He met with the father-in-law of Donald J. Trump’s daughter Tiffany. He wrote a letter to Mr. Trump condemning the assassination attempt against him. And he quickly congratulated Mr. Trump on his presidential victory.
These overtures by Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, are part of a broad strategy to rehabilitate his once adversarial relationship with Mr. Trump as Palestinians reckon with an incoming president who expressed near unreserved backing for Israel in his first term.
Even Hamas, the armed group that led the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that ignited the Gaza war and a bitter rival of the Palestinian Authority, has adopted a more cautious tone toward Mr. Trump. Some Palestinians in Gaza, who have endured a devastating Israeli bombardment, expressed hope that Mr. Trump could end the war, while others said they were skeptical.
As president, Mr. Trump advanced policies that infuriated the Palestinian Authority, which has limited autonomy over parts of the West Bank under Israeli occupation. He recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, cut off aid to the U.N. agency that supports Palestinian refugees, presented a peace plan that favored Israel and helped hammer out agreements between Israel and Arab states that sidestepped Palestinian ambitions to achieve independence.
Incensed, Mr. Abbas barred senior Palestinian officials from contact with people in the Trump administration.
But Mr. Trump has publicly called for the war in Gaza to stop. Mr. Abbas appears to be reversing course, hoping to influence the president-elect’s views on the conflict and cease-fire talks.
Mr. Abbas — and President Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel — were among the first to congratulate Mr. Trump on his election victory. In his letter, Mr. Abbas said that Palestinian officials “look forward to engaging with you to work toward peace, security, and prosperity for our region,” according to a copy obtained by The New York Times.
On Friday, Mr. Abbas spoke to Mr. Trump by phone, and the two discussed the possibility of meeting in the near future, according to Ziad Abu Amr, a close confidant of Mr. Abbas and a senior Palestinian official.
But Mr. Abbas’s efforts to reach out to Mr. Trump started well before the election. Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law, Massad Boulos, a Lebanese-American businessman who has served as an unofficial emissary of the Trump campaign to Arab American voters, helped Mr. Abbas communicate with Mr. Trump in recent months, as has Bishara Bahbah, a Palestinian American backer of Mr. Trump, according to people involved in the effort.
Mr. Abbas met Mr. Boulos on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in September in New York. While Palestinian officials described the meeting as a part of an outreach effort to Mr. Trump, Mr. Boulos told the The Times it was “purely personal” and said that he didn’t inform Mr. Trump about the meeting before or after.
Mr. Abu Amr, who attended the meeting, said Mr. Boulos conveyed Mr. Trump’s desire to end wars around the world, including in the Gaza Strip.
Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, did not respond to questions about the meeting. But when asked about Mr. Boulos’s role in October, she said the campaign was grateful for his “very effective outreach” to Arab Americans.
In addition, Mr. Boulos and Mr. Bahbah said they helped facilitate the delivery of a letter from Mr. Abbas to Mr. Trump in July condemning an assassination attempt against him, which Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social. In the letter, Mr. Abbas wished Mr. Trump “strength and safety” and said assassination attempts were “despicable acts.” Mr. Trump replied that Mr. Abbas’s letter was “so nice” and declared “everything will be good.”
“We want to maintain a good working relationship because no one can ignore the role the U.S. can play in resolving the conflict,” Mr. Abu Amr said.
Even under the Biden administration, Mr. Abbas has confronted a host of challenges, including international demands for overhauls to the Palestinian Authority that could help it play a role in the Gaza Strip. And with no end in sight so far to the war, Mr. Netanyahu’s government — the most right wing in Israel’s history — has frequently taken hostile positions against the Authority.
The Biden administration has called for a Palestinian state, which Mr. Netanyahu has rejected.
At the September meeting with Mr. Boulos, Mr. Abbas said he was ready to make peace with Israel on the basis of a two-state solution and expressed willingness to host international observers in a future Palestinian state to ensure Israel’s security, Mr. Bahbah said.
The Palestinian leader also said that there would be “no fighting, no incursions, and no attacks whatsoever” from a future Palestinian state, Mr. Bahbah said. Mr. Abbas has long vowed opposition to violence and has suggested that an American-led NATO force could patrol a future Palestinian state.
Despite Mr. Abbas’s charm offensive, Mr. Trump’s history of supporting Israel was not lost on Palestinian officials.
“When we hear Trump say he wants peace, we take that to heart, but peace has to be based on Palestinian independence and self-determination,” said Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to Britain who served as the representative in Washington at the beginning of the last Trump administration. If Mr. Trump tries to “push us around, we can still shout ‘no.’”
While efforts to court Mr. Trump could backfire, the Palestinian leadership lacks options other than trying to engage with the president-elect and Arab and European allies who can reinforce its positions with him, analysts said.
“Do they have another choice? Objectively, I don’t believe they do,” said Ibrahim Dalalsha, the director of the Horizon Center, a Palestinian political research group. ”Should they turn to international agencies? That hasn’t worked and it won’t work.”
“They only have one option,” he said.
For its part, Hamas, which has been outspoken in its criticism of the Biden administration, appeared to carefully calibrate its reaction to Mr. Trump’s victory. “Our stance on the new American administration will depend on its positions and practical policy toward the Palestinian people and its legitimate rights,” it said on Wednesday.
Palestinians in Gaza have borne the brunt of Israel’s onslaught, and some said they hoped Mr. Trump could end the war in Gaza.
“I hope Trump steps in as a savior to bring some order to the turmoil caused by ongoing conflicts involving Iran with its proxies and Israel,” said Muhanned al-Farra, who once owned a car parts shop and is now sheltering in Khan Younis with his family. “I hope his election will bring positive change to this war-torn city.”
Others were more pessimistic.
“The U.S. has always sided with the occupying state of Israel,” said Muhanned Shaath, a youth and community activist in Gaza City, “so I doubt much will change, especially if Trump keeps pushing his old plans.”
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