(JNS) Western leaders earlier this week expressed shock when Mahmoud Abbas, the almost 91-year-old dictatorial head of the Palestinian Authority, decided to cancel the first legislative elections in 20 years. Abbas bluntly informed his citizens on Oct. 10 that he was unilaterally canceling the elections scheduled for Nov. 28.
He now says Palestinians will have to wait another year, until September 2027, to elect a new legislature. He claims that his own presidential election, last held in 2005 for a single four-year term, will occur on the same date.
Few should be surprised about Abbas’s cancellation of elections. The PA and its terror patron—the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s Fatah party—are corrupt entities that have financially enriched themselves and governed the territory with an iron fist for the last 21 years.
It’s breathtaking to see the West’s naiveté and its determination to put on blinders about the totalitarian nature of the PA. After all, Abbas’s cancellation of elections isn’t new. This is what dictators do. He has always dodged the will of the Palestinian people since his first “election” to a sole...
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