The Palestinian Authority has blocked access to dozens of news websites and social media accounts in the occupied West Bank in its ongoing crackdown of opposition voices and those critical of Mahmoud Abbas’ presidency.

Ramzy Baroud writes the call by Mahmoud Abbas for elections is a ploy. “There will be no true, democratic elections under Abbas’ leadership. The real question is why did he make the call in the first place?”

Mahmoud Abbas called for the first general elections in 13 years. However, many analysts and Palestinian citizens remain skeptical fair elections will be held any time soon. 

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said his government would be “suspending all agreements” made with the Israeli government over Israel’s demolitions in Sur Bahir. But with no explanation as to what he meant, and no concrete plan of action, Abbas is being called out by activists and political analysts for doing nothing more than “playing games.”

Every month, Israel collects some $190 million in customs duties on goods being imported into the Palestinian territory and transfers it to the PA. But recently it has been withholding $10 million per month, meant to represent the amount paid by the PA to the families of political prisoners and “martyrs” killed by Israel. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is refusing to accept the reduced tax revenues, which has plunged the government into its worst financial crisis in years. This is leading Israel to start discussing a plan of action should the Palestinian Authority collapse completely.

Nadia Naser-Najjab writes that Mahmoud Abbas’s widely criticized speech on April 30th, that has since become known as his “anti-Semitic speech,” simply served to underline his own political irrelevance.

There was no end to the denunciation by Israelis of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s speech last Monday: “Laced with vile antisemitic conspiracy theories,” Abbas has “lost his marbles,” “disgraceful lies.” But Abbas’s crime, as Gideon Levy points out, is correctly identifying Zionism as a colonial project. That must not be said, and marks Abbas as an extremist.

This morning President Donald Trump called Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to notify him he of plans to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, according to a spokesperson for President Abbas. Abbas responded and “warned of the dangerous repercussions of such step on the [long-stalled] peace process, security and stability in the region and the world,” his spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh told the Palestinian outlet Wafa, adding that Abbas will seek out support from other governments “to prevent this rejected and unacceptable” action.

More than 80 world leaders attended Shimon Peres’ funeral today in Jerusalem with addresses from both President Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, both of whom spoke of the late president and prime minister’s work to achieve a lasting agreement with the Palestinians. Though hailed as Israel’s ambassador of peace, absent were Palestinian leaders in Israel’s government, detractors who remembered the statesman as the architect who “masterminded the occupation and settlement-building,” in the West Bank and Gaza.

Congress has passed provisions that immediately ends funding to the Palestinian Authority in the event of a unity government with Hamas, or a joint government where Hamas exercises “undue influence.” Though, there is one exception. If a supposed unity government recognizes Israel as a Jewish state, the aid will continue.