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Who is Muhammad Mustafa?

​Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appoints Mohammad Mustafa as prime minister of the Palestinian Authority (PA), in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank March 14, 2024 in this handout image.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appoints Mohammad Mustafa as prime minister of the Palestinian Authority (PA), in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank March 14, 2024 in this handout image.

Palestinian president office/Handout via REUTERS
Alex Kliment
By Alex KlimentMarch 14, 2024
Alex Kliment
Alex wears a few different caps and tips them all regularly. He writes for the GZERO Daily, works as a field correspondent for GZERO's nationally syndicated TV show GZERO WORLD WITH IAN BREMMER, and writes/directs/voices GZERO's award-winning puppet satire show PUPPET REGIME. Prior to joining GZERO, Alex worked as an analyst covering Russia and broader Emerging Markets for Eurasia Group. He has also written for the Financial Times from Washington, DC, and Sao Paulo Brazil. In his spare time, he makes short films and composes scores for long ones. He studied history and Slavic literature at Columbia and has a Master's from Johns Hopkins SAIS. He's a native New Yorker, a long-suffering Mets fan, and owns too many bicycles.
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Mahmoud Abbas, the 88-year-old president of the widely unpopular Palestinian Authority, on Thursday named Muhammad Mustafa as the authority’s prime minister. Given Abbas’s age, and the need for a successor as leader of the PA who can offer some credible alternative to Hamas as the political voice of Palestinians, Mustafa will now become the subject of wide international scrutiny.

So, who is he? Mustafa is a trained economist with a degree from George Washington University in Washington, DC. His current job is head of the Palestine Investment Fund, the Palestinian Territories’ sovereign development fund. He has also served as the PA’s economy minister and deputy prime minister.

More to the point, Mustafa is a longtime PA insider who owes his career and standing to Abbas. For those hoping the aging president would choose a dynamic, independent-minded leader as PM who might lead in a bold new direction, Mustafa is an unpopular choice – one that signals Abbas intends to remain the dominant voice in the PA for as long as he can.

palestinian authoritymuhammad mustafamahmoud abbasisrael-palestinian conflictpalestinepolitics

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