Abbas planning to replace longtime spy chief, capping off purge of PA security heads
PA president under growing pressure to make space for new generation of leaders, as world community hopes Ramallah can gear-up to take on larger task of resuming governance in Gaza
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is planning to replace his longtime intelligence chief Majed Faraj, capping off a wider purge of security heads in Ramallah that began several months ago, a Palestinian official, a European diplomat and a Palestinian source familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel.
Faraj is one of Abbas’s closest confidants and has worked to bolster security coordination with Israel in the West Bank since becoming head of the PA’s General Intelligence Service in 2009.
But Abbas is facing mounting pressure from Arab and Western allies to reform the Palestinian Authority and make way for a new generation of leaders, so that the PA is better equipped to potentially take on the larger task of once again governing Gaza after the war there. After Israel unilaterally left Gaza in 2005, Hamas violently took power there in 2007, pushing out Abbas’s Fatah faction.
Last March, Abbas fired all of his ministers and formed a new cabinet led by Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa, another longtime ally. In recent months and weeks, he has replaced the heads of the PA’s Security Forces, Preventive Security Service, police and civil defense. Three of those four agencies are now headed by former senior members of Abbas’s security detail.
Faraj is the last security chief to remain in his post, and the three sources speaking to The Times of Israel said he is hoping to avoid the fate of his now-former counterparts. At the very least, Faraj is hoping to shift to a spot on the Palestine Liberation Organization’s powerful Executive Committee.
The sources said a final decision regarding Faraj’s fate is expected in the coming weeks, with the PA president likely to appoint a new intel chief. Spokespeople for Abbas and Faraj did not respond to requests for comment.
In a further bid to address demands from allies and donor countries to reform the PA, the 89-year-old Abbas announced earlier this month that he would create the position of vice president in addition to granting amnesty to expelled members of his Fatah party.
Speaking at a Cairo summit of Arab leaders to discuss plans for the post-war management of Gaza, Abbas said he would also soon convene the PLO’s long-dormant legislative body, the central council.
Abbas, who has not stood for elections since winning a four-year term in 2006, insisted he is willing to do so if Israel allows balloting in East Jerusalem.
In November, Abbas declared that if his post were to become vacant before elections are held, he would be temporarily replaced by Rawhi Fattouh, the former speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
A statement posted to the PA’s official Wafa news site said that in such an event, Fattouh would serve as interim president for no more than 90 days, during which presidential elections would be held. But if it were not possible to hold elections, the Palestinian Central Council could grant a one-time extension to the interim president’s term.
Another reform announced by Abbas in February — which was aggressively pushed by Western countries — saw the cancellation of legislation that conditioned welfare payments to Palestinian security prisoners on the length of their sentence in Israeli jails.
Payments to prisoners and the families of slain attackers have not yet been updated, though, because the cash-strapped PA is running several months behind on the stipends, two Palestinian officials told The Times of Israel last week.
The Times of Israel Community.