“We must prevent as much as possible the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, and at the same time we must prepare for the possibility that this could happen,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said upon closing the Jan. 3 meeting of the diplomatic-security Cabinet, which discussed the warning of the security establishment that the days of the PA are numbered. The media has reported for many months that the Shin Bet, the Israel Defense Forces and especially the Civil Administration have been delivering worrying reports to the executive bodies, analyzing the state of the PA and the attitude of Palestinians toward the rule of President Mahmoud Abbas, who has invested great efforts to keep the PA’s institutions operational. These reports conclude that the days of the PA are numbered, given the diplomatic standstill.

In an Al-Monitor article, Uri Savir wrote that the senior members of Fatah and Abbas himself know very well how to read the political map, and they, too, have concluded that in the present situation it is only a matter of time before the PA is dissolved. As a result, it would not be able to pay its employee salaries, and it would lose the meager support it has among the residents of the Palestinian territories.

All of Abbas' warnings in the last year and the rumors spread within the PA that he has decided to resign from his post have been received in Israel with ridicule. They have been interpreted by the political class, and to some extent by many elements in the PA, as an attempt to exert pressure on Israel and to gain support from the international community. Threats of Abbas' resignation have become a common joke in the PA, and cartoons in Palestinian social media portray them as empty threats. One cartoon showed Abbas standing in front of a mirror saying “I quit,” with his image in the mirror replying, “And I refuse to quit.”

But now it seems that Abbas is serious. He has reached the conclusion that the PA cannot handle the internal crisis that started with the collapse of peace talks with Israel in April 2014, has continued despite the unity government with Hamas, which was established a few months after that, and has now reached a nadir with the “individual intifada.”