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Tuesday, March 12, 2024
Abbas to appoint Mohammad Mustafa as next PA prime minister, officials say
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleJacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will soon announce his decision to appoint economist and former senior government official Mohammad Mustafa to become the next prime minister of the PA, three officials familiar with the matter tell The Times of Israel.
The move is part of an effort on the part of Abbas to reform the PA so that it is better prepared to eventually return to govern Gaza after Israel’s war against Hamas in the enclave concludes.
Mustafa will now have several weeks to assemble a cabinet, during which outgoing PA premier Mohammed Shtayyeh will remain at the helm, a Palestinian official, a senior European diplomat and a US official tell The Times of Israel.
Mustafa has been holding consultations with prospective cabinet members in recent weeks and members are expected to be a group of technocrats unaffiliated with Abbas’s Fatah party, many of whom were educated in the West, the officials say.
“We’re swallowing this cosmetic reform because we don’t have anything to offer Abbas,” the senior European diplomat says. He suggests Western powers might have been able to coax Abbas to tap a more independent premier had they been able to successfully push Israel to cooperate with efforts to revitalize the PA.
Israel has all but blocked this effort, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasting about his efforts to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and pledging to ensure that Gaza won’t become “Fatah-stan.”
Mustafa is still seen as a longtime Abbas confidant, leading to tapered expectations in Brussels and Washington that the new technocratic government will indeed be able to implement necessary reforms to the PA, which has long faced allegations of corruption, the US official and European diplomat say.
Mustafa himself is respected by many international stakeholders, holding a doctorate in economics from George Washington University and having worked for 15 years at the World Bank.
He has served as deputy prime minister, economy minister and as Abbas’s economic adviser. Mustafa has also sat on the Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee since 2022 and has served as the chairman of the Palestine Investment Fund since 2005.
The officials say Abbas’s announcement will be made this week, possibly as early as tonight.
The Times of Israel Community.