If there is any dynamism within Palestinian politics today, it’s in the discussion about who will eventually replace the aging Mahmoud Abbas, the octogenarian President who has reigned for over a decade. That discussion reached a fever pitch recently after Abbas stayed overnight at Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore, a visit his advisers attempted to portray as routine. Yet nothing is routine in predicting what will happen once Abbas departs the stage, and behind the scenes, the various aspirants to the Palestinian presidency jockey to replace their 82-year-old leader in a constantly changing arena.

The dynamic in the West Bank is one of intense palace politics. Public speculation vacillates between those figures who are popular (the imprisoned Marwan Barghouti), those who have loyal security forces (Fatah leader Jibril Rajoub and Abbas’s intelligence chief Majed Faraj), and those who have money and regional favor (the exiled Muhammad Dahlan). Amid this political maneuvering—or perhaps because of it—Abbas introduced another name to the succession discussion earlier last year by making Mahmoud al-Aloul the first-ever vice president of his Fatah party.

Aloul, 68, was an interesting selection. For one, he doesn’t have much of a national profile. Modest and unassuming, he lacks the outsized personality that many of the other would-be heirs possess. At our meeting in his Fatah offices in December, he downplayed his appointment as vice president, a position he insists was always there but never filled: “The people gave it a lot of importance when it was assigned, but there is a precedent [for the position].”

Read the full story at the American Interest.