National priorities and the self-destructive syndrome

At its 23rd session, held in Ramallah on April 30, 2018, the Palestinian National Council's work was essentially limited to restructuring and dismantling the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) bodies. This contradicted the national imperative to open the PLO's doors to all in order to advance the role of inclusive national institutions, in accordance with the decisions of the PNC Preparatory Committee meeting held in Beirut in January 2017, with the participation of the PNC President, members of the Executive Committee, and leaders of all factions, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad. This was a consecration of the requirements of political hegemony over national decision-making based on the principle of loyalty to the adopted policy and the exclusion of those who object to it, despite the clear failure of the policy, particularly with regard to the political settlement process and the relationship with Israel. All of this constituted a complete disregard for all previous decisions taken by the Central Council, which called on the Executive Committee to take a number of steps, the essence of which was to review this process and halt the path of failure that had begun to afflict the Palestinian struggle and its institutions with chronic damage, as if it had become an embodiment of self-erosion.

Thus, the last vestiges of the frontal stance expressed by the National Council were overthrown, despite the filth and burdens it was burdened with in the context of its floatation by inflating the number of loyalists in its membership, at the expense of the vital social and political forces. During that session, the previously innovated clause regarding the formation of the Central Council was used as an intermediate stage between the two sessions of the National Council to monitor and correct the work of the executive, to transfer all political and organizational powers of the National Council to the Central Council. In effect, this meant abolishing the National Council and reforming the Central Council with a majority of loyalist supporters, particularly with regard to the independent members who were added during that National Council session, bringing them in and "appointing" them directly and during the same session to the Central Council. This was, of course, in addition to the dissolution of the Palestinian Authority's Legislative Council and the abolition of all forms of oversight over its government, including popular and media oversight.

In the context of further emptiness of the organization of its front-line content, the work of the executive was transformed into a mere advisory body to the president. The executive accepted this situation and accepted this fait accompli without even a single protest about the transformation of the highest “front-line executive authority” into a mere advisory club and a bureau for political chatter.

This state of affairs of the PLO was not merely a coincidence or a result of the aging of its leadership, but rather a result of the failure of its policy and the insistence on pursuing a policy of appeasement in the context of the effort to engineer the Palestinian political system, by emptying it of the elements of strength that enabled it to rise through the years of revolution and the formation of the PLO, especially with regard to preserving national unity and its frontal character, and the nature of representation that it consolidated through revolutionary legitimacy over the decades that followed the founding of the PLO.

The erosion of the PLO's standing has not only become apparent internally, particularly in relation to the absence of its role and that of the Palestinian Authority in the political confrontation with the war of extermination, and the suspicious stubbornness in refusing to pursue anything that would strengthen its unifying leadership role in accordance with the consensus of the factions in Beijing, supported by a popular consensus that is the broadest since falling into the trap of division in 2007. Rather, it has reflected on the PLO's representative standing, when a number of Arab leaders met in Riyadh, and the Palestinian presence was absent, at a time when the sole topic of discussion was limited to the future of the Palestinian situation, particularly the war on the Gaza Strip, its reconstruction mechanisms, and the frameworks capable of doing so. This erosion was also evident when, instead of placing ways to end the division on the summit agenda, to pursue the Arab League's role in ending it as an existential need in accordance with the decisions of its foreign ministers in 2007, under the pretext that this is an internal Palestinian affair, the summit was dragged into issues related to the "ruling party" of the Palestinian Authority. Despite their importance, the Arab Summit is not the appropriate place to address them, as much as it is an expression of the erosion of its standing.

The highest national priority for our Palestinian people is, first and foremost, to stop the war of extermination against the Gaza Strip, and to mobilize all forces and energies to prevent the resumption of Israeli aggression on a large scale, while simultaneously confronting the war of annexation of the West Bank and the persistence of the Judaization of Jerusalem.
The question that arises is whether the call for a central council to create the position of vice president of the organization constitutes a priority for achieving this goal? Especially since the constitutional declaration regarding the President of the National Council filling the position of president in the event of a vacancy has addressed fears of a vacuum. Or is it another attempt to further ensure the continuity of hegemony and control, and perhaps deepen the dispute within the "national frameworks" that have prevailed in a pathological environment of competition over the so-called succession? This is a question of external origin, not an internal requirement, and has been circulating for more than a decade. It aims to spread illusions that serve no purpose other than to control the decision-making mechanism, thus consecrating monopoly on the one hand, and deepening internal conflicts on the other. This is at a time when what is required is a return to a common word that mobilizes all the energies of our people in defending their rights that are being liquidated. There is no alternative to this matter except by restoring the PLO as the national front that includes all forces on the basis of common denominators and a unified collective leadership, and forming a transitional consensus government until elections are held, which places at the top of its priorities strengthening the ability of our people to withstand and survive and protect its national destiny from the imminent danger of liquidation, and not further erosion in the context of the struggle over legitimacy that is being overthrown every day, which the Palestinian people reject, and on it lies the responsibility to correct it by restoring the PLO and its role in leading the national liberation struggle.