The PA’s ’emergency’-installed PM Salam Fayyad has submitted his resignation to (date-expired) PA President Mahmoud Abbas. People close to Fayyad indicated to me when I was in Ramallah ten days ago this would most likely happen.
His present resignation is to pave the way for a government of national unity, or of national accord, which I guess is slightly different.
It is possible that Fayyad himself might emerge as the agreed-upon candidate for PM in the GNU/A. But whoever the next PM is, the task and mandate of the US-trained (“Dayton”) forces the PA has been fielding in the West Bank will have to change; as too will the PA’s beyond-compliant posture, or lack of posture, in the negotiations with Israel. Otherwise, no national unity or even national accord will be possible; and the implosion of Fateh will only accelerate.
Fateh’s collapse-from-inside is already pretty far advanced, anyway. No amount of US hugging and US-mobilized mega-billion funding can arrest that now. Only the GNU/A can. (Actually, absent any discernible US spine or focus in the peace negotiations, the US hugging and funding of Abbas only further undermine him. This is known as the hug of death. Ask Fouad Siniora.)
I’m writing this short post from Amman. I came here by bus this morning from Nazareth, and I have a 12-hour layover here before returning to the US. I’ve gotten some really great material during my month-long reporting trip around this part of the Middle East.
One of the items buried in a notebook is the interview I did with Fayyad on Feb. 24. I need to dig it out and write it up properly. Maybe later today.