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For many ordinary Palestinians, the appointment of Hussein al-Sheikh was emblematic of how out-of-touch the leadership of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority has become.
April 26, 2025, 4:40 p.m. ET
Palestinian leaders in the Israeli-occupied West Bank met this week for the first gathering of its kind in years. Their mission: to allow Mahmoud Abbas, the aging Palestinian Authority president, to appoint a longtime loyalist to a newly-minted senior position.
On Saturday night, Mr. Abbas formally named Hussein al-Sheikh, a close confidant, as his deputy. Some analysts believed Mr. al-Sheikh’s promotion indicated that Mr. Abbas, 89, was signaling that Mr. al-Sheikh was his preferred heir, while others saw it as a cosmetic reshuffle to placate Arab officials frustrated by the Palestinian leader.
For many Palestinians, their leadership’s focus on palace politics as the war in Gaza has raged, and a sweeping Israeli military operation in the northern West Bank has displaced tens of thousands of people, has further underscored the complacency of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.
“The ship is sinking, and everyone’s fighting over who’s going to be seated at what table,” said Ghaith al-Omari, a former adviser to Mr. Abbas and a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a research group.
More than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza, according to local health officials, who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The war began with Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, which killed about 1,200 people and took roughly 250 hostage.
The war cast a spotlight on the Palestinian cause and spurred worldwide protests. But the frail and internally divided Palestinian Authority — the Palestinians’ internationally recognized representative — has struggled for relevance.
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