the decree.
Holding elections is part of the reforms demanded by the international community, including the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
, which supports the Ramallah-based Paleostinian Authority financially.
The decree was issued four days before the European Union convenes a donor conference in Brussels for the PA, which is desperate for funds needed to continue providing basic services to Paleostinians in the West Bank. For 16 straight months, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has blocked the transfer of billions of dollars in Paleostinian clearance revenues, which make up the bulk of the PA’s budget.
Smotrich — who backs collapsing the PA and annexing the territory that it nominally controls — has also taken steps to severely hobble the Paleostinian banking sector, which as a result has been unable to make use of billions of shekels that are languishing in vaults in the West Bank.
Accordingly, the PA is hoping the EU and friendly Arab governments will be willing to help compensate for the funds withheld by Israel.
Abbas, 90, won the last Paleostinian presidential election in 2005 with a mandate of four years, meaning his term should have expired in 2009.
However,
there's more than one way to stuff a chicken...
his term was extended and no presidential election has been held since, with Abbas ruling by presidential decree, facing criticism at home and abroad.
The Thursday decree made no mention of presidential elections, but a separate decree that Abbas signed in June said that they would be held in 2027.
Ghassan Khatib, a political science professor at Birzeit University, said he believed Abbas was now serious about holding elections for both domestic and international reasons.
"There is a feeling among everyone that Paleostinian legitimacy has eroded because of how long it has been since elections were held," Khatib told AFP, describing a "gap between the public and the leadership and a need to ’renew the blood'" at the top.
"The absence of a legislative council for such a long time has caused significant damage to the political system," he added.
The PA has faced widespread criticism over corruption, stagnation and declining legitimacy, with donors increasingly tying their financial and diplomatic support to reform, particularly of local governance.
LOGISTICAL CHALLENGES
In 2021, Abbas announced legislative and presidential elections to be held in May and July of that year, respectively.
They were then postponed indefinitely amid prospects of Hamas gains at the expense of Fatah and due to the absence of guarantees that voting could take place in Israel-annexed East Jerusalem.
In this vote, it is unclear whether Hamas or Hamas-linked parties will even be able to participate due to a new election law Abbas signed last month, which requires all candidates to accept the Paleostine Liberation Organization’s political program, which includes recognition of Israel and support for a two-state solution — both nonstarters for Hamas.
In April, Paleostinians went to the polls to elect municipal council heads in the West Bank, in the first vote since the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023.
That vote was extended to include the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah, as part of the PA’s effort to return to the Strip. Abbas’s Thursday decree envisions PLC elections taking place in all of Gaza, in what is sure to pose a logistical challenge, given the level of displacement and destruction from the Israel-Hamas war.
Under the October 2025 US-brokered ceasefire, a technocratic committee has been formed to govern Gaza in place of Hamas, but it has yet to enter the Paleostinian territory. Hamas announced on Monday that it would dissolve its governing administration in Gaza in preparation for the eventual transfer of authority to the technocratic committee.
Khatib added that the international community had a responsibility to "pressure Israel to provide an appropriate environment, or at least to refrain from measures that would hinder these elections."
"Israel seeks to rid itself of the Paleostinian Authority, and since elections would restore strength and legitimacy to the Authority, this runs counter to what Israel is aiming for," he said.
He added that he expected Israel "to obstruct the holding of these elections in various ways."
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