We are probably nearing the end of the Mahmoud Abbas era, which also marks the end of the leadership era of the Tunis-based Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) guided by the late PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and his disciples. Its conclusion will be followed by uncertainty and chaos before a new regime and a new reality take shape.

It is still uncertain when (and whether) Abbas will resign. Before Abbas' Sept. 30 UN General Assembly speech, a close confidant of his, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Al-Monitor that Abbas despairs of the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state by peaceful means. He stated, “Abbas objects to violence and is a true believer in Palestinian diplomacy. He has completely given up on Israeli willingness to end the occupation and on [President Barack] Obama's readiness to intervene with [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu. He believes Israel never intended to implement the Oslo Accord. He spoke to us of his wish to resign before the next elections, which he would like to be held in the near future, and possibly to declare the entire West Bank and East Jerusalem a state under occupation. In any case, security cooperation with Israel will depend on full compliance by Israel with the Oslo Accord, including a timeline for statehood.”

Like Moses, Abbas will be the leader who saw the “promised land,” but never reached it. After resigning, he will be missed, including by many of his sharp critics in Israel, Palestine and the world. Indeed, Abbas is a true moderate. He, along with PLO chief negotiator Abu Alaa (Ahmed Qurei), masterminded the Oslo Accord. Both of them worked hard to convince Arafat to take the diplomatic route. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Abbas came to believe in the need to talk to and recognize Israel. During the Oslo process, he was convinced that a gradual approach was necessary from the perspective of both sides to eventually arrive at a permanent status solution, as the 1995 Oslo II agreement outlined.

Abbas himself actually launched the first round of the permanent status talks in early May 1996 in Taba, Egypt. His vision at the time was of a cooperative relationship between two states as of the year 2000. Although critical of Arafat's nation-building efforts after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Abbas entirely blames Israeli noncompliance for the failure of Oslo to produce a two-state solution, especially in regard to the agreed-upon further withdrawals of the Israeli military from the West Bank, the lack of freedom of movement for Palestinians in the territory and Netanyahu's unwillingness to seriously negotiate a two-state solution.