Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will be replaced by his deputy, Mahmoud al-Aloul, if he becomes unable to fulfill his duties, Fatah's Central Committee decided in Ramallah on Saturday.
According to Palestinian media outlets, Fatah's Central Committee decided that should Abbas, 82, were unable to continue in his role, al-Aloul will be appointed "acting president of Palestine for a period of three months until elections can be held."
Al-Aloul was elected Abbas' deputy several months ago.
According to senior Fatah officials, the committee, also amended Palestinian law to facilitate the transfer of Abbas' presidential powers to his deputy if it becomes imperative, for the aforementioned three-month interim period.
"The amendment to Palestinian law on the matter of transferring Abbas' presidential authorities to his deputy Mahmoud al-Aloul, was made in light of rumors regarding Abbas' failing health," one council official said.
I think that the story got one detail wrong - it was a Fatah Revolutionary Party meeting, not a Fatah Central Committee meeting.
But why is Fatah, ostensibly a political party, making up laws for the Palestinian Authority? Shouldn't its cabinet, headed by prime minister Rami Hamdallah, be involved?
Who is in charge?
The answer is - Mahmoud Abbas is a dictator. He, and Arafat before him, has created the illusion of being democratically elected but in fact there is no democracy and no independence - it is all him.
The Palestinian Authority is not the government of the so-called State of Palestine. The Palestinian Legislative Council is the "parliament" of the Palestinian Authority but the PA is not the government, as has very limited responsibilities. (The PLC has more Hamas members than Fatah members, so it has effectively been nullified by Abbas.)
The Palestinian National Council is the "parliament" of the PLO, which is really the ruling government of "Palestine" as is recognized as such by the UN. Anyone who says that Abbas was democratically elected - even forgetting that his term expired many years ago - is an ignoramus or a liar. The PA reports to the PLO and it always has, and the UN recognizes the PLO as the government of the "State of Palestine."
Abbas leads the PLO Executive Committee and as such makes all the decisions for the PLO, and for the PA. And he of course leads Fatah, which includes the terrorist Al Aqsa Brigades that everyone likes to pretend don't exist even though they show their loyalty to Abbas.
Needless to say, there is no democracy in electing the leader of the PLO, even though its own Palestinian National Council pretends to have been elected by Palestinian Arabs both inside and outside the territories.
Since Fatah is the dominant party of the PLO, effectively Fatah makes the decisions. I had never seen Fatah claim to make the actual laws before, but in the end the distinction between Fatah and the PLO is artificial anyway. (There are non-Fatah members of the PLO, there to make it look more "democratic.")
I drew up this graphic in 2012 and it is still accurate:
The West, when funding the PA, pretends that the PLO doesn't exist and makes no decisions on how the money is actually spent. But the PLO controls everything in the PA.
Remember when the EU said that it won't pay money to the funds that pay terrorists and their families? The PLO simply moved that budget item from the PA to the PLO itself, so there would be an extra layer of obfuscation and the EU won't feel guilty anymore. But it is all a shell game.
Too bad the media has never caught on to the dictatorship of Mahmoud Abbas, complete with arrests of people who write anything against him.
The closing statement of the Fatah Revolutionary council meeting "reiterated its support for President Mahmoud Abbas and his political outlook." It sounds as comical as a Soviet press release No one bothers to notice how close Abbas really is to a Stalin, while the world media treats him like a Ghandi.