Does Mahmoud Abbas Support Israel?

Zach Mandel Feb 27, 2025 Updated Aug 07, 2026 5 min read

Short answer: No, not in any meaningful sense. Mahmoud Abbas, 90, is President of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and heads Fatah and the PLO, and he sits in a formally adversarial relationship with Israel rather than a supportive one. He does hold to a decades old, technical recognition of Israel's existence from the 1988 and 1993 Oslo era agreements, as part of his stated goal of a two state solution, and in mid 2025 he condemned Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack for the first time. But he has also repeatedly accused Israel of "genocide" in Gaza at the United Nations, and the U.S. State Department found in a May 2026 report to Congress that PA actions, including continued "pay for slay" payments to terrorists' families and incitement in education, are "incompatible" with recognizing Israel's right to live free from threats. He is a political rival of Israel's government, not a supporter of it. As of August 2026, he remains alive and in office.

What Mahmoud Abbas has actually said and done

February 10, 2025: Abbas signed a decree overhauling the PA's Martyrs Fund, ending the old system of stipends paid to the families of Palestinians killed or jailed for attacks on Israelis, and replacing it with a needs based welfare fund, according to Al Jazeera.
June 2025: In a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Abbas condemned Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack for the first time, calling the killing and hostage taking of Israeli civilians "unacceptable and condemnable" and demanding Hamas release all hostages, as reported by the Times of Israel and independently by Ynet.
August 30, 2025: The U.S. State Department announced it was denying visas to Abbas and roughly 80 other Palestinian officials, barring them from attending the UN General Assembly session in New York in person, per the Times of Israel.
September 22, 2025: Speaking by video link to a UN two-state solution summit, Abbas demanded a ceasefire and said "Hamas will not have a role to play in governance," insisting that "Hamas and other factions will have to hand over their weapons to the Palestinian National Authority" in a single unified state "with one law and one legitimate security forces," per the full text published by The Times of Israel.
September 25, 2025: In a virtual address to the UN General Assembly, since he had been barred from traveling in person, Abbas said Palestinians "reject what Hamas carried out on the seventh of October" as not representative of the Palestinian cause, while separately accusing Israel of committing "genocide" in Gaza, as covered by the Times of Israel and Foreign Policy.
January 12, 2026: Abbas, then 90, underwent routine medical tests at al-Istishari Hospital in Ramallah and was discharged the same day. Results were described as "reassuring," and Palestinian sources say he remains in stable health and continues to hold key powers over the PA's civil, security, and political structures, according to Daily Sabah.
May 2026: A State Department report to Congress, covering June 2025 through May 2026, found the PA paid roughly $160 million in "pay for slay" funds to terrorists and their families during 2025 despite Abbas's public claim to have ended the program (other reporting cites figures up to $200 million when released prisoner payments are included), and concluded that recent PLO and PA statements and actions are "incompatible" with recognizing Israel's right to exist free from threats. Reported by the Jerusalem Post, with the underlying State Department report itself.
May 14, 2026: At Fatah's Eighth General Conference in Ramallah, its first in a decade, Abbas pledged internal reforms and long delayed Palestinian presidential and parliamentary elections, part of a stated plan to hold local council elections, a Fatah conference, and Palestinian National Council elections through 2026 and 2027, according to Al Jazeera.

The bigger picture

Mahmoud Abbas has led the Palestinian Authority since 2005 and chairs both Fatah and the PLO. His formal position, stated consistently since the 1988 PLO declaration and the 1993 Oslo Accords, is that the PLO recognizes Israel's existence as part of a two state solution along the pre 1967 lines with East Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital, a framework aligned with longstanding international consensus but rejected by Israel's current government and most of its political mainstream. That baseline recognition is real, but it is old, and it does not translate into support for Israel as a state or for its policies.

Abbas did not condemn Hamas's October 7, 2023 massacre in real time. It took roughly a year and a half for him to do so, first in the June 2025 letter to Macron and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince, then repeated in the September 2025 UN General Assembly speech, and in each case the condemnation was paired with accusations that Israel is committing "genocide" in Gaza. He has also been barred from entering the United States for UN sessions over American objections to PA and PLO conduct.

Separately, the "pay for slay" system, PA payments tied to the severity of an attack against Israelis, has been a persistent flashpoint. Abbas announced a reform ending the old stipend structure in February 2025, but the U.S. State Department's own 2026 report to Congress found the payments continued in a different form through 2025, totaling well over $100 million, one of the reasons the report gave for concluding current PA and PLO conduct is not compatible with recognizing Israel's right to live free from threats.

The bottom line

Mahmoud Abbas does not support Israel. He is the head of a rival governing authority whose stated diplomatic position includes an old, technical recognition of Israel's existence within a two state framework, and who belatedly condemned Hamas's October 7 attack in 2025. But his government's actions, including continued terrorist family payments, incitement in education, and repeated "genocide" accusations against Israel at the UN, were assessed by the U.S. State Department in 2026 as incompatible with genuine recognition of Israel's right to exist in peace. He is alive as of this writing.

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Last updated August 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.