The Palestinian Authority (PA) has, in essence, been around for app 14 years (see below). It was preceded by an entity called, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA).
The PNA was created in 1994 by the 1993 Oslo Accords. Its first and only leader was Yasser Arafat.
The PNA lasted 10 years, until Arafat died in 2004. At that point, the PNA morphed into the PA which, through a democratic election, elected Mahmoud Abbas as President of the PA.
These two Palestinian entities were established as 'temporary' self-governing creations. Their purpose was and still is simple: to create the conditions needed to 'give birth', if you will, to a state for the 'Palestinian' people.
This purpose was mandated some 24 years ago. But there's still no Palestinian state. Why?
As you'll see in a moment, one cannot say the failure to create a new 'Palestinian' state was due to a lack of steady leadership. One can't argue that statehood has eluded the Palestinians because they've been plagued by a series of weak leaders who couldn't control the population.
One can't make this argument because the 'Palestinians' have never suffered from too many leaders who were too weak and who served too little time to do anything concrete. These entities have been led by just two individuals.
You know their names: Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas.
Neither of these men created a state. Neither was ever interested in creating one.
Neither did much of anything to build the core elements of a national infrastructure. Neither did much to create a national water plan for drinking water, waste water and sewage treatment. Neither did much to develop any kind of effective garbage collection-and-treatment system. Neither did much to develop energy resources. Neither did much to develop a national manufacturing industry sector to provide jobs, wages and to stimulate economic growth. Their focus lay elsewhere.
Yasser Arafat, the first of these two leaders, never lifted a finger to create a democracy or a viable economy. He never lifted a finger to create a viable state.
Arafat had only one goal: to destroy the Jewish state. To that end, he developed only one national goal: to commit terror against the Jews.
He was so successful developing this goal, he became famous. By the time he died, the world knew him as "the father of modern terrorism" (here).
He was a leader, all right. But he lived more like a thug than a man of peace (ibid). He was more terrorist rabble-rouser than national leader.
Abbas is no different.
Abbas is a master propagandist, not a master nation-builder. For example, in mid-January, 2019, Abbas announced his intention to go to the United Nations to seek full UN membership (statehood) for his beloved 'Palestine' (here). This sounds good, right? It suggests movement towards statehood.
There are just two problems here. First, Abbas suspended this plan. This suspension leads to the second problem: this wasn't the first time Abbas has attempted to go to the UN to seek statehood. It's the eighth (or is it ninth?) time in as many years.
Abbas talks a lot about statehood. But he never does anything about it.
Unlike Arafat, Abbas wants more than one thing. He wants two things. First, like his thuggish predecessor, he lusts obsessively to destroy the Jewish state. But also, more than Arafat ever did, he wants international legitimacy for this racist, genocidal goal. He wants his 'Palestine' to be recognized as the 194th Member State of the Community of Nations called, the UN (ibid).
Abbas has been looking to the UN for statehood since at least 2011. Virtually each time he makes this request to the UN, he makes one or another of several claims: his people wish only to live in peace; he seeks a real peace for his peaceful people; he is himself a man of peace--and, he has suggested more than once, he stands firmly against acts of terror wherever they may occur.
He always remembers to make such peaceful and anti-terror declarations. He always remembers to declare repeatedly that he wants a peaceful state.
But at the same time, he also always forgets to describe how, through his leadership, his 'Palestinian Authority' (PA) has done something--anything--concrete to become a viable, survivable, peaceful nation-state.
He's had eight or nine years in a row now to document how his Palestinian Authority has been working hard to become a survivable state. Why does he always forget to document his progress towards this goal?
For example, where are his job-creating programs? Where are his job training programs? Where are his international trade agreements and PA-wide education programs that promote peace in his region?
He has none.
He has no such projects, programs or similar large-scale nation-building plans. He's done little-to-nothing concrete to pursue what's called, 'nation-building'.
But he has been busy. He cannot repeat often enough that he will absolutely not stop paying terrorists and families of terrorists who attack and kill Jews (here). He can't stop inciting against Israel.
Just last week, he appeared in public to reassert what is the singular national priority for the PA. Take a look (this video is from the website MEMRI; it's just 2:20 long):
Abbas' national Palestinian priority is not statehood. It's to support those who kill Jews and who attempt to kill Jews. Indeed, as you've just heard him say, he would pay Jew-killers before he'd pay for anything else in the PA. He'd even pay Jew-killers if the amount he pays them was the only money he had available for the PA.
This is his number #1 priority: killing Jews.
He has no interest in nation-building. He's interested only in seeing to it that someone-anyone-everyone among his followers sets out to murder Jews. He's clearly more than willing to put his PA budget where his mouth is.
Have you ever heard Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu say he'd support Arab-killers even if that amount were the only money he had for Israel? No. Never.
Have you ever heard Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu say that the 'filthy feet of Muslims' must not 'desecrate' the Holy Jewish Temple Mount? No. Never.
Netanyahu has never spoken in this way about Palestinians. But Abbas has--and does--speak of Jews in this way (here and here).
Mahmoud Abbas is not a nation- builder. He's another Arafat. He's a thug. He's a terrorist in a suit, not a terrorist in army garb.
If you look at how both Arafat and Abbas have ruled, you might safely conclude that the one thing these two men have in common is that both have worked obsessively over the last 24+ years since Oslo to accomplish just three specific goals: (1) to build strong dictatorial rule that assures their own wealth and survival; (2) to ignore nation-building so as to focus more aggressively on attacking, delegitimizing and demonizing Israel; and (3) to create the world 's number #1 modern Jew-killing entity.
Arafat and Abbas haven't in any significant way prepared the PA to be any kind of state. They haven't prepared the PA for any kind of peace. Instead, they've prepared the PA for a different destiny altogether.
I suggest to you, dear reader, that, since 1994, the Palestinian Authority under Arafat and Abbas has murdered more Jews than anyone in the world. They've made the PA the world's leading Jew-killer.
Since 1994, Arafat and Abbas have incited their followers to murder more than 1,500 Jews (you can add up the numbers here, here and here). No other entity in the world has been more murderous towards Jews in this time-period. No one.
Arafat and Abbas have made their mark on the world. They're the world's leading Jew-killers.
