Reading Dion Nissenbaum’s political eulogy for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (in Foreign Policy) reminded me of a long feature-story, written by then Haaretz‘s Palestinian-affairs analyst Danny Rubinstein, regarding Abbas’s prospects of success in 2004 — a time when he was commonly considered to be Yasser Arafat’s successor but had not become president yet.

From Nissenbaum’s “Is Abu Mazen Finished?”:

Last week was supposed to mark the end of Abbas’s four-year term. In some alternative universe, Abbas might have followed through with his long-forgotten pledge not to run for a second term. Instead, Abbas and his legal team have crafted a creative and questionable interpretation of ill-defined Palestinian laws to argue that the Palestinian president’s term does not end for another year.

Hamas challenged that decision and warned that Abbas could no longer be considered the legitimate Palestinian president as of Jan. 10, when his four-year term should have come to an end. But Hamas is a little busy these days trying to retain its hold on Gaza, so the political dispute has been pushed to the side for the foreseeable future.

That leaves Abbas in nominal charge of a caretaker West Bank government with a defunct parliament and a stagnating peace process. Abbas benefits from the fact that there is no obvious heir apparent willing and able to take over. That’s why the most recent polls showed that half the Palestinian public was unhappy with Abbas’s presidential term, but just about the same number say they would vote for him again instead of choosing Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

From Rubinstein’s “Lost In Transition,” published in 2004:

For many reasons, Abu Mazen is not the person who can deliver the goods in negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. He is not the person who will impose order, he will not gain mass support when he announces “painful” concessions and he will not be able to exercise authority over others in the leadership over time. He will be, at most, a short-term leader, convenient for a transition period, accepted by Israel and certainly also by the U.S. administration — until either a real leader is found or anarchy erupts. He is the default leader, the person one dates on the rebound, a “consolation lover” for a time after a hard separation, until true love appears.

Sometimes even a columnist’s predictions can come true.