The Israelis are looking for a new Palestinian president to discuss with him a solution to the conflict in the Middle East, but if they are betting on a moderate and younger president to succeed President Mahmoud Abbas, they may find themselves faced with surprises.
Abu Mazen - who will soon be 85 years old - in his speech on Tuesday before the Security Council rejected the peace plan announced by US President Donald Trump to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But the plan that includes annexing settlements in the West Bank and the Jordan Valley and recognizing Jerusalem as a unified capital for Israel is not intended for Abbas from an Israeli point of view, but rather "for his unidentified successor, who could be a younger person with a new approach," according to the director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Studies. Uzi Rabi.
In front of the Security Council, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danone, accused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of "refusing to be pragmatic," and said he "will not be a partner in peace."
Danone added that "even if Abbas criticizes specific elements of the plan, he must adopt its spirit, this new pragmatic approach to resolving the conflict."
As for the second man in the "Blue and White" party, Yair Lapid, he said at a press conference in Jerusalem this week that "we may have to wait until the era after Abu Mazen."
"Instead of politics and instead of putting something of their own on the table, what we have is an angry old man screaming and cursing all the time, and this is not politics," he added.
Between Barghouti and Haniyeh
Consequently, Israeli leaders are betting that President Abbas will succeed to discuss the Trump plan, but they may be disappointed. According to an opinion poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Political Research, 94% of Palestinians reject the American plan.
The poll showed that in the event of Palestinian elections, Mahmoud Abbas would receive 44% of the vote, compared to 49% for the head of the political bureau of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh.
Mahmoud Abbas won the presidential elections in 2005 after the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and there have been no presidential elections in the Palestinian territories since that time.
The poll showed that if elections were held between the leader of Hamas and the leader of the Fatah movement, Marwan Barghouti, who is in an Israeli prison, Barghouti would win 57% of the vote compared to 38% for Hamas.
"The Israelis who are demanding someone more pragmatic than Abbas are delusional," said the head of the Palestinian Center for Political Research, Khalil Shikaki, adding that there is no Palestinian leadership that is more pragmatic, more moderate, and more cautious than Abbas. Every other Palestinian leader will be tougher.