Why Palestinian prime minister’s blocked appointment to UN post is good news for Abbas

Palestine is once again front and center at the UN. Less than two months since the Obama administration’s 11th hour abstention from a vote condemning Israeli settlement activity, thus allowing the resolution’s passage, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has been handed yet another victory by the international body. And once again, he can thank the U.S. UN Mission.

Last week, the new U.S. delegation reportedly blocked the nomination of former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad as the UN envoy to Libya. If accurate, this continues a string of recent victories for President Abbas beginning with his reappointment as head of the West Bank’s ruling Fatah party in late 2016, an action that indefinitely extends his 12-year run as head of the Palestinian Authority. Having temporarily sidelined (or silenced) all domestic challengers in advance of his “re-election” by Fatah in November – fending off rumors of ill health and alleged foreign conspiracies against his increasingly personalized rule in the process – the appointment of Salam Fayyad as a high-profile UN representative would likely have been viewed as a personal affront.

{mosads}Unbeknownst apparently to the U.S. Mission, which called the UN Secretary General’s nomination “unfairly biased in favor of the Palestinian Authority,” Fayyad was never a PA candidate for the position. On the contrary, Fayyad has long been a source of irritation to the Palestinian Authority which perceives the reform-minded, American-educated economist as an outsider with suspect loyalties. His anti-corruption platform has never been well-received by Fatah leadership or the PA, and his association with previous U.S.-supported efforts to reform PA institutions – first as Minister of Finance and then as Prime Minister – alienated many in Palestinian leadership circles.

Despite receiving little concrete support from Washington during the Obama years, a period when periodic attempts at peacemaking took precedence over Palestinian institution building and support for the rule of law, the PA continues to regard Fayyad (and U.S. intentions) with deep suspicion. Not satisfied with having hobbled Fayyad during the last years of his premiership, eventually driving him from office in 2013, the PA froze the accounts of his newly established charitable foundation fearing that publicity from rural solar power and water projects would increase his profile at the expense of an increasingly unpopular PA; to save the institution, Fayyad has now resigned his own directorship.

That the international community, and the Obama administration in particular, raised no objection to the PA’s treatment of Fayyad seems to have been lost on Palestinian leadership, which has continued to see foreign, namely American, conspiracies in his every move or utterance. Just this past summer, the PA’s official news agency, WAFA, attacked Fayyad for daring to suggest that Palestinians would benefit from internal reconciliation and elections for new leadership, actions he has long advocated. Implying treachery in his “failed attempt to undermine decades of the Palestinian struggle,” which would only please “the enemies of the Palestinian people,” the potential implications left little to the imagination.

Against this backdrop, the UN appointment (even to war torn Libya) would likely have been a welcome escape for Fayyad from the frustrations and precariousness of his position at home and perhaps some small saving grace for the indignities repeatedly suffered at the hands of the Palestinian Authority. Unfortunately, his appointment, at least for the time being, appears to be a non-starter. For Abbas and the PA, the victory is two-fold: on the one hand, Fayyad’s profile is kept in check, while on the other the PA has been provided another issue to politicize for its own benefit. Surely, this was all avoidable.

The author was senior advisor in the Department of State, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs’ Office of the Middle East Partnership Initiative during the Administration of George W. Bush.

The views expressed by this author are their own and are not the views of The Hill.