When Occupation Intertwines with the Palestinian Authority: How Did the Palestinian Crisis with Governance Form?

The Palestinian crisis with governance is not the result of fleeting political errors, nor the outcome of a specific government or leadership's performance. Rather, it is a much deeper crisis, formed within a unique historical reality where the authority of occupation intertwined with national authority, making it extremely difficult to separate them. From this intertwining, one of the most complex problems in contemporary Palestinian experience was born: the problem of the relationship between the people and the authority.

In most peoples' experiences, the political relationship is clearly defined. There is a national authority that governs, and a people who observe, hold accountable, and influence its decisions. In traditional occupation cases, there is an occupying power that the people confront as the source of control and oppression. But the Palestinian has lived and continues to live a completely different situation; a situation where national authority intertwines with the authority of occupation within the same political sphere, making it sometimes difficult to define the boundaries of responsibility, capability, and decision-making.

To understand this dilemma, one must go back to how Palestinian consciousness regarding the concept of authority was formed.

For many decades, the Palestinian did not know authority as a national institution representing them, but rather as an occupying authority. The meaning of authority was the military governor, the soldier, the checkpoint, and orders issued from outside society, not from within. Authority exercised control without representation, and imposed decisions without participation. Therefore, a relationship based on caution, rejection, and resistance was formed, more than a relationship based on partnership or trust.

Under this long historical experience, it became ingrained in the collective consciousness that authority is the party that possesses power and imposes restrictions, not the party that expresses the general will or is subject to popular accountability. The Palestinian did not have sufficient historical opportunity to build a normal relationship with an independent national authority, like those that emerged in the experiences of other nations.

When the Palestinian Authority was established, it seemed as if this relationship was poised for change. For the first time, institutions with a Palestinian national identity emerged and managed Palestinian affairs. But the problem was that this authority was not born after the end of the occupation, but rather emerged under it. It carried national features, but it operated within a space whose basic boundaries were still controlled by the occupation.

It was precisely here that the intertwining began, which would form the core of the Palestinian crisis with governance.

On the one hand, there became a Palestinian authority that represented the national framework and managed the daily life of the citizen. On the other hand, the occupation authority remained the ultimate controller of the land, crossings, borders, resources, and a large part of political and security decisions. Thus, the relationship did not transition from occupation authority to an independent national authority, but rather the two relationships became intertwined and superimposed on each other.

Palestinians found themselves facing a new reality they had not known before. The face they see daily is Palestinian, but a significant part of the actual power is still outside Palestinian will. The institutions they deal with are national, but their ability to act is constrained by factors they do not fully control. Thus, in the popular consciousness, the image of the national authority became mixed with the image of the authority that is still subject to the conditions of occupation.

From this arose the dilemma of the political position of the Palestinian people themselves.

Palestinians do not face a single authority, but rather two intertwined authorities. The occupation stands between the people and their full national sovereignty, while the Palestinian Authority stands between the people and the occupation. Therefore, the political relationship is no longer a direct relationship between a people and an authority, nor between a people and an occupation, but rather a triangular and complex relationship in which roles and responsibilities are distributed unstably.

Under normal circumstances, a citizen knows where to direct their demands and where to exercise their right to accountability. But Palestinians find themselves in a foggy reality. When they face an economic, social, or political crisis, it is not always clear where the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority begins and ends, and where the responsibility of the occupation begins and where its effects manifest. Even when they try to identify the source of the problem, they discover that both parties are present to varying degrees within the same scene.

This intertwining not only produced confusion in defining responsibility but also brought about a deeper transformation in the nature of the relationship with governance. The Palestinian Authority, by virtue of its proximity to the citizen, became a daily target for anger and criticism. But the occupation, by virtue of its actual control over many elements of reality, remained present as the primary cause of many crises. Between the two parties, the citizen found themselves unable to build a stable relationship with either.

Over time, the crisis transformed from a performance crisis to a conceptual crisis. The question was no longer only about the authority's efficiency, success, or failure, but about the nature of the authority itself and its position within the existing political structure. The Palestinian, who grew up resisting the occupation authority, found themselves facing a national authority that could not completely separate from the conditions of occupation, so images became mixed and concepts intertwined.

However, the most dangerous consequence of this intertwining appeared in another area: the area of popular influence.

Peoples usually have a clear political address towards which their demands, pressures, and struggles are directed. But Palestinians found themselves facing two centers of power. If they directed their efforts towards the occupation, they collided with the reality that the occupation is not subject to the logic of popular accountability. If they directed their efforts towards the Palestinian Authority, they collided with the limits of its actual capacity under the continued occupation.

Thus, the energy of Palestinian society was dispersed between two parallel paths. Part of it was directed towards resisting the occupation, and another part towards holding the national authority accountable. But neither path alone was capable of achieving the desired change. The occupation retained the keys to basic power, and the authority remained constrained by limitations that restricted its ability to fully respond to the demands of society.

Over time, not only did influence weaken, but the center of influence itself was lost. It was no longer clear to the citizen where they should focus their political efforts, nor which entity actually had the ability to respond to their will. From this arose a large part of the political frustration that prevails in Palestinian society today.

When the center of influence is lost, trust in all political action declines. And when trust in political action declines, trust in the authority itself erodes. Thus, the increasing alienation from authority in the Palestinian situation is not the cause of the crisis, but one of its results. The origin of the crisis lies in that continuous intertwining between occupation and authority, which has made Palestinians live for decades within an ambiguous political space, where sovereignty intertwines with restriction, responsibility with impotence, and national decision with the conditions of occupation.

Therefore, the deepest Palestinian dilemma is not only the dilemma of liberation from occupation, but also the dilemma of building a normal political relationship between the people and the authority. This relationship will not fully stabilize until the state of intertwining that has governed the Palestinian experience for many decades disappears, and governance becomes a pure expression of free national will, not a reality stuck between two authorities and incomplete boundaries of sovereignty.