Hate it: Palestinian Prime Minister Resigns, Adding Uncertainty to Government - Mr. Fayyad, an American-educated economist, had gained the confidence of the West and of many Israelis, building up the credibility of the Palestinian Authority by introducing transparency, accountability and stability.

From The New York Times:

The internationally respected prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad, resigned on Saturday, raising concerns about political stability in the West Bank days after Secretary of State John Kerry proposed a broad initiative to aid the Palestinian economy there to shore up peace efforts.

The president of the Western-backed authority, Mahmoud Abbas, accepted Mr. Fayyad’s resignation but asked him to stay until a new government could be formed, according to Palestinian officials, signaling an effort to minimize the upheaval.

But the timing of the resignation, which had been brewing for weeks over Mr. Fayyad’s differences with Mr. Abbas and his Fatah party, seemed to deliver a blow to American prestige at the very least. The possibility of heading off the prime minister’s resignation was among the topics that President Obama discussed with both Mr. Fayyad and Mr. Abbas when he visited Ramallah, West Bank, last month, and it was also a focus of Mr. Kerry’s meeting with Mr. Abbas last week.

Since Mr. Kerry left the region, he has had more than one telephone conversation with both men to try to prevent the resignation. Israeli officials have also been quietly urging Mr. Fayyad to stay, aware that their public support is likely to backfire.

“The U.S. has worked very hard,” one Western diplomatic official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Kerry asked him to stay. There’s been a lot of messaging from the Western community about how much we value Fayyad’s work.”

Underlying tensions between Mr. Fayyad and Mr. Abbas burst out in early March when the finance minister, Nabil Qassis, announced that he was quitting. Mr. Fayyad accepted the minister’s resignation against the wishes of Mr. Abbas.

 

Mr. Fayyad, an American-educated economist, had gained the confidence of the West and of many Israelis, building up the credibility of the Palestinian Authority by introducing transparency, accountability and stability. Since being appointed to the premiership in 2007, he has championed law and order in the West Bank after years of chaos and focused on building the institutions of a future state.

But he has struggled to build a popular constituency on his home turf and became a target for senior Fatah figures resentful of his power, and who blamed him for all the authority’s problems. People who spoke with Mr. Fayyad on Saturday and throughout the past week said he had grown increasingly frustrated over attacks on his leadership by Fatah officials, and over Mr. Abbas’s failure to either defend him publicly or move behind the scenes to quell the criticism.

 

Mr. Abbas appointed Mr. Fayyad prime minister of the government formed after the split with Hamas. The Islamic group, Hamas, won Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006 and a year later seized control of Gaza after a factional war there. Hamas routed Fatah from Gaza, confining Mr. Abbas and his authority to parts of the West Bank.