Writing about contemporary Palestinian political performance is not
an easy task because, in the case of Palestine, internal and
external factors are inextricably intertwined. The fact that
Palestine was subjected to successive occupations throughout its
history makes it easy to pin all the mistakes made by the
Palestinians on external factors, where the Palestinians become the
victim, free of responsibility and, thus, unable to change reality.
Or it can lead to the opposite extreme, expressed in a large
measure of self-flagellation, where the victim becomes responsible
for all that has befallen it. Some critics go so far as to suggest
that the Palestinian social infrastructure suffers from a basic
dysfunction which makes it incapable of achieving any
successes.
Between these two diametrically opposed views, a third view
recognizes the impact of both the internal and external factors,
but without exculpating one at the expense of the other.
The Glass Half Full
The Palestinian popular movement and its contemporary political
leadership have five major characteristics:
1. "Sumud, or steadfastness." The Palestinian people
have remained steadfast in the face of all acts of subjugation and
dispersal, and in spite of all the tribulations and bitter
experiences through which they have passed, starting with the
Nakba of 1948, through the Naksa (setback) of 1967,
Black September in Jordan in 1970, the Lebanese Civil War in 1975
and the two Israeli invasions of Lebanon in 1978 and 1982, and the
subsequent expulsion from Lebanon of the Palestinian resistance
elements to non-confrontation states in the region. This was
followed by the siege of Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon in
1985 and the expulsion of the Palestinians from Kuwait in the early
1990s. In the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians have
been subjected to sieges and blockades since 2000, to the
separation of the West Bank from the Gaza Strip and the separation
of both of them from East Jerusalem, and to ethnic cleansing. In
addition, they have had to put up with the separation wall and the
Jewish settlement expansion, paralleled by their confinement in
restricted areas in the Palestinian towns and villages in the West
Bank and the Gaza Strip that have become virtual prisons.
The Palestinians have also succeeded in aborting projects to
resettle the refugees outside their homeland, or any attempts to
abandon the refugee problem. It is still very much alive in the
constant demands by the Palestinians of Israel who call for the
recognition of their right to repatriate their families from the
Diaspora, as do the Jews who have the right to "return" to Israel
from any part of the world.
2.The resilience of the Palestinian political movement,
which manages to constantly renew itself, its strategies and
tactics. This began with the movement's acceptance in the 1930s
of a proportionate Jewish representation in a Palestinian state -
which it had formerly rejected; followed by its compliance in 1948
with the Partition Plan, also previously rejected. This compliance
came in tandem with the setting up of the All-Palestine Government
in the Gaza Strip, with a view of extending it to the West Bank and
Jerusalem. It was not implemented due to the annexation of the West
Bank and East Jerusalem to Jordan at the demand of pro-Jordanian
personalities at the Jericho Conference in 1949.
The subsequent leadership - the Palestine Liberation Organization
(PLO) - also engaged in a permanent transformation of its
strategy, starting with the call to armed resistance as the sole
means of struggle. From 1973 onward, the organization shifted to
the concept of combining armed resistance with negotiations under
an international umbrella, which coincided with the beginning of
talks with "the Jewish force supportive of the right of the
Palestinian people to self-determination" as the Israeli peace
movement was called then. At the same time, the PLO declared
its acceptance of the "establishment of a national authority on any
liberated inch of Palestine," in place of its previous position of
"liberating every inch of Palestinian soil." At a later stage, the
PLO declared its unequivocal acceptance of a Palestinian
state alongside Israel and of a mutual recognition with Israel at
the 19th session of the Palestinian National Council in Algiers in
1988.
Based on this stand, the PLO participated in the Madrid
Conference in 1991 and, from 1993 onward, in the Oslo process.
This, together with later developments, point to a high degree of
flexibility on the part of the PLO, which was always
forthcoming in re-examining its positions and changing directions,
from the Cairo Agreement in 1994 to Taba in 1995, to the Hebron
Protocol in 1997 and other subsequent agreements - all of which
helped the PLO reposition itself on the national map.
The Palestinians witnessed a constant renewal of leadership,
beginning with the Muslim and Christian committees of the 1920s, to
the Higher Arab Commission in the 1930s - responsible for the
All-Palestine Government in 1948. This was followed by the
establishment of the PLO by Arab decree in 1964 and then the
formation by the PLO of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in
1994. Finally, another sign of the renaissance of the political
movement is exemplified by the growth of parties and movements with
Islamic ideologies that are vying with the PLO for the
leadership of the Palestinian people.
3.The success in gaining international legitimacy and
international recognition of the PLO, as well as of the
right of the Palestinian people to an independent state within the
borders of June 4, 1967. A large majority of the countries
around the world recognized this right and, in the end, Israel
began to inch towards this position because it came to the
realization that the tightest strategic guarantee for its security
would not be possible without the establishment of a Palestinian
state. This would check the Palestinian threat to Israel's
security, because the state would satisfy the aspirations of the
Palestinian people to self-determination, like all the peoples in
the world.
4.The three attributes of the contemporary Palestinian
political movement since its inception in the 1920s: participation,
pluralism and elections.
5.The creativeness on the part of the Palestinian
popular resistance movement in coming up with non-violent civil
resistance, including the 1936 Great Revolt and the famous strike
which lasted six months. Later, there came the first intifada
(1987-1994), and finally the recent protests against the separation
wall in the village of Bil'in and other places.
The Glass Half Empty
On the other hand, the Palestinian political condition has suffered
and is suffering from a deep and fundamental impasse, mainly due to
failures in several areas:
* The Failure to Reach the Goal of an Independent
State
Regardless of the profound impact of external factors on the
Palestinian case, the Palestinian political leadership - in
contrast to the majority of leaderships of national liberation
movements around the world - has, so far, failed to realize its
goal of establishing an independent Palestinian state.
In addition, there is the collapse of the Oslo process. The
Palestinian leadership bears a large share of the responsibility in
failing to bring the process to its logical conclusion - an
independent Palestinian state alongside the state of Israel, which
was supposed to take place in 1998, i.e., five years after the
signing of the Oslo agreement.
* The Failure to Bridge the National Palestinian and the Arab and
Muslim Dimensions
Throughout its history, the political movement of the Palestinian
people consisted of the triad: Palestinian, Arab and Muslim, with
close contacts with its Arab and Muslim neighbors. But since its
creation, the PLO has not managed to bridge the narrow
Palestinian national and the wider Arab contexts. This was the
cause of painful occurrences like Black September in Jordan in 1970
and several wars in Lebanon in 1968, 1969, 1974 and 1985. It was
also the cause of the Palestinians' expulsion from Kuwait following
the official Palestinian backing of Saddam Hussein after his
invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Added to this, one can mention the
successful infiltration of the internal Palestinian arena by
certain Arab regimes that have proceeded to establish factional
extensions for themselves, playing upon Palestinian factional
differences, as well as intra-factional disagreements.
Since the first intifada, the internal divergence between the two
Palestinian dimensions, the national and the Islamic, began to
grow. It started with the issuing of two different periodical
communiqués: one in the name of the united national leadership
representing the PLO factions, and another in the name of
the Islamic resistance movement Hamas. This eventually evolved into
the deep political rift between the two currents, culminating in
the separation between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip - on top of
the geographical separation due to the occupation measures.
To date, the Palestinian political movement has not succeeded in
producing a common-denominator program that would unite the
national and the Islamic sides - although, in theory and in
practice, this is feasible with the provision of a realistic common
political program and a program for democratization and internal
development.
* The Democracy Deficit
In spite of its distinguishing features of participation, pluralism
and elections, the Palestinian political movement has widely
resorted to mechanisms of appointments and selection instead of
election. In the past, this led to the autocratic grip by leaders
like Haj Amin al-Husseini prior to 1948 or Ahmad Shuqeiri during
the first years of the PLO; more recently, this trend has
been repeated with Yasser Arafat as the sole leader of the
Palestinian people from 1988 to his death in 2004.
During his time, Arafat linked the various Fateh wings directly to
him and kept all the factions in line with "clientelism" ties. When
he formed the PA, he virtually centralized every aspect of
government in his person - even after the 1996 elections, as though
the elections had not taken place. He marginalized the Palestinian
Legislative Council (PLC), and did away with the independence of
the judiciary. With the PA, he attempted to incorporate a part of
civil society NGOs and the economy, with the result that the PA
became actively involved in commerce and export, and set up
monopolies which it turned into an income-generating regime. What
helped in this respect was the fact that the tax returns
transferred from Israel to the PA were placed in a private bank
account managed personally by the president.
Very often, as it reached a historical crossroads, the Palestinian
leadership succumbed to a fear of popular participation. This was
especially the case with respect to participation in resistance
activities through non-violent methods and civil disobedience; the
leadership feared that such participation would lead to matters
getting out of its control. Its predilection for keeping a tight
hold on the reins of power was the factor that drove the leadership
to evade disseminating the model set by the village of Bil'in,
among others, in its non-violent resistance in confronting the
issue of the separation wall.
* Sterility of Resistance Methods
Sixty years on, Palestinian resistance methods seem to be split
between scattered non-violent methods, as seen in Bil'in, Ni'alin,
Um Salamuna and others; and haphazard, ineffective and unfocused
armed resistance. Moreover, its ethics are questionable, especially
with its rudimentary missiles directed primarily at Israeli
civilians instead of at the Israeli army.
The Palestinian resistance suffers from a lack of consensus on a
unified strategy - while one side accepts tahdi'a (ceasefire) with
Israel, another rejects it. A chaotic weapon-wielding situation
prevails, with some aimed at Israelis and others used in
in-fighting. Thus, the second intifada became militarized, and
armed clashes among Palestinian elements became a common
occurrence, culminating in an all-out armed confrontation in Gaza
in June 2006. This brings to mind the writings of Frantz Fanon,
Aimé Césaire, Albert Memmi and Paulo Freire, which refer
to the state people reach when subjected to occupation and they
start imitating the occupiers'/colonizers' methods in internecine
conflicts. They slide towards self-destruction because of pent-up
frustrations arising from an inadequacy in confronting the
occupying powers and liberating themselves. All this, naturally, is
a reflection of the leadership's failings in the national
liberation process.
* The Failure to Prepare the Nucleus of an Independent
State
The Palestinian leadership has not been capable of building the
nucleus of an independent state. Neither institution-building nor
the separation of powers has proved a success as claimed. Added to
that is the wide influence acquired by the security apparatuses,
which are not subject to monitoring and follow-up by the PLC as is
the case in democratic countries. Hamas followed in the footsteps
of its Fateh predecessors by instituting a security force in Gaza
that is also above scrutiny and accountability. Furthermore, the
leadership has failed to generate economic growth locally and
depended instead on extensive external financial assistance. The
Palestinian middle class offered itself to the highest bidder, as
Jamil Hilal suggests in his recent book The Palestinian Middle
Class.1 This includes large segments of Palestinian society,
especially since the cream of civil society, the media and
political and religious people belong to the middle class.
* Failure to Deal with the Israeli Public
After a short period - the 1970s and 1980s - of cordial relations
with Israeli society, in particular building relations with the
Israeli peace camp and working towards convergence and a common
stand regarding the contentious issues, since the 1990s, the
situation has reverted to the era of frosty relations. What led to
this were primarily the bombings inside Israel, springing from the
mistaken perception of the Palestinians that the Israeli public
knows only the language of force.
In his article "After the Incursion" (2002), Palestinian writer and
politician Azmi Bishara debunks this view, noting that as a
consequence of these bombings, the issue of security gained center
stage among Israeli public opinion, stoking their vindictive urges
that were translated during the second intifada into statements
like "Let the army win." Compassion for the Palestinians with their
daily suffering got blunted and any sense of solidarity
disappeared. The conflict was transformed in the Israelis' eyes
from a struggle between occupier and occupied into one predicated
on the "right of Israel to defend itself" against those who
"threaten its security."
Palestinian resistance in all its forms was branded as "terrorism,"
not only among Israelis, but in international public opinion at
large. The result was the widespread rallying of Israelis around
the "strong leader" who can defend the Israelis against "terrorism"
more efficiently - military roadblocks proliferated in the West
Bank and the separation wall was built with new and dire
consequences for the Palestinians.
The fact that the Palestinian media lacked the competence to
address the Israeli public did nothing to redress the distortion in
relationship. This was compounded by the scarcity of scholarly,
well-documented Palestinian publications that can present their
narrative in a convincing way to the Israeli side.
* The Failure to Mobilize Core Issues towards the Goal of an
Independent State
This failure relates especially to the issues of Jerusalem, the
refugees and Jewish settlements.
a. Jerusalem: The predominant rhetoric regarding the city remains
the traditional one, which says to postpone any development or
improvement in the conditions of the Palestinian Jerusalemites
until the occupation ends, thus causing further deterioration in
their living conditions. The need arises now for the elaboration of
a development scheme where the local community will be called upon
to work from the bottom up, while the prevalent method now works in
the interest of the traditional leadership that primarily wants to
dominate from the top down.
b. The refugees: There is a need for the activation of the right of
return and its transformation from a slogan into a working agenda
for negotiations, which would put the issue back on the solution
track, within the framework of a clear and realistic political
program. Accordingly, return per se will be to an independent
Palestinian state, with the return of a limited number of refugees
to Israel.
c. The settlements: The major absent factor in this case is a
persistent popular non-violent movement, working diligently in all
the West Bank localities, in order to turn the settlement project
into a failed program, paving the way for its demise.
* The Failure to Produce an Efficient Leadership
Infrastructure
A lot has been said about the dysfunction of the leadership of the
Palestinian people, represented by the PLO and then by the
PA, theoretically as a branch belonging to the PLO. In fact,
Arafat had merged the PLO and the PA without distinction
under his sole command. The PLO did not attempt to rectify
its shortcomings throughout its existence. It has always been beset
with divisions, fragmentations, inconsistent stances and decisions,
as well as the divergence between the sources of revolutionary
legitimacy and the sources of electoral legitimacy. This state of
affairs has been heightened by the fact that the organization has
lost its historic leadership - some were killed in Israeli
operations; others died a natural death.
Added to all this is a lackluster political program that has not
evolved to encompass a social developmental program, not to mention
its undemocratic structure and modus operandi. Several suggestions
have been offered for the reformation and restructuring of the
PLO on democratic bases, including the representation of all
the Palestinian people - nationalist and Islamist - but none of
them have been implemented.
Conclusion
Throughout their long trajectory, the Palestinian people and their
political movement have preserved their steadfastness and their
capacity for renewal and rebirth. But persevering along this path
and reaching the goal of an independent state has become, now more
than ever, contingent on reconciling the national, the Arab and the
Islamic dimensions through the re-formulation of the PLO
program. This should combine national, developmental, social,
economic and environmental issues and work towards
institution-building and the evolution of the negotiating strategy,
to combine what goes on in the negotiations room with non-violent
popular resistance as a pressurizing tactic - and not as an
alternative to negotiations. All this should aim at integrating
Palestinian societal infrastructure within the framework of a unity
that respects pluralism and is capable of looking with a critical
eye at its history and of drawing lessons for the future.
1 Hilal, Jamil. The Palestinian Middle Class. Ramallah:
Muaten - The Palestinian Institute for the Study of Democracy,
2006.
