Abbas seen positioning son for Palestinian leadership, dismaying those seeking new blood

Recent meetings between businessman Yasser Abbas and top PA officials, along with upcoming Fatah vote, stir angry speculation that president wants to keep power in his family

A series of announcements by official Palestinian Authority institutions this month have ignited speculation that Yasser Abbas, the millionaire son of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, may be being positioned to vie for his aging father’s post.

The younger Abbas, 64, holds no formal position within the PA, has never participated in Palestinian politics and spends most of his time outside the West Bank.

Yet official statements in recent days have detailed meetings Abbas recently held with the commander of the Palestinian police, the governor of the Palestinian central bank, and the leadership of the Palestinian Pension Authority, which oversees pensions for public-sector employees, among other sit-downs.

The communiques name Abbas as “special presidential envoy,” though the PA presidential office never formally announced appointing him to such a role.

The sudden thrusting of the elder Abbas’s son into the center of Ramallah’s politics and policy has stoked angry suspicions that the 90-year-old Palestinian leader is seeking to groom him as the next leader of Fatah — the party that controls the PA — after 20 years of holding onto power by refusing to hold elections.

The son, who spends most of his time in Canada, has made a fortune in recent decades via a number of companies he owns in the telecommunications, contracting, and finance sectors.

His critics have long accused him and his brother Tarek, also a ‌businessman, of using public funds to fuel their businesses, allegations both men reject. Mahmoud Abbas has also faced years of corruption allegations.

Online commenters have pilloried Mahmoud Abbas for what they see as another misuse of state powers, describing the PA as “the Abbas state” and accusing him of acting like an emir in a Gulf monarchy where power is transferred by heredity.

On May 4, the independent Palestinian anti-corruption watchdog Aman demanded the PA clarify Yasser Abbas’s appointment as a special presidential envoy, arguing that in light of the “broad criticism” surrounding the move, clear criteria for such appointments should be made public.

So far, neither the Palestinian Authority nor the PA president’s office has addressed the criticism.

The PA did not respond to a request for comment from The Times of Israel.

In what some see as a first step toward a leadership role, the younger Abbas is expected to seek one of 18 seats on Fatah’s Central Committee being contested during a party conference in Ramallah on May 14-16, its first such gathering in almost 10 years, sources familiar with his plans said.

In recent weeks, he has held meetings with party factions representing the PA’s security establishment as well as groups representing prisoners held by Israel, an influential constituency whose support could bolster him when Fatah’s estimated 2,500 voting members cast ballots for the committee.

Samer Sinijlawi, a Palestinian activist and commentator critical of the elder Abbas’s control of Fatah, told The Times of Israel that even if Yasser Abbas’s foray into Ramallah’s power center is not intended to install him as the next PA head, it could still be an attempt by the elder Abbas to ingratiate his son with those who will eventually hold power, in order to ensure the family’s business interests remain protected and unchallenged by regulators.

“It is just an exercise to try to strengthen his control and to pave the way for his son also to find himself in a spot in the leadership that might later enable him to continue in, if not in leading, then at least in keeping the family’s business alive,” said Sinijlawi, who lives in East Jerusalem.

Sinijlawi said the attempt to elevate Yasser Abbas within the Palestinian political sphere amounted to “political suicide,” predicting that Palestinian society and the international community would both reject any such move.

“Even the Arab leaders around, who are not very much sensitive to democracy, have advised him [not to do it] in the past,” he said, adding that Abbas had been reminded that former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s attempts to promote his son Gamal Mubarak had helped fuel protests that led to his downfall. “He doesn’t listen.”

Mahmoud Abbas has sustained criticism for clinging to power well beyond 2010, when his five-year presidential term was slated to end. Abbas has repeatedly scheduled and canceled elections, while consistently cracking down on public displays of dissent.

However, his advanced age has led to worries of a violent power struggle once he dies or retires, along with hopes that his exit will clear the way for a younger, more popular leadership that can re-energize Fatah and the PA.

Yasser Abbas’s promotion has the potential to expand that succession fight, while some Fatah officials have expressed concern that he would be unable to unify Palestinians or help them chart a new political future.

“He is retirement age,” said Sinijlawi, calling for new blood in Palestinian political life.

Over the years, Yasser Abbas has participated in official meetings alongside his father, though not on a regular basis.

In recent years, he had largely disappeared from public diplomatic activity, though his name surfaced in several Palestinian diplomatic efforts. In September 2023, he was reported to have participated in talks with Saudi Arabia regarding the possibility of normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

In 2025, he was reported to be serving as his father’s representative in talks between the Palestinian Authority and the Lebanese government over the transfer of heavy weapons held in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon to the Lebanese army.

Succession conference

The Fatah gathering, in which party members elect representatives to the movement’s smaller governing bodies — most notably the 21-member Central Committee — is meant to take place every five years according to the movement’s bylaws.

In practice, however, repeated delays by the movement’s leadership have pushed it off multiple times, and this will only be the eighth conference since Fatah’s founding in 1959.

Arab media reports have claimed that Abbas called the conference at this time in a bid to install loyalists in Fatah’s key institutions before he is too old to govern. Abbas has already replaced the overwhelming majority of Palestinian security chiefs in recent years with figures who previously served in the Presidential Guard, a force considered personally loyal to him.

One senior Fatah official who spoke anonymously to Reuters described a possible role for Yasser Abbas on the Central Committee as “the beginning,” adding that he would later likely seek a seat on the Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee, giving him further influence over the Palestinian Authority.

Another senior Fatah official, also speaking anonymously, said: “Abbas is trying to make holes in the Fatah ship before [his death] by installing his son as heir to the crown. This should be confronted and rejected by all Fatah men.”

Alongside his son, reports have also claimed that Abbas is attempting to promote spy chief Majed Faraj, the only senior security chief not replaced in recent years.

“This is not a conference of unity [within Fatah], this is a conference about Mahmoud Abbas’s succession,” Samir Khalaf, an opposition Fatah figure from Gaza, said of the meeting.

Faraj is considered close to Mahmoud Abbas but does not currently hold a senior role within Fatah itself. He had been seen as a possible successor before Abbas last year appointed Hussein al-Sheikh as PLO vice president, after the position had remained vacant for decades, in what was widely seen as an attempt to position him as a possible successor.

Sinijlawi suggested that the current effort to promote Yasser Abbas may be intended to balance al-Sheikh’s growing influence.

Reham Owda, a Palestinian political analyst, said that while Abbas may be able to help promote his son within Fatah, there is no guarantee that holding a position within the party would translate into success at the polls if and when elections are held.

“This does not resolve the frustration of the Palestinian people, as no democratic elections have taken place since 2006,” he said. “Rather, it increases frustration, since the public is looking forward to democratic elections, legislative and presidential elections.”