Yuri CORTEZ/AFP/Getty Images

Catch-22: Now more than ever, Mahmoud Abbas is trapped between the Arab street and his backers in the West.

As the Israeli military was hitting the Hamas-led Gaza Strip with unprecedented “shock and awe”-style airstrikes two days after Christmas, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was flying to private meetings with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

He has been largely relegated to the sidelines ever since. With Israel and Hamas locked in a decisive military showdown, Abbas has basically been shunted aside while the battle deepens in Gaza. But the unfolding war is unlikely to change the fundamental dynamic that has stymied the latest efforts to broker a promising Israeli-Palestinian peace deal: Abbas’s political fortunes are inextricably tied to Hamas.

Abbas is in a bind. He can’t realistically negotiate a long-term deal with Israel without regaining control of the Gaza Strip. But he can’t regain control of Gaza unless Hamas capitulates to Israeli pressure.

Even if Hamas ceded control of Gaza, however, the hard-line Islamist movement is unlikely to abandon its long-standing commitment to destroying Israel. And, unless Hamas does so, Israel and the United States are certain to rebuff any reformulated Palestinian unity government that includes what they say is a terrorist organization.

And that leaves the 73-year-old Abbas in a surreal kind of diplomatic stasis. When he succeeded Yasir Arafat four years ago as president of the Palestinian Authority, Abbas was viewed in the West as a potential game-changer. He had criticized the senseless violence of the second Palestinian intifada as counterproductive. As prime minister, Abbas repeatedly bumped heads with Arafat over the Palestinian president’s dictatorial style and eventually resigned in 2003 after just seven months in the post.

So when Arafat died in 2005, Israel and the United States looked to Abbas to transform the Palestinian Authority into a corruption-free, compromising new partner in the peace process. But Abbas was understandably reluctant to succeed Arafat. Abu Mazen (as he is commonly known in the Arab world) has always been more diplomat than strongman, something that endeared him to the West, but cost him credibility with the rival Palestinian militant factions.

Abbas was never able to successfully mediate between the discredited Arafat loyalists (such as Jibril Rajoub, the veteran Arafat security advisor) who had led the secular Fatah party leaders back from exile, and the younger Palestinian reformists, who saw the older generation as corrupt and power-hungry. Those internal divisions doomed Fatah’s chances of retaining control of the Palestinian Authority when Hamas jumped into the political ring to challenge Abbas for political power in 2006.

Abbas has been presiding over an ever shrinking quasi government ever since. A broad international boycott of the new Hamas government gave way to a shaky Hamas-Fatah coalition in March 2007. The unity government failed to assuage Israel or the United States, which refused to accept a cabinet filled with Hamas members committed to destroying Israel.

Then, U.S-backed efforts to arm and train Palestinian forces loyal to Abbas backfired in June 2007 when Hamas militants seized control of the Gaza Strip in another humiliating setback for the Palestinian president. Left with two thirds of a country, Abbas created a questionable caretaker government dominated by pro-Western politicians who have been running the Palestinian Authority by executive decree.

Ironically, the decisive fissure proved to be something of a boon for Abu Mazen. The rift prompted Israel and the United States to set aside their reticence to provide significant support for Abbas, who was still viewed as a weak leader. Israel jumped into new peace talks with Abbas while the United States led renewed efforts to rebuild the fractured Palestinian security services.

Although peace talks have been hung up on the same sticking points that have prevented a stable breakthrough for years, the “West Bank first” strategy began to pay some dividends. Palestinian police brought surprising stability to some of the West Bank’s largest cities, and the frail economy began to show new signs of life. Abbas oversaw a crackdown on Hamas charities in the West Bank, while Israel continued to arrest and imprison scores of Hamas leaders who might have tried to challenge the Palestinian president on his home turf. The comparative calm in the West Bank might help explain why Palestinians there have been slow to rise up in massive numbers to protest the devastating Israeli military campaign in Gaza.

While Abbas’s popularity rebounded, Gaza always loomed in the background. Hamas’s refusal to abandon its stated pledge to destroy Israel made it impossible for Abbas to create a new unity government because that would have led to another breakdown in peace talks with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government.

But efforts to compel Hamas into moderating its stand by isolating the Gaza Strip failed to dislodge the Islamists from power. Hamas established an elaborate network of smuggler tunnels between Gaza and Egypt that allowed the group to circumvent Israel’s economic blockade.