Anniversary of the announcement of the establishment of the Liberation Organization and missed opportunities

The emergence of the PLO in 1964 AD represented an important historical turning point for the Palestinian people, as it revived the Palestinian identity, which was subject to disappearance due to the dispersion of its main element, which is the Palestinian people, whose cause at that time had become a humanitarian issue for a group of refugees.

Under the slogan (National Unity, National Mobilization, Liberation), the appearance of the PLO turned this humanitarian issue into a cause of a people struggling to restore their usurped right to return to their homeland, liberate it from occupation, and decide its fate.

The importance of the organization increased rapidly among the Palestinian people, especially the refugees, when a group of them took the lead in the initiative to liberate Palestine through armed struggle, and announced the launch of the contemporary Palestinian revolution on 1-1-1965 AD with the help of the storm forces, the military arm of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah). Its mourning was an exceptional revolutionary event that brought the Palestinian cause out of the blackness of the image, the darkness of the reality, and the emptiness of the slogans raised, after Fatah matched its words with actions and created the event.

Thus, the Palestinian people regained their self-confidence and their ability to get out of their calamity. The accession of (Fatah) to the Palestine Liberation Organization and its president, Yasser Arafat, presiding over the organization, and raising the banner of the independent Palestinian decision, increased the strength and effectiveness of the PLO and its popularity among the masses of the Palestinian people, to form The PLO is an inclusive framework for all Palestinians, regardless of their intellectual orientations, religious affiliations, and political orientations, and to become a point of consensus for the Palestinians as the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. This met with overwhelming popular support among the peoples of the world, and Arab, regional and international recognition of it as an organization that represents all Palestinians at all levels and expresses their aspirations for freedom.

However, the PLO, which was founded in 1964, and its qualitative leap took place in 1968 with the entry of Fatah into it and its adoption of a program to liberate all Palestinian soil and the armed struggle as a means to achieve this goal, is not the same as in 1974 when it adopted the interim program that stipulated “the establishment of the authority of the people.” Patriotism over any part that is liberated...”, and it is not the same as in 1988 when it declared the establishment of the State of Palestine and agreed to what it has always refused to recognize Palestine Partition Resolution No. (181) and later recognition of Resolutions 242 and 338 as the basis for any political settlement under the slogan of land for peace.

It is also not the same in 1993 when it signed the Oslo Accords and recognized the State of Israel, accepted the authority of self-rule under occupation, and in 1996 revoked most of the provisions of its National Charter, officially abandoning the armed struggle.

The PLO is not the same these days, and it has become a part of the Palestinian National Authority that is under occupation, and one of its tools. Its silence on the PA's monopoly over the national decision and its abandonment of its role as a reference, has caused the Palestinian cause to lose one of its most important sources of strength, which is MTF

Meanwhile, the Palestinian national representation was confiscated when the PA established itself as a substitute for the PLO and erased any possible role for it.

And if the option of dissolving the PA, which was hinted at more than once, is out of the question, as President Abu Mazen has repeatedly affirmed, then bringing it to the table today has become urgent, not to dissolve the PA and its institutions, but rather to push for correcting the relationship between the PA and the PLO. In the sense of putting the horse back in front of the locomotive, so that power becomes a part and one of the PLO's tools, and a drop of water in its river that flows towards freedom and independence, and not the other way around.

The non-recognition by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad of the PLO as the sole and legitimate representative of all Palestinians exacerbates the crisis and puts the Palestinian cause and its national project in a serious impasse.
Hamas, which emerged as a possible alternative, reproduced the same political mistake that Fatah made by monopolizing power and representation, and by insisting on perpetuating the Palestinian socio-political division, a division that is closely linked to the ruling Palestinian political elite, whose continuity has given way to partisan and personal interests over the national interest. The public is practicing the self-destruction of the Palestinian national project.

The outbreak of the Intifada in 1987 was a historic opportunity to extricate the PLO from its crisis that was caused by the exit from Lebanon, and to rebuild it anew, but the opportunity was wasted in the illusion of a settlement, peace and the signing of the Oslo Accords before the occupation was removed from the land.

The second and important opportunity was wasted in the year 2000 with the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada and the return of (Fatah) to its revolutionary approach through the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which instead of investing in its important and effective resistance act, was fought against and missed the opportunity to restore the central role of the PLO in confrontation. The brutal aggression of the occupying state against the Palestinian people, its national authority and its institutions, which formed the foundations of building the future independent and free Palestinian state.

And if the two opportunities to invest in the results of the previous two uprisings were wasted and the possibility of restoring or repeating them is difficult or impossible in the near term, then there are other missed opportunities that are not easier than restoring them at any time or time, and benefiting from them and investing them in restoring the prestige, status and role of the M.T. F. Central first, prestige and status of the Palestinian cause and its centrality second.

It is the many opportunities for national reconciliation that have been achieved on the papers, and nothing is lacking except for starting steps to implement its provisions agreed upon between Fatah, Hamas and the rest of the national factions unanimously and at several stations: in Cairo, in Qatar, in Mecca, in Mauritania, in Yemen, and in Beirut. And in Algeria, and in the prisons of the occupation, with the prisoners' document (the National Accord Document).

Thus, there was no place left that we know in which the Palestinian national consensus did not take place, and the papers for achieving national unity were signed, and the adversaries brothers embraced each other with many kisses and words of love, affection and high national belonging, and as a result, the morale and optimism of the Palestinian people rose every time for a better tomorrow and national unity.

The strange and strange paradox was and still exists when the time came for the practical application of what was agreed upon?! Let the word of God remain present and He says, Glory be to Him: {O you who have believed, why do you say that which you do not do? He loves those who fight in His cause in ranks as if they were a solid structure (4)} [Al-Saff : 2-4].

The time has come, gentlemen, for a comprehensive review of the experience of Palestinian national action, and a reconsideration of all its tools, methods, and institutions. Otherwise, the PLO will not remain the same as we know it today?! Because in short, it will grow weaker and weaker.