I would like to begin by thanking Dr. Mohsen Saleh and the Al-Zaytouna Centre for holding this important seminar at this difficult time, and for their perseverance in organizing seminars that address pivotal issues.
Below is the intervention I delivered at the seminar, which I was unable to present in full due to the limited time available.
I do not believe there is any serious disagreement over the fact that there is a profound Palestinian crisis. The disagreement, however, concerns its roots and causes, and, more importantly, how to overcome it.
Accurately diagnosing the crisis is the first step toward overcoming it. We are not facing a single crisis, but rather an accumulation of unresolved crises that have become interconnected and intertwined: a crisis of the national project, with an urgent need to redefine the national project and how to implement it, following the retreat from the program of liberation and return, and even from the program of self-determination and statehood, to the two-state solution, then to a program focused on preserving the Palestinian Authority, the leadership and the factions, and subsequently to the roadmap for implementing the Trump initiative and the colonial trusteeship council referred to as the “Peace Council.” There is also a crisis of leadership, a crisis of vision, a crisis of structure, a crisis of strategies and forms of struggle, and an institutional crisis after institutions were emptied of their substance, the PLO was frozen, and it suffered from unilateralism and exclusion, ultimately coming under the control of one individual and a group of advisers. As serious as the division is, it is not the root of the crisis; rather, it is one of its most prominent symptoms and consequences.
A Crisis of Leadership and Program Before It Is a Crisis of Division
The Palestinian political elite, and the leadership in particular, have become outdated, weakened, rigid, and corrupt, while the circumstances in which this leadership and elite emerged have changed. Yet their way of thinking and working did not change accordingly to reflect the major transformations that had taken place. As a result, different strategies reached a dead end.
The leadership chose to continue pursuing negotiations despite their disastrous results and despite the absence of negotiations themselves. It chose to make concessions as a means of demonstrating its credibility, gaining recognition, and convincing Israel and the international community that Palestinians deserved a state.
When this strategy repeatedly reached a dead end, no fundamental review of it was undertaken. Instead, there was a gradual shift toward ever greater pragmatism, until pragmatism was transformed from a means of understanding and dealing with reality into a constraint preventing its transformation. This was pragmatism without political imagination, national ambition, or a strategy of struggle capable of altering the balance of power, gradually leading to submission and, ultimately, to a single outcome: surrender.
Another camp, meanwhile, chose to combine the interim program as a program of opposition with the strategic program, and to combine different forms of struggle. The interim gradually became strategic, leading to an attempt to combine the Palestinian Authority with resistance without breaking free from the constraints of the Oslo Accords, which amounted to a form of adaptation to them. This gradually shifted toward focusing on the Authority as a means of protecting the resistance.
After this policy failed to provide an exit, despite Hamas’s willingness to relinquish control of the Gaza Strip in exchange for recognition of its role and preservation of the resistance, and despite its willingness to adopt popular resistance, while the siege and military aggression continued, it chose to go all the way, carrying out the Al-Aqsa Flood operation and moving to the opposite extreme of the problem. This reflected a kind of excessive political imagination detached from reality: the belief that armed struggle, without a clear political vision, without an integrated strategy suited to the balance of power, without national unity, and in an unfavorable regional and international environment, could by itself accomplish miracles.
Thus, Palestinians found themselves facing two seemingly contradictory choices that nevertheless converged in their outcome:
Negotiations without power, strategy, or a binding frame of reference, ending in an authority that administers the population under occupation, without negotiations and without a political horizon.
In contrast:
Resistance without a political vision, an integrated strategy, or national unity, ending with the Gaza Strip placed under colonial tutelage, without resistance and without a political horizon, while the West Bank has become completely exposed.
This is not a tactical problem. It is a crisis in political thinking itself and in political practice itself.
Al-Aqsa Flood: An Exceptional Achievement and a Catastrophic Outcome
It was in this context that the Al-Aqsa Flood initiative emerged.
It cannot be denied that it was a reaction to the crimes committed by the occupying state, nor can one deny the military, intelligence, organizational and heroic capabilities it demonstrated, the earthquake it caused within Israel, or the fact that it shattered the illusion that Israel’s absolute superiority made it impervious to infiltration and defeat.
But military achievement is one thing, while political and strategic calculation is another.
As appears from the results to date, the initiative was not based on a sufficiently accurate assessment of the balance of power, nor of Israeli, Palestinian, Arab, Islamic, and international reactions, nor of Israel’s ability to exploit the event to pursue objectives extending beyond an immediate military response.
It indeed provided an opportunity for the most extremist Israeli government, backed by the most pro-Israel US administration, to wage a sweeping genocidal war, expand the project of displacement, annexation, and settlement, and advance plans to liquidate the Palestinian cause into more dangerous stages and dimensions.
Here lies the paradox: what was an earthquake for Israel became, because of the imbalance of power and the absence of sufficient political and strategic calculations, a Palestinian catastrophe with existential dimensions.
This does not negate the importance of the event or its long-term repercussions. But it does require distinguishing between heroism and planning, and between the ability to strike an opponent and the ability to achieve strategic political objectives.
Why Has No Alternative Emerged?
The greatest problem is that the Palestinian forces opposed to the official approach, due to their inability and their lack of vision, initiative, and the necessary will, have failed to formulate a national alternative. Instead, they competed to endorse holding elections under occupation and division, mistakenly believing that elections were the solution, a means of change, or an entry point to it.
This is taking place despite, and under, the circumstances of a genocidal war, displacement, annexation, apartheid, and the expansion of settlements, as well as the Israeli government’s determination to continue implementing the “Decisive Plan,” which is the official name for the effort to liquidate the Palestinian cause from its roots and across all its dimensions.
The failure to formulate an alternative to the existing order, theoretically and practically, particularly following the failure and obstruction of various reconciliation and unity initiatives, and the cancellation of the elections scheduled for 2021, should have led to the emergence of a broad national front offering an alternative vision, alternative strategies, and alternative practices. It should not have been limited to rejecting the leadership and the Authority while waiting for their next steps and initiatives.
The forces, if they were genuinely distinct and clear in their position, should have said that monopolizing institutions and decision-making, continuing the same political approach despite its disastrous consequences, refusing to turn to the people through elections for more than twenty years, and rejecting reconciliation and unity efforts, from the Cairo Agreement to the Beijing Declaration, all require real change in the political system and among all parties, rather than merely changing individuals.
Change does not come about by itself. It requires review, proposing an alternative, and creating facts on the ground based on the national project and on formulating how it can be implemented. It requires opening the door to everyone who agrees with its substance, which must preserve the historical narrative, rights, objectives, and fundamental forms of struggle. It must be based on the principle of the unity of the cause, the people, the land, and the institutions, without ignoring political programs capable of influencing the current situation and achieving the maximum possible at every stage, programs that take into account the circumstances, priorities, and characteristics distinguishing Palestinian communities living under very different political systems, laws, and societies.
But this alternative did not emerge. Consequently, the opposition factions and forces found no path other than participating in and following the momentum of elections, convincing themselves, and using this to conceal their own inability, that elections were a means of change, despite everyone recognizing that these are elections for a functional, constrained self-government authority bound by obligations. Therefore, if elections are not postponed and do not produce the desired outcome, their results can be confiscated through fraud, by challenging the winners, or through the intervention of the occupation forces themselves.
This would merely entrench the existing reality and the Authority that administers the population under occupation, while preparing to endorse whatever solutions regional and international actors may arrive at once their other concerns have subsided. These solutions will not be appropriate for Palestinians; at best, they will be based on the Trump deal. The premises point toward the results, and the outcome reflects the path: the occupation is deepening, settlements are expanding, annexation is advancing, and the role of the PLO, the factions, and the two authorities is declining significantly, while forms of trusteeship and alternative arrangements are advancing forcefully, to the extent permitted by the occupation.
The various movements, conferences, and initiatives have also failed to fill the vacuum and provide an alternative because they did not first focus on formulating and defining the national project, at the heart of which lies the National Charter. Nor did they define the objectives of the current stage and how they could be achieved. They failed to give sufficient attention to livelihood, economic, and social issues and to the foundations of resilience and survival.
Instead, positions varied and oscillated between those who wanted to reform the PLO from within and rebuild its institutions, with the national project and political program to be formulated after joining it; those who wanted to return to the original principles and fundamentals, strip the PLO of its legitimacy, overthrow it, and build an alternative; and the continuing tension between these two approaches.
Thus, to varying degrees, everyone found themselves, because no alternative existed, clinging to the coattails of elections for the self-government authority, as though elections could pull the political system out of its crisis and change the functions and obligations of the self-government authority. Yet, as political scientist and renowned economist Mushtaq Khan puts it: “If it were possible to hold free and fair elections, embody genuine democracy, and achieve sustainable development under occupation, why would we demand an end to the occupation?”
Lessons from Elections Under Occupation
What confirms our argument is the experience of holding elections under occupation:
The 1976 municipal elections were overturned by the occupation because their results conflicted with its objectives. The occupation suppressed them by killing, removing, and attempting to deport their leaders, and by appointing municipal councils in their place.
The 1996 elections gave popular legitimacy to the Palestinian self-government authority and the Oslo process, but they did not change the nature, obligations, or function of the Authority, nor did they alter the balance of power.
The 2006 elections had their results confiscated, the government was besieged, it was boycotted, and dozens of members of parliament and several ministers were arrested when the elections produced results that were unacceptable to the occupation, Washington, the international community, and the Palestinian Authority leadership.
The 2021 elections were cancelled. This demonstrates that elections are governed by calculations involving the leadership, the occupation, internal and external balances, and what is being planned for Palestine at the regional and international levels, particularly by the United States.
Since the situation is now far worse than it was before, the consequences of the decision to hold or not hold elections will be worse than those of previous elections unless the prevailing course pursued by both the leadership and the opposition is changed, and unless all national and democratic forces formulate a vision that includes conditions for holding elections, so that efforts can be made to change their context, exclusionary conditions, and objectives.
Elections Under Occupation... Where Are They Taking Us?
The problem is not with elections in principle. On the contrary, elections are necessary to renew legitimacy and restore the people to their position as the source of authority. But as long as Palestine remains under occupation, there must be an agreed-upon national project and social contract within which elections take place, and the elections must be free and fair and their results respected.
But the fundamental questions are: Elections for what? For which political system? Under what conditions? And toward what objective?
Do we want elections to confront plans to liquidate the Palestinian cause, including the Trump roadmap; provide the conditions necessary for the resilience and survival of Palestinians on their land; rebuild the Palestinian political system on national and consensual democratic foundations; unify institutions; restore the national project to its proper place; renew legitimacy; open the way toward ending the division; and rebuild and revive the PLO?
Or do we want elections to facilitate the implementation of the Trump plan?
Or do we want elections to reproduce the self-government authority, improve the administration of the population under occupation, preserve the existing leadership and institutions, and implement the Trump plan?
If elections are used to reproduce the same reality, they will not be a way out of the crisis. Rather, they will become a tool for re-legitimizing it.
More dangerously, the occupation will not allow free Palestinian elections whose results it is prepared to respect. It will only allow them if, ultimately, they are consistent with its interests and with the American and Israeli vision of a solution. And if they are held and produce undesirable results, their outcomes will be confiscated.
Herein lies the danger of the plans and objectives being advanced under various headings, foremost among them the Trump map; abandoning and retrospectively condemning the resistance; transforming resistance factions into political parties; abandoning even the demand for self-determination and national independence; separating the national question from the democratic question; limiting demands to bread, medicine, housing, work, and security; treating the Palestinian people as dispersed individuals rather than as a people; and preparing to accept whatever is put forward so that a solution aimed at liquidating the Palestinian cause can serve as a bridge toward normalization and the construction of a new Middle East.
This leaves no genuine place for Palestinian national rights in their historical form, nor for Palestinians as a people possessing the right to self-determination, except within conditions and dictates that redefine the Palestinian cause from its foundations.
Within this conception, there is no place for the Authority or the PLO except after they have been reshaped according to external conditions. Nor is there a place for the factions except after their weapons have been removed and their role redefined, transforming them from components of a national liberation movement into political movements focused on services and livelihood issues, and on Palestinians as individuals rather than as a people.
At its core, this means dismantling the unity of the cause, the land, the people, and the institutions; weakening the historical narrative; and retreating from the right of return and from various national rights.
What Is Required: Change Course
Therefore, overcoming the Palestinian crisis cannot be achieved by changing a few individuals, holding limited elections, redistributing positions within existing institutions, or returning to the dialogues and agreements of the past that were never implemented and contributed to bringing us to our current situation.
What is required is the re-establishment of the Palestinian political system on a new national and consensual democratic foundation and through genuine partnership.
We need a realistic, ambitious, and comprehensive national vision that seeks to change reality using the available capabilities and forms of action; preserves pluralism and diversity; and gives rise to a unified national leadership, a clear political program, and multiple, gradual strategies combining politics, popular resistance, diplomacy, international law, and Arab and international action.
It must deal with the balance of power as it exists, but with the aim of changing it rather than surrendering to it. This should be pursued through rebuilding and transforming the PLO, the Authority, and existing institutions, but without waiting indefinitely for that to happen. Instead, work should begin immediately to build the alternative from the bottom up: creating facts, launching initiatives, building partnerships and movements, and presenting models across different fields and sectors.
This should not, however, be accompanied by a nihilistic position toward any efforts at unity from above. Any presumed national rescue must agree on its fundamental requirements, so that no one is excluded. Those who do not wish to participate exclude themselves.
We also need to redefine and change the function and position of the Palestinian Authority, so that it becomes a tool serving the national program rather than an end in itself, and so that preserving the Authority does not become a goal that takes precedence over the national cause.
We also need to rebuild the PLO on democratic and representative foundations. If this proves impossible, we should consider forming a new national constituent assembly tasked with drafting a new Palestinian political and social contract.
This contract should revive and reformulate the PLO Charter in a manner consistent with accumulated experience, new developments, and new realities, without abandoning national rights, national objectives, or the historical narrative, and without turning any political stage or necessary interim program into the ultimate ceiling of national aspirations.
The national program should define what we want; the strategy should define how we move toward it; and the stage we are in should define what can be achieved now, without allowing present possibilities to become a substitute for rights and objectives.
We Cannot Escape the Crisis Using the Tools That Created It
In conclusion, the Palestinian crisis cannot be resolved by managing the crisis more effectively, nor by reproducing the institutions, leadership, and policies that created it.
Nor can we escape the crisis by using the same tools that brought us to it while continuing to exhaust attempts until the very last moment.
We need a courageous national review that acknowledges mistakes without denying sacrifices, heroism, and achievements, and that redefines the relationship between the objective and the stage, between resistance and politics, between authority and liberation, and between pragmatism and ambition.
The entry point is to return the people to their natural position as the source of legitimacy; restore national unity as a source of strength; and rebuild institutions as tools serving the cause rather than ends in themselves.
The real choice is not between an authority without sovereignty and resistance without strategy, nor between pragmatism and surrender or resistance and adventurism.
The real choice is to build
a national project that brings together pragmatism and ambition, politics and power, resistance and vision, the interim and the strategic, democracy and national unity.
Without this, elections will remain merely an attempt to renew the legitimacy of a crisis-ridden system; divisions will continue to reproduce themselves even if the faces change; and the Palestinian cause will remain vulnerable to being redefined from the outside.
True escape from the crisis begins when Palestinians recognize that what is required is not to manage the division and the crisis, but rather to rebuild the national movement and political system on new foundations, restoring the people to their role, unity to the cause, purpose to the struggle, function to the institutions, and possibility to the future.