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Even when Israeli troops eradicate Hamas, the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority because the group’s successor in Gaza is much from assured. Hamas militants ousted it from energy within the enclave in 2007, and within the years since, the Authority has languished within the West Financial institution, dogged by prices of corruption, weak point and a scarcity of accountability.
Mr. al-Sheikh personifies such issues. Regardless of being considered as a possible successor to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority’s 87-year-old president, he isn’t standard with the general public in his job overseeing day-to-day relations between Palestinians and the Israeli navy, which have turn into more and more fractious for the reason that struggle broke out.
In his interview with The Instances, Mr. al-Sheikh acknowledged the flamable nature of the area after final month’s assaults and the Israeli navy response, a struggle that has killed 10,000 Palestinians, in accordance with the Gazan well being authorities.
“With out a complete political initiative from the U.S.,” he mentioned, a postwar Gaza could be “a fertile soil for radicalism.”
For his half, Mr. Biden has publicly embraced a Palestinian state as a treatment for the disaster. “There must be a imaginative and prescient of what comes subsequent,” he mentioned just lately of the struggle between Israel and Hamas. “In our view, it must be a two-state answer.”
However he has but to put out a street map for getting there and, till now, has completed little to counsel that his administration will put money into such a mission.
Mr. Biden didn’t observe by on a marketing campaign pledge to reopen the Washington workplace of the Palestine Liberation Group, which his predecessor, Donald J. Trump, ordered closed. He didn’t reopen the American consulate in Jerusalem, which served Palestinians and was additionally closed by Mr. Trump. And in contrast to a number of of Mr. Biden’s predecessors, he has not named a Center East envoy.
Till the Hamas assaults, the Center East peace course of ranked comparatively low on the checklist of White Home foreign-policy priorities, after geopolitical rivalries like China and Russia. However the explosion of struggle between Israel and Hamas has catapulted the difficulty again to the highest of the checklist.
On his tour of the area up to now week, Mr. Blinken, who had flown from Israel to Jordan, doubled again to fulfill with Mr. Abbas and Mr. al-Sheikh. He praised the Palestinian Authority for making an attempt to maintain order within the West Financial institution, the place tensions have soared between Palestinians and Israeli settlers, a few of whom are armed and have attacked their neighbors.
On Wednesday, at a gathering of overseas ministers in Tokyo, Mr. Blinken described what he referred to as “components to get a sustained peace,” mainly the unification of Gaza with the West Financial institution beneath the Palestinian Authority.
“These should embody the Palestinian folks’s voices and aspirations on the heart of post-crisis governance in Gaza,” he mentioned. “It should embody Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Financial institution beneath the Palestinian Authority.”
However Israel might fall out with the US on that method. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prompt this week that his nation would keep a safety function in Gaza even after the struggle ends, as a result of “we’ve seen what occurs after we don’t have it.”
Mr. al-Sheikh mentioned he didn’t consider that any peace deal was doable with Mr. Netanyahu, or his authorities, which incorporates far-right and ultranationalist ministers who favor Israel’s annexation of the West Financial institution.
Mr. Netanyahu, he mentioned, was seizing on the Hamas assaults to drive Palestinians out of Gaza, likening the scenario to what the Palestinians name the “nakba,” or disaster, the mass displacement of Palestinians earlier than and after Israel’s creation in 1948.
“The strategic objective of this struggle is to displace the Palestinian folks,” he mentioned. “They need to separate Gaza solely from the West Financial institution.”
In at this time’s infected ambiance, Mr. al-Sheikh mentioned, the Palestinian Authority’s plea for calm is unpopular with its folks, who’re enraged by the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians within the Gaza struggle and yearn for vengeance.
“Palestinians don’t settle for this stance proper now,” he mentioned. “Folks might not perceive my place at this time, however they may tomorrow.”
“I’m not Hamas,” Mr. al-Sheikh concluded. “I signify the Palestinian folks.”
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