"The Palestinian political class as an obstacle to the revival of the national situation"

Some friends criticize me for the recent increase in my writings about the internal Palestinian situation and my criticism of the leadership of the Palestinian Authority and the resistance, especially the Hamas movement. In their view, the seriousness of the stage requires moving beyond internal differences and self-flagellation and emphasizing instead national unity. While I respect this opinion, there are some things that need to be clarified.

The writer can approach the Palestinian or Arab reality with an ambiguous speech that is complimentary of the regimes and the political class in order to gain everyone’s approval and, through their approval, achieve personal interests or at least avoid their evil. However, this approach makes the writer lose his credibility because he becomes an accomplice in misleading the masses and contributes to the sanctification and mastery of the rulers and members of the political class on the people.

In a situation such as the current Palestinian political situation, when you write or speak rationally and realistically, criticizing the errors in the political system and in the behavior of parties, away from slogans, ideologies, and narrow partisan calculations, you will find many people who appreciate what you write and accept the criticism, but at the same time you will open the fire of hell against yourself from some components. The political class with all its spectrums, authority and opposition, right and left, Islamists and secularists, and those in their orbit of intellectuals and writers, when you expose their hypocrisy and lies and your criticism threatens their interests and positions.

Therefore, judging the credibility and objectivity of any writer, intellectual, or political thinker comes by going beyond the box of compliments and finding excuses for the rulers and the political class, even under the justification that the stage requires uniting efforts in confronting an enemy that threatens our national existence, or that the political class raises slogans of resistance and practices them, or that it represents the people and is at the head of the national project, and it may not be insulted in front of the world.

The existential threat to the national cause, with the war of annihilation waged by the enemy in Gaza and continuing in the West Bank, constitutes the greatest incentive to demand a change in a political class that has proven its failure for decades to stop this threat or even agree on a national strategy to confront it.

Hence my sharp criticism of the political class. If the people and their living and national forces within the parties, thinkers and intellectuals do not take the initiative to reform the political system, external parties will create our leadership and political system for us according to their agenda and interests in the region, and the process of creating a leadership from the Foreign Ministry is already underway.

Our harsh criticism of the political class and the demand for change and reform by returning to the people does not mean that there are no differences between the political class in Hamas and the political class in the PLO, but the crisis and manifestations of failure pervade everyone, and even if our criticism is limited to the Hamas movement, this does not mean that it is possible to bet on the organization and the movement. Fatah and the Authority are in their current situation to get out of the crisis and save the national liberation project.

Based on this and with my belief that the seriousness of external challenges requires unifying positions and efforts, searching for points of convergence and maximizing them, working on a national strategy that combines the right to resist occupation with political and diplomatic action, and applying the theory that says to overcome internal differences in the event of a fateful danger threatening the nation, which is the theory of the thinker. Frenchman Henri Lefebvre, which he extracted from the experience of the French resistance to the Nazi occupation in World War II. We have previously touched on the subject in several articles, including an article I published on September 23, 2018, titled (Overcoming internal differences to confront the common enemy), which was published in more than one newspaper and website... However, what we noticed is that the existential threat to our cause, the land and the people, did not lead to the unity of the political system. Rather, internal disputes increased, division occurred, the interference of external parties in our internal affairs increased, the internal immunity of society declined, and the interest of the parties became more important than the national interest. Even the recent war of genocide did not destroy the political system. From stagnation or pushing to overcome internal disputes, they even worsened until the absurd reconciliation dialogues reached a dead end and were replaced by negotiations led by Hamas alone regarding Gaza only and its future after the war! .

At that time, I became afraid that the sacrifices of the people, about 100,000 martyrs and missing persons, their weakness in terms of the wounded and prisoners, the growing global public support for our national cause, and the Palestinian narrative gaining a significant following of supporters and supporters... might be in vain if the political system continued as it was and the political class continued to rage and continue. The absence of a comprehensive national incubator, and all writings that praise the resistance and its heroism or praise the organization and its president will be of no use.

Today, after the war on Gaza and the attempt to liquidate the national story, it can be said that the way to confront the liquidation plan passes through changing the ruling political class in the West Bank and Gaza, but seeking to achieve reconciliation now between the parties - such as the absurd and incomprehensible attempt made by China to raise the censure - will only lead to legitimize a failed political class, share the spoils, and manage the division between the two authorities, and even at this level they failed, and each party is still entrenched in its position and waiting for the defeat and collapse of the second party to claim that it was right.

For example, if we remain silent about the internal situation and continue to praise and glorify the leadership, the parties, and the heroism of the resistance fighters, can the current political class, divided against itself and in conflict with each other, achieve any victory or protect the people from a war of extermination? If the time is not appropriate to criticize and demand reviews of all parties and the political class, then when will the appropriate time be when the people have been patient with the parties for more than thirty years to achieve reconciliation and achieve national unity to no avail? Also, if so far there is no agreement on the future of Gaza after the war, then what if the American veto was overridden and the world recognized the Palestinian state, then what is the next step? Will a state be established in the West Bank and Gaza, which Hamas insists on continuing to control? Will Hamas delegate the PLO to complete the practical measures to implement this achievement? Or do you give credit to her and her resistance? Can the National Authority, in its current state, extend its authority to Gaza and embody state sovereignty over it? What we fear is that the division will spoil this achievement, even if it is moral and political, and there will be a struggle over who will lead the subsequent negotiation process as a representative of the people, and a struggle over who will rule this nascent state.

Finally, many in the Palestinian political class have become to a degree of political insolence that provokes every person with a living conscience because the harms of their practices are not limited to corruption and corruption, but go beyond that to affect the highest national interests and because their presence and continuation in power constitutes an insult and contempt for the great Palestinian people, and we are not exaggerating when we say The current Palestinian political class is the worst in contemporary Palestinian history.