Palestinian Authority

Hounded by his moderate supporters and militant rivals alike, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is facing a leadership crisis that will make it harder for the Obama administration to draw him into peace talks with Israel. For months, Abbas enjoyed broad Palestinian support for his refusal to meet with the Israelis unless they stopped expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Then he made two concessions that ignited fury at home and across the Arab world: First he joined President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a meeting in New York last month to explore prospects for formal talks.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced today that he would not seek reelection next year, citing a lack of U.S. support for his conditions for resuming peace talks with Israel. In a televised speech, the 74-year-old Palestinian leader said the move was not a tactic to bring more pressure on Israel, although his language appeared to leave room for a change of heart. Visibly tense, Abbas spoke hours after the Palestine Liberation Organization's executive committee heard his decision in a closed-door meeting and urged him to reconsider.

Re "A two-state standoff," editorial, May 2 Iran's disbanding its nuclear weapons program is surely not dependent on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Iran wants to be the dominant power in the Middle East, and it wants nuclear weapons so that it can threaten not only Israel but other states in the region. If Iran's motivation to develop WMD was to effect resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Saudi Arabia and Egypt wouldn't have grave concerns. King Abdullah II is not being straight on this issue either.

The Palestinian government shut down the West Bank operations of the satellite channel Al Jazeera a day after a guest on the station accused the Palestinian Authority president of involvement in Yasser Arafat's death. The Palestinian Information Ministry accused the news station of incitement and unbalanced reporting and took issue with the broadcast, without providing further details. Aides to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have long alleged that the Qatar-based station, widely watched in the Palestinian territories, favors the Islamic militant group Hamas in the bitter Palestinian power struggle.

Re "Evenhanded in the Mideast," Editorial, July 31 Why would the "Israelis and their supporters" consider what The Times calls President Obama's evenhanded approach a "code for pro-Arab policy"? How about a simple look at the ledger? Tangible Israeli concessions: peace with Egypt, peace with Jordan, giving back the entire Sinai Peninsula, giving back the Gaza Strip (which included displacing thousands of Jews and giving up important agricultural facilities), transferring control of West Bank cities to Palestinians, offering to hand over the vast majority of West Bank territories, releasing thousands of Palestinian prisoners, transferring millions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority and more.

Re "Abbas reelected head of Fatah," Aug. 9 Mahmoud Abbas' reelection as head of Fatah and thus the Palestinian Authority demonstrates the Palestinians' commitment to a negotiated peace with Israel. The ball is now in Israel's court to respond in kind. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must freeze settlement expansion, remove checkpoints and roadblocks not on the Israel-Palestine border and end restriction of commerce into the Gaza Strip. If the Israeli government does not move forward, the Obama administration must explain to the Israeli government why doing so is in its best interest.

Palestinian officials trying to organize a Jan. 24 election recommended Thursday that the vote be postponed, a move that could prolong uncertainty over Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' political future and the prospect for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Abbas, who is considered a reliable and moderate leader by the West, threw the Palestinian Authority into a crisis last week by declaring he would not seek reelection. Since then, his Palestinian backers, along with some Israeli officials and leaders of Western governments, have urged him to reconsider.

Israel has failed to keep its pledge to stop enlarging Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert acknowledged in an interview published Friday, addressing a criticism he expects to hear next week from President Bush. "Every year all the settlements in all the territories [of the West Bank] continue to grow," Olmert told the Jerusalem Post. "There is a certain contradiction in this between what we're actually seeing and what we ourselves promised. . . .

The conductor Daniel Barenboim, already a contentious figure among fellow Israelis for championing Palestinians' rights and the works of Hitler's favorite composer, has accepted honorary Palestinian citizenship. Barenboim was given citizenship a year ago, but the move didn't become public until this past weekend, when a Palestinian lawmaker mentioned it after Barenboim held a performance in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The Argentine-born conductor is the first Israeli to be granted citizenship by the Palestinian Authority.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators began addressing the most difficult issues of their decades-old conflict Monday, keeping a promise to President Bush but putting Israel's coalition government under strain. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Korei emerged from a two-hour session at a Jerusalem hotel with little to say about what they had discussed. Israeli officials said the two lead negotiators planned to meet at least once a week.