Palestine: Uncertainty Over Abbas Succession

In addition to all the death and destruction that surrounds them, the Independent has expertly reported that Palestinians face new uncertainty over President Mahmoud Abbas succession. This excellent report from Ben Lynfield in Ramallah explains that Mahmoud Abbas is now 80 years old and has indicated he is ready to scale back his workload. But with no designated successor, a power vacuum could develop, which Israel would willingly exploit. As Lynfield expertly reports: With more than two decades of trying to secure an independent Palestinian state through negotiations at a hopeless dead end, the ageing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas now hopes to begin scaling down his responsibilities, with a view towards an orderly succession of power. But after a decade in which Mr Abbas failed to groom a deputy or successor, in keeping with a tradition of one-man rule in the Arab world and in order to cast himself as indispensable, analysts in the West Bank  and Gaza do not expect the transition to be smooth. Indeed, the sense in the Palestinian Authority’s de facto capital, Ramallah, is that the lack of any one outstanding candidate to succeed Mr Abbas, and infighting within his Fatah