Palestinian Authority open to role in Gaza if US supports two-state solution

Even if Israeli forces eradicate Hamas, the Palestinian Authority’s legitimacy as the group’s successor in Gaza is far from assured. Hamas militants ousted the country from power in the enclave in 2007, and in the years since the Authority has languished in the West Bank, dogged by accusations of corruption, weakness and a lack of accountability.

Mr al-Sheikh personifies such problems. Despite being seen as a potential successor to Mahmoud Abbas, the 87-year-old president of the Palestinian Authority, he is unpopular with the public in his role overseeing day-to-day relations between the Palestinians and the Israeli army, which has become increasingly difficult. have become. since the outbreak of war.

In his interview with The Times, Mr. al-Sheikh acknowledged the combustible nature of the region following last month’s attacks and Israel’s military response, a war that Gaza health authorities say has killed 10,000 Palestinians.

“Without a comprehensive US political initiative,” he said, a post-war Gaza “would be a fertile ground for radicalism.”

For his part, Mr. Biden has publicly embraced a Palestinian state as a remedy to the crisis. “There has to be a vision of what comes next,” he said recently about the war between Israel and Hamas. “We think it should be a two-state solution.”

But he has yet to lay out a roadmap to get there and has done little so far to suggest his government will invest in such a project.

Mr. Biden has not kept a campaign promise to reopen the Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington, which his predecessor, Donald J. Trump, ordered closed. He did not reopen the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem, which served the Palestinians and was also closed by Mr. Trump. And unlike several of Biden’s predecessors, he has not appointed a Middle East envoy.

Until the Hamas attacks, the Middle East peace process was relatively low on the White House’s list of foreign policy priorities, behind geopolitical rivalries like China and Russia. But the explosion of war between Israel and Hamas has catapulted the issue back to the top of the list.

During his tour of the region last week, Mr. Blinken, who flew from Israel to Jordan, returned to meet with Mr. Abbas and Mr. al-Sheikh. He praised the Palestinian Authority for its efforts to keep order in the West Bank, where tensions have risen between Palestinians and Israeli settlers, some of whom are armed and have attacked their neighbors.

On Wednesday, at a meeting of foreign ministers in Tokyo, Mr. Blinken described what he called “elements for achieving a lasting peace,” especially the unification of Gaza with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority.

“This must include the voices and aspirations of the Palestinian people at the heart of post-Gaza crisis governance,” he said. “It must include a Palestinian-led administration and unite Gaza with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority.”

But Israel could fall out with the United States over this approach. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested this week that his country would continue to have a security role in Gaza even after the war is over, because “we have seen what happens when we don’t have one.”

Mr al-Sheikh said he did not believe a peace deal was possible with Mr Netanyahu, or with his government, which includes far-right and ultranationalist ministers who favor Israel’s annexation of the West Bank.

Mr. Netanyahu, he said, used Hamas’ attacks to drive Palestinians out of Gaza, likening the situation to what Palestinians call the “nakba” or catastrophe, the mass displacement of Palestinians before and after the establishment of Israel in 1948.

“The strategic goal of this war is to expel the Palestinian people,” he said. “They want to completely separate Gaza from the West Bank.”

In the current inflamed atmosphere, Mr. al-Sheikh said, the Palestinian Authority’s plea for calm is unpopular with the people, who are outraged by the deaths of thousands of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza war and long for revenge.

“The Palestinians do not accept this position at this time,” he said. “People may not understand my position today, but they will tomorrow.”

“I am not Hamas,” Mr al-Sheikh concluded. “I represent the Palestinian people.”