With Mideast tensions running high, Paris compiling list of names to consider for succession of aging Palestinian leader, who will turn 88 in March.
Concerned by the current impasse in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, French President Emmanuel Macron reportedly would like to start looking for a successor for the aging Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, who will turn 88 in March.
The report came shortly after Macron received Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Paris amid a new outbreak of deadly violence in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
According to French daily Le Figaro, the “President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, 87, clings to his power, postponing any new legislative elections for fear that his party will lose them.”
A source close to Macron said that the president tasked “five former and current consul generals of France in Jerusalem, five former and current French ambassadors to Tel Aviv, and five former and current bosses of the DGSE (external intelligence services) to establish, each on their side, a list of two names of Palestinians” who could succeed Abbas.
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One diplomat said there were difficulties in finding an alternative to Abbas because Palestinians who are not part of the current political establishment in Ramallah were reluctant to take the position due to fear that internal divisions within the PA will hinder them.
Another diplomat told French media that as Paris does not have authority over the PA, it should coordinate with the United States on the issue. He added, however, that Washington was unlikely to be interested in helping France.
According to the report, Macron is committed to the two-state solution, but sees it as unrealistic amid the current escalation of violence, Israel’s decision to legalize and build more outposts in the West Bank, and the PA’s “powerlessness.”
