...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....The Paleostinian National Council, comprising approximately 300 members, is the legislative body of the Paleostine Liberation Organization. The body was once the sole representative of the Paleostinian people internationally, but its power has been diminished with the advent of the PA as a Paleostinian proto-government, and today it holds mainly symbolic internal significance.
Like the Paleostinian Authority, it is dominated by the Fatah movement.
Haaretz’s Jack Khoury notes that the announcement of new elections for the body appears to be an attempt to revive public legitimacy for the PA and the PLO, which are facing a deep crisis of popularity in the West Bank.
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The announcement came as Abbas’s Palestinian Authority — the recognized government of parts of the West Bank, created through Israel’s Oslo Accords with the PLO — seeks to bolster its legitimacy in the eyes of the international community.
The PA seeks to replace the Hamas terror group as the governing authority in the Gaza Strip at the end of the ongoing war there — an idea that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected.
The Palestinian National Council formally sets the policy of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and elects a smaller forum that in turn elects PLO leaders. It is a separate body from the Palestinian Legislative Council, which is the Palestinian Authority parliament.