OP-ED: PNA between being functional or national

Ideological propaganda and accusations have emerged in the Palestinian arena since 1994, and were strengthened after the bloody coup in the Gaza Strip in 2007, that the role of the Palestinian National Authority is limited to a functional framework that serves the security and interests of the occupation, and contradicts the interests of the Palestinian people and their aspiration towards liberation and independence. These accusations were also accompanied by occupation policies aimed at stripping the PA of its national role, and limiting it to a functional role that serves the security of the occupation.

In the same direction, the Israeli occupation has sought to diminish the role of the National Authority since its inception, to distance it from its national role, and to make it a service authority that administers the autonomous regions, and undertakes security, civil and administrative functions in accordance with the interests of the Israeli occupation. This was accompanied by the occupation taking systematic practical measures targeting the Palestinian people and their legitimate authority. It expanded the existing settlements, built new settlements, and opened new tunnels under Al-Aqsa Mosque, with certainty that the National Authority would remain powerless and would not respond.

The occupation's visions of the impotence of the National Authority were nothing but illusions. The occupation was stunned by the fusion of the authority and its security services with the Palestinian people in the fields in defense of Al-Aqsa in 1996, while no other faction intervened. The occupation was also stunned when the National Authority and its security services responded militarily, and on orders from the immortal martyr Yasser Arafat, to Ariel Sharon’s storming, in coordination with the head of the occupation government, Ehud Barak, on the al-Aqsa Mosque in 2000, as a response to Arafat’s refusal to make concessions at the Camp David summit. In the same context, the Israeli occupation systematically targeted, during the second intifada, the symbols and cadres of the national authority, with assassination and arrest, and destroyed its security headquarters in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The culmination of the occupation targeting has reached the absence of the immortal martyr Yasser Arafat from the Palestinian national scene.

After the coup of 2007, the National Authority fell between two fires, either it continues the armed struggle, and this means that the occupation will target it, or give an opportunity for another coup against it in the West Bank, or it adopts popular resistance and international political struggle. This also provides an entry point for the treason and blasphemy that some Palestinians pursue, and of course the authority chose the second path, as it is also a matter of popular and factional consensus.

In the same context, after the end of the role of the National Authority in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation sought to reactivate its previous vision of limiting the role of the Authority to an incomplete functional framework (education, health, and security for the benefit of the occupation). Accordingly, the Israeli occupation intensified its bloody, repressive, Judaizing, and economic policies against the Palestinians, targeting the symbols of the national authority and the security services morally. Here, a question arises: has the Israeli occupation succeeded in achieving its mission? The facts show that the Israeli occupation has failed, as in the past, to subjugate the national authority.

  This is evidenced by the authority's success in achieving international political and diplomatic gains, its continuation in adopting and supporting the option of popular resistance, and its emphasis on Palestinian constants, foremost of which is the establishment of the Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital, and the right of return of refugees. In addition, it continues to pay the salaries of martyrs and prisoners despite the economic blockade, and the Israeli occupation’s piracy of its financial capabilities.

The National Authority project aims to build a Palestinian state that leads the Palestinian people towards inevitable freedom and independence. It is a national role that contradicts the policies and interests of the occupation. It is also a functional role within the framework of the interest of the Palestinian people only, which also means that the national and functional roles are complementary.

The path of the National Authority will not be easy in preserving its gains, as it will face the systematic policies of the Israeli occupation.