Reforming the PLO or Rebuilding the Palestinian National Movement?

It seems that most of the decisions under the slogan of “reforming the political system” since the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority came as a result of external pressures, most of them American, and did not result from a national or institutional review of general performance, nor from internal pressures, whether popular or elite. The history of the contemporary Palestinian people has been closely linked to individuals rather than institutions, starting with Hajj Amin al-Husseini, passing through Ahmed al-Shuqairi, then the martyr Yasser Arafat, and up to President Mahmoud Abbas, to the point of almost identifying between the person and the institution. This requires studying the underlying reasons behind the Palestinian national movement’s reluctance since its founding to adhere to the institutional approach, despite its dire need for it, especially given the Zionist movement’s distinction in building institutions and relying on strategic thinking since its inception. Since its early beginnings, the Zionist movement has relied on a number of institutions that achieve its fixed foundation of “more land for the Jews, and fewer Arabs on it,” such as the World Zionist Organization in 1897, the Jewish National Fund in 1901, and the Jewish Colonial Trust Fund in Palestine 1924, and the Jewish Agency 1929. It also established Hadassah Hospital in 1918, and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1925. It built kibbutzim, established research centers, security agencies, and armed gangs years before the establishment of Israel, to serve its project. This, along with other issues, contributed to the progress of the Zionist colonial expansionist project and its successive achievements. At a time when the Zionist movement was achieving steady progress, starting with the construction of its first colonies in the coastal plain region in 1878, through the Balfour Declaration, to the establishment of the Zionist entity on the land of Palestine, the Palestinian national movement was drowning in its internal conflicts between opposition and loyalty, Nashashibis and Husseinis, those who wear the keffiyeh, and their opponents who wear the tarboosh, under the name of the “Arab” and “National” parties at that time, while the land was being taken from under the feet of its original owners.

To begin with, I say "American demands," because the European Union has not yet succeeded in freeing itself from American hegemony and its total monopoly over managing the settlement process, as well as its provision of military, financial, and political cover for the genocide of our people in the Gaza Strip. The United States and Germany supply 99% of the Israeli weapons that kill our children, and 49 of the 87 vetoes issued by the United States since 1945 have been to protect Israel from resolutions that criticize it or call for action against it.

Therefore, the European demands for reform, which accompanied the establishment of the emerging authority, or those linked to the recent aid package, lack the ability to achieve a political breakthrough, given the complexities of establishing foreign policy within the Union, which requires consensus, which is considered impossible in light of the growth of right-wing and populist forces in Europe and the sharp divisions they have produced within the Union’s countries. Therefore, while describing the European Union as an economic giant has some degree of accuracy, describing it as a political dwarf is not far from the truth, especially in issues related to the Middle East and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, in which interests are intertwined with the burden of the European past, distorted religious interpretations, and European leaders’ fear of being labeled anti-Semites, which would end their political careers, at the expense of the historical right of indigenous peoples to freedom and justice. Despite all the dust that Europe causes in the region, it is similar to that generated by a helicopter, which makes noise and dust during its superficial flight, without delving into the true roots of the conflict or making an impact. A concrete step towards a political approach based on the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

While Arab regimes believe their interests transcend the morality of Palestinian rights, they are either mired in internal conflicts, as is the case in Libya, Sudan, Lebanon, and Iraq, or are complacent about American hegemony. Consequently, whatever tune we hear related to the Palestinian issue, whether played on an Arab or European string, does not go beyond the American score and composition.

The first demands for “reform” during the Al-Aqsa Intifada at the beginning of this century aimed to remove the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat from the political scene. These demands culminated in statements by US President George W. Bush on the necessity of creating a new Palestinian leadership that did not support “terrorism.” This was followed by Arab and European pressures that led to the martyrdom of President Arafat alone in his besieged office in the Muqata’a. This was followed by what we witnessed after Hamas’s success in the 2006 legislative elections, which the US administration pressured to hold and then rejected. This led to a coup for which the United States and Israel provided all the elements of permanence and continuity, including issuing instructions to Qatar to publicly fund it via Lod Airport until the morning of October 7. The pressures we are experiencing today aim to reshape the political system by raising the banner of “reform” once again, which this time may expand to include radical changes in school curricula, media discourse, and the disbursement of dues to martyrs, prisoners, and the wounded, as well as the rebuilding of the Palestinian security, military, and police institutions. By marginalizing the role of the poor and middle classes in the public sphere, in favor of a new bourgeois minority whose interests are linked to the occupation and who work—whether intentionally or unintentionally—to serve its colonial settlement project, in the hope of achieving personal gains or survival.

The Palestinian Authority's reform movement is making a comeback, this time played by Europeans and Arabs, while being led by the US administration, which is now adopting a new approach based on disregarding direct engagement with the Palestinian leadership, embracing the narrative of the religious Zionist right in Israel, and bypassing the proposal of a new initiative, as Trump did during his first term in what he called the "Deal of the Century" or the "Abrahamic Joint Comprehensive Plan." This approach is aimed at implementing its visions in the region, independent of the Palestinian position, in light of the ramifications of events in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, which the US administration and Israel see as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to resolve the conflict rather than manage it.

Initiatives that raise the slogan of reform or re-aligning the general national path in Palestine are crowding in, whether through the demand to restore the prestige of the Palestine Liberation Organization by rebuilding it on solid democratic foundations, as stated in the final statement of the Palestinian National Conference held in Qatar last February, or reforming the Palestinian National Authority within a plan led by the government of Dr. Muhammad Mustafa, which cannot be separated from the demands of the international community, especially the European Union, which linked its recent aid of 1.6 billion dollars to internal reforms, or the statements of President Mahmoud Abbas at the recent Arab Summit in Cairo, his intention to approve the positions of Vice President of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the State of Palestine, and to call on the Central Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization – which was entrusted with the powers of the Palestinian National Council – to convene exclusively to approve the signatories in the Palestinian political system, despite his issuance of a constitutional declaration on 27-11-2024 stipulating that in the event of a vacancy in the position of President of the Palestinian Authority, the President of the Palestinian National Council shall assume his duties temporarily until presidential elections are held in accordance with Palestinian electoral law. This justifies the questions raised about the feasibility of these initiatives and decisions, and the legitimacy of all the voices that It inquires about its real impact on the lives of the crushed Palestinian citizen in Gaza, Jerusalem, or the West Bank, or on the fourteen million Palestinians in the homeland and in exile. It is permissible to question the ability of the Palestinian national movement in its current form to advance the Palestinian national project, or protect it from Zionist plans for elimination and displacement. It is established to question the effectiveness of appointing a deputy president of the PLO and the State of Palestine in strengthening the foundations of our steadfastness and survival on the land. It is rational to propose that the priority must be focused on rebuilding the Palestinian national movement, one that preserves the unifying national identity, agrees on the forms of liberation struggle, and redefines the Palestinian national project by returning to its origins, represented by freedom and self-determination, and above all, rebuilding its basic pillar, represented by the Palestinian forces and factions, Palestinian popular organizations, and Palestinian unions.

One does not need any intelligence or wisdom to notice the extent of the decline of the Palestinian national movement, starting with the unions, syndicates, and popular organizations, which are experiencing a state of senility and decline, with the exception of some that hold their elections regularly and transparently. The impact of the Palestinian division on them inside and outside the homeland cannot be overlooked. In addition, the reality of the Palestinian factions and forces is no less painful than the unions and syndicates. The Fatah movement, which today constitutes, for objective and subjective reasons, the cornerstone of the Palestinian political system, especially in the West Bank, and a hope for the Palestinians to strengthen their steadfastness and survival on the land, as it is a comprehensive national framework that tolerates differences, diversity, and diligence, and enjoys international acceptance and horizontal extension within Palestinian society in the homeland and diaspora, is not the same Fatah that lived with the citizens their bread, their pain, their sacrifices, and their hopes during the past six decades, and which included Palestinians, Arabs, foreigners, adherents of all heavenly and earthly religions, students, youth, women, the elderly, children, religious and secular people. And the rationalists, the enthusiasts, the advocates of conservative thought, and those who believed in the necessity of drawing inspiration from the socialist-Leninist experience, and those who founded the student battalion and disagreed with Yasser Arafat, so they debated him in the morning, and the debate became heated repeatedly, but he trusted their rifles to protect him and guard his office, which was dozens of meters away from their camp at night. Nor is it that horizon that expanded to diversity, difference, and diligence, and entered every tent of refuge, and every camp in the homeland and the diaspora, and every Palestinian and Arab city, village, neighborhood, and home, and about which Nizar Qabbani wrote his most beautiful poems, "Fatah." Nor is it the renewed and young movement that reflects the diversity of Palestinian society, as today its movement institutions are led and its organizational positions are held by a group of citizens, most of whom are from the civil and military class, whose individual ambitions to improve their working conditions limit the ability of most of them to express their opinions frankly and freely. Add to that all the stagnant pebbles in the waters of Fatah from Oslo until today. Therefore, reforming Fatah, unifying its ranks, and rebuilding it by embracing all its members, regardless of their efforts, abilities, and diversity. It is also necessary for the movement to open up to its people, both the elites and the masses, who hold great love and resentment for Fatah. Fatah must also return to leading the field through a national resistance program based on mobilizing all the energies of our people, as it is qualified for this task, with its capabilities to mobilize and direct, if it invests well in the capabilities of its members and its enlightened thought. Therefore, rebuilding Fatah’s idea, movement, and message, correcting the movement’s relationship with the authority, and liberating it from the burdens of its obligations, as a means, not an end, and a project that must be evaluated and corrected whenever necessary, must precede the reform of the PLO.

As for Hamas, it is experiencing a state of acute alienation from reality. After the major blows dealt by the Iranian axis in the region, starting with the consequences of the Israeli aggression on Lebanon, in which Israel demonstrated shocking intelligence and military superiority, as field data indicated that the Israeli occupation possesses advanced generations of destructive weapons and security capabilities, in light of the worn-out traditional Arab weaponry. Also, there is the fall of the Syrian regime, or Iran's tendencies towards understanding with the US administration, and above all, the heavy price of the October 7 operation, for the results of which Hamas cannot escape responsibility, as it planned and executed it unilaterally, and is now negotiating to end the war in the Gaza Strip in isolation from all Palestinians. Therefore, the demands of citizens and political and societal elites for Hamas to read the reality more realistically and logically, and to rebuild the movement on foundations that are consistent with the data of the stage, must take precedence over its adherence to rule in Gaza, or its insistence on denying reality, ignoring the facts on the ground and the new power equations in the region, as Hamas is required today to reconsider its path over the past four decades. The past, including its educational curriculum for its children, which is still confined to the curriculum of the first Brotherhood school represented by Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Sabiq, the ideas of Sayyid Qutb, the ideological Salafi ideas, and the school of Ibn Taymiyyah after removing his fatwas from their spatial and temporal context, and adopting the position of the Muslim Brotherhood on the issue of governance, imamate, and politics, as well as its regional relations and ties with Iran, which have proven to be a heavy burden on its people and their national interests. It is Hamas’s duty today to champion nationalism over factionalism, and to re-evaluate the previous stage rationally, wisely, and realistically. This must transcend any other priorities.

As for the Islamic Jihad movement, it remains confined within its military wing, despite its genuine popular acceptance and broad-based ideology, enabling it to play a broad political and societal role. Furthermore, its relationship with Iran requires a profound strategic review, one that is consistent with its sacrifices as a national liberation movement, which it has made and continues to make, without becoming embroiled in Palestinian bloodshed, unlike other Islamist movements in Palestine.

The Palestinian leftist forces can be divided, in terms of popular presence, into two categories. The first consists of the Popular and Democratic Fronts, and the People's Party. These forces have a relative presence on the Palestinian scene, as is evident in their presence on the academic and intellectual scene, and their relative presence on the ground. However, these forces generally live off their revolutionary history and the legacy of their founding leaders. Today, these movements suffer from a complex set of crises, foremost among which is their immersion in theorizing at the expense of programs, their alienation from the founding principles, in addition to the leadership crisis, the vagueness of positions, the absence of charismatic figures, their drowning in fruitless ideological conflicts at the expense of the fundamental national struggle, and the rush of a number of their leaders to lead a number of civil society institutions whose funding is based on Western liberal capitalist support, in a scene that calls for both irony and sadness.

The remaining factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization, namely: the Vanguard of the Popular Liberation War – Al-Sa'iqa, the Palestinian Democratic Union (FIDA), the Popular Struggle Front, the Palestine Liberation Front, the Arab Palestinian Front, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command, and the Palestinian National Initiative, suffer from a more complex set of challenges, foremost among which is their inability to attract and mobilize members. Indeed, some of these factions, which have a distinguished history of struggle, have limited membership to the Political Bureau and dozens of members, while they are unable to recruit a single new member in the camps, villages, neighborhoods, or higher education institutions that include hundreds of thousands of students, with the exception of membership arising from family inheritance. To avoid accusing this discourse of generalization and bias, one can review the results of student and local elections over the past years, which witnessed competition between the Fatah and Hamas movements, to demonstrate the level of weakness that these forces suffer from. Moreover, the Palestinian National Initiative movement, despite adopting a mature civil and human rights discourse, lacks an effective popular and organizational presence, especially in the camps. And the villages and popular neighborhoods, and it is almost losing its ability to attract, as a result of the monopoly of the image of the initiative by its Secretary-General, Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, whose image has come to overshadow the institution itself, especially with its lack of tangible and influential resistance action. While the initiative emphasizes resistance in all its forms, it practices a single method, represented by peaceful, non-violent resistance, which makes its discourse lack persuasive power, due to its lack of a model and its presentation of an example, which extends to include all the factions mentioned above, which lack not only the desire, but also the ability to act. In addition to that, the connection of some Palestinian factions to the former Syrian regime, and before that to the Baathist regime in Iraq, constituted one of the reasons for its weakness, and perhaps its complete absence from the Palestinian political scene.

This panoramic picture of the reality of the Palestinian factions, which form the backbone of the national movement, makes the question “Can the PLO be reformed” in light of this tragic reality a legitimate, rational, and essential question, as there is no point in building the most beautiful palaces on dilapidated foundations, because they will inevitably collapse at the first tremor.

We must acknowledge that our factions, without exception, whether Islamist or nationalist, leftist or rightist, are in dire need of comprehensive reconstruction, an honest review, and a real reorientation of course, instead of continuing to wail and fight over the skin of a bear before it is caught or over an authority without authority. We must first acknowledge that the Palestinian national movement is more in need than ever of reconstruction, of learning from its lessons, of returning to its founding principles, and of adopting the most appropriate mechanisms of struggle for the current stage, instead of searching for patchwork solutions that will only further complicate and exacerbate matters.