Salaam Fayyad Resigns: Prime Minister Of Palestine Steps Down

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad resigned on Saturday, leaving the Palestinians without one of their most moderate and well-respected voices just as the U.S. is launching a new push for Mideast peace.

A statement from the official Palestinian news agency Wafa said President Mahmoud Abbas met with Fayyad late in the day and accepted his resignation, thanking him for his service. According to the statement, Abbas asked Fayyad to continue to serve in his post until Abbas forms a new government.

Palestine’s Man in the Middle

Last night, a few hours after the United Nations General Assembly voted to give Palestine nonmember observer status in the international body—a move that the Times described as an “upgrade”—the Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, flew coach from New York to Washington, D.C., in order to see a movie about himself.

The film, an Israeli-directed documentary called “State 194,” is almost dreamily hopeful—capable, at times, of giving you the sense that this endless, corrosive, cruel, and seemingly intractable conflict is in its final stages. “If you are a Palestinian you have no choice but to be optimistic,” Fayyad says on camera. At another point, he says, “We are at the final turn to the homestretch—the homestretch to freedom.”