Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Back to Opinion

Is Fayyad On His Way Out?

Is Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on his way out? Jonathan Tobin certainly seems to think so. In a blog post for Commentary, where he is the editor, he posits that Fayyad’s approach to governance and to foreign affairs places him outside the Palestinian mainstream.

Citing Fayyad’s comments in an interview with the Jewish Chronicle of London, Tobin writes, “With this sort of a platform, he’d probably have an easier time getting elected to the Knesset than to the Palestinian parliament.”

Trouble is, Tobin offers no evidence of Fayyad’s unpopularity among his people and in fact, recent polling shows the opposite.

The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research polled public opinion in the West Bank and Gaza in June, after a reconciliation agreement had been announced between Hamas and Fatah. Among the findings: in a choice between Fatah’s candidate, Fayyad, and Hamas’s candidate, Jamal Khodari, 45% of the public favored Fayyad and only 22% favored Khodari. Plus, a clear majority of 61% of those polled wanted a new Palestinian government to follow the peace policies and agendas of Fatah and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, rather than follow Hamas’s agenda.

In my own recent interview with Fayyad, he certainly sounded like a man who was determined to stay in office. But many things could change that situation, including actions the Israeli government could take to strengthen Fayyad, or not.

Of course, it’s more convenient for those who want to continue to delay Israel’s genuine acceptance of an independent Palestinian state to argue that there’s no partner for peace, or that a figure like Fayyad — who is respected even in the Netanyahu government — is not supported by his own people. It just may not be true.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.