Palestinian President Says He Won’t Seek Re-election

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, during a televised speech in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Thursday.

By ETHAN BRONNER and MARK LANDLER
Published: November 5, 2009

RAMALLAH, West Bank — The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, warned Thursday that he would not seek re-election in the January elections he called, the latest sign that the Obama administration’s drive to broker Middle East peace talks has fallen into disarray.

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There is no immediate prospect of Mr. Abbas’ stepping aside, but his announcement, coming immediately after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s visit to revive talks between Israel and the Palestinians, illustrated the rising tensions over the Obama administration’s failure to produce an Israeli settlement freeze or any concessions from Arab leaders.

Mrs. Clinton’s visit to the region, which she characterized as a success, sowed anger and confusion among Palestinians and other Arabs after she praised as “unprecedented” Israel’s compromise offer to slow down, but not stop, construction of settlements.

In a televised speech from his headquarters in Ramallah, Mr. Abbas, who replaced Yasir Arafat five years ago as president of the Palestinian Authority, said, “I have told my brethren in the P.L.O. that I have no desire to run in the forthcoming election.” He had spoken with the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization earlier in the day.

Mr. Abbas, considered a moderate, pro-Western leader, had called elections for January, but few expect them to take place then, if at all, because they require reconciliation between Mr. Abbas’s Fatah and Hamas, which rules in Gaza. Hamas said it would prohibit the voting from taking place in Gaza without reconciliation. Until such an election, Mr. Abbas remains in office.

It was nonetheless clear that Israeli-Palestinian talks would not resume any time soon despite intensive American diplomacy. A top aide to Mr. Abbas said a large part of the “despondency and frustration” felt by Mr. Abbas and the entire Palestinian leadership was due to President Obama’s unrealized promises to the region. He said he feared that without a stop to settlements, Islamist rivals in Hamas could triumph and violence could break out.

“There was high expectation when he arrived on the scene,” the aide, Nabil Shaath, who heads the Fatah party’s foreign affairs department, said of Mr. Obama at a briefing. “He said he would work to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that it would play a major role in improving the American and Western relationship with the Muslim world. Now there is a total retreat, which has destroyed trust instead of building trust.”

Mr. Shaath added that if the United States vetoed sending a United Nations report critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza to the Security Council, “It really is like telling the Palestinians to go back to violence.”

The United Nations General Assembly was debating that report on Thursday, and the administration, backed by a House resolution, does not want it sent to the Security Council. The result of a committee headed by the South African jurist Sir Richard Goldstone, the report accuses both Israel and Hamas of possible war crimes in their war last January, which killed some 1,200 people, nearly all of them Palestinians.

The less Mr. Abbas can show he has obtained from Israel and the United States, the likelier it is that Palestinian voters will turn to Hamas, which calls for the destruction of Israel and enjoys extensive support from Iran.

In his comments, Mr. Abbas said, “This is not to bargain or maneuver.” But some of his aides saw his announcement as a high-stakes gamble to persuade Mr. Obama to announce a full peace plan aimed at ending the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and creating a Palestinian state.

For all the frustration that the Palestinians and others have over the current Israeli government’s policies — continuing settlement building on land the Palestinians want for their state, refusal to discuss the status of Jerusalem or final borders, or the return of Palestinian refugees to their original homes — Israel is facing a deeply divided Palestinian leadership incapable of agreeing to any deal just now.

The Israelis say that the way forward is threefold and that the tracks should occur simultaneously: Palestinian institution building, economic development in the West Bank and political dialogue between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

The Palestinians say they will not start negotiations anew but want to renew them from where they left off with former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel. Mr. Olmert apparently offered more than 90 percent of the West Bank and some international or shared rule over Jerusalem. The current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has made it clear that Israel would wish to hold on to much more land for security purposes and that Jerusalem is off the table.

“I think he’s reached the conclusion that he’s reached a dead end,” said Qaddoura Fares, another Fatah leader, on Israel Radio, speaking of Mr. Abbas.

Saeb Erekat, chief Palestinian negotiator, said Wednesday at a news conference that perhaps Palestinians should abandon the two-state approach and work toward one shared state with the Jews, something a vast majority of Israelis oppose.

He said Mr. Abbas should maybe “tell his people the truth, that with the continuation of settlement activities the two-state solution is no longer an option.”

In his 30-minute speech on Thursday, Mr. Abbas, who has not groomed a successor or young guard, addressed Israelis directly, saying, “Peace is more important than any political achievement or any government party or coalition if the results push the region toward disaster or the unknown.”

He added, “We were surprised by the United States’ closing its eyes to the Israeli position.” He said achieving a peaceful, two-state solution remained possible but that Israel had to change its policies.

Mr. Abbas’s spokesman, Nabil Abu Rdeineh, said after the speech that the “American administration must force Israel to respect international legitimacy.”

Ethan Bronner reported from Ramallah, and Mark Landler from Washington.