Central Council should adopt a new approach

The PLO Central Council is due to hold its 27th session tomorrow and the following day, although this session should have been the 70th or 80th if the Council had been allowed to play its role as intermediary between the Executive Committee and the National Council. Part of the consequences of the Oslo Accords has been the absence of the Central Council in the context of dwarfing the entire PLO, the role of which sharply declined in favour of the PA – which was supposed to be one of the PLO’s tools.

On the other hand, the PLO’s role has been partly revived and reactivated by a number of factors in the intervening years, including the fact that negotiations between the two sides have reached an impasse, along with the realisation that the so-called “peace process” was actually a process intended to stall and waste time to allow Israel to continue to execute its colonial and expansionist settlement plan. Other factors that have contributed to the resuscitation of the PLO, and especially of the Central Council – which had approved the ill-omened Oslo Accords – include Hamas winning the majority of seats in parliament in the 2006 elections, and the inability of Palestinians to hold presidential and legislative elections. These factors also contributed to the extension of the president and Legislative Council, which ended in 2009 and 2010.

Despite all of the above, it is good that the Central Council will be holding its meeting because this suggests that the PLO is still alive. Since the PLO is the unifying framework, the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, we cannot have national salvation without a restructuring of the unifying national movement embodied by the PLO.

The first observation that can be made is that the meeting will not be attended by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad; or rather they will only symbolically participate. Although some members from both parties were invited because they are also members of the Legislative Council, such invites are merely a form of duty and are proof of the continued domination and monopoly within the Council. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad have been invited to attend without actually participating in any of the preparations for the event. Any meeting that aims to reach decisions that can stand up to the challenges and risks currently being faced by the Palestinian people requires solid preparation in which all parties across the political spectrum participate. But this involvement and participation is not only absent in the case of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, but also in the case of the PLO’s institutions and even Fatah; since the current method of governance and decision-making puts all authority and power in the hands of the president.

One of the priorities of the meeting is to end the continued mockery and farce of the current meetings held by the Palestinian leadership and attended by anyone and everyone. Why doesn’t the Executive Committee hold meetings attended only by its members to look into Palestinian affairs and make decisions in this regard, given that it is the only legitimate Palestinian organisation?

Instead, the attendance of over 60 people from the so-called Palestinian leadership turns the meeting into a circus; or, in the best case scenario, into a seminar or forum that in reality has no relation to the legitimate Palestinian leadership. The goal behind this is to disregard the Council and put all decision-making into the hands of one person.

Some may say that inviting Hamas and the Islamic Jihad will anger Israel, the US, and an important Arab axis, including Egypt, which has a great animosity against Hamas as it is an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood. Others may say that the PLO Executive Committee is like any other PLO institution; it has grown old and therefore we cannot put the fate of Palestine it its hands.

The natural and acceptable alternative to this is that the Central Council’s meetings are preceded by a comprehensive national dialogue that determines where we stand, where we want to go, and how we want to get there. It must include a comprehensive agreement that determines what is required of Fatah, Hamas, and all the factions in order for true national unity be achieved based on common denominators and partnership that does not eliminate pluralism and gives priority to national interests – not the interests of specific axes or groups. This dialogue must also refrain from interfering in internal Arab affairs, in exchange for other Arab countries refraining from interfering in internal Palestinian affairs.

In this case, the Executive Committee meeting will be preceded by a meeting of the interim leadership of the PLO, which includes various parties across the political spectrum – the powers, decisions, and authorities of which are outlined in the Cairo Agreement. According to the agreement, these powers and decisions “cannot be disabled as long as they do not interfere with the powers of the Executive Committee.” Any decisions made and agreed upon by the leadership only become legitimate once approved and ratified by the Executive Committee, which cannot contradict any decision made by the leadership because it includes members of the Executive Committee, secretary-generals, the leaderships of the national and legislative councils. Work will continue in this manner until elections are held or until a national consensus is made on any other temporary arrangement.

The second observation that can be made regarding the Central Council meeting is that the agenda distributed to the members includes a long list of topics without a theme, which puts the meetings at risk of turning into a unorganised circus, as it has been in the past – its only task to legitimise decisions already made by the political leadership and to continue the approach that has been adopted for the past two decades; despite the fact that this approach has resulted in the disaster we are now experiencing. I am not only referring to the leadership approach because all other strategies, including armed resistance, have all reached an impasse despite the fact that they are right and necessary provided they fall within a specific strategy and subject to national interests.

The must be a comprehensive for the Central Council meeting’s agenda that is structured around a main theme. A new approach must also be adopted that is radically different from that adopted thus far – or at least since the signing of the Oslo Accords.

The approach adopted by the leadership in recent years – of taking one step forward and two steps back – has not been working. They have been putting one foot to move in a new direction, but then move very hesitantly and slowly, implementing new proposals and strategies and dealing with it tactically. Such strategies include internationalisation, reconciliation, popular resistance, boycott, threatening to hand the keys to the PA, and threatening to stop security coordination. On the other hand, they keep their other foot in the same vicious cycle that has been going on since the signing of the Oslo Accords.

There is no other alternative to cutting the umbilical cord that currently sustains the dysfunctional negotiations, despite the disastrous results they often lead to and despite the fact that Israel is not willing to voluntarily agree to any settlement that will meet the minimum of Palestinian rights. These rights are the right of return, self-determination, the establishment of an independent and sovereign state on the territories occupied in 1967 with Jerusalem as its capital, and individual and national equality for Palestinians living in the territories occupied in 1948.

Based on this, what is required is a long, patient struggle that has many forms and is based on national unity founded on consensual democracy and a genuine partnership. This struggle must seek to change the balance of power, drawing on Palestinian, Arab, regional and international means of strength and pressure. This can be achieved by reinforcing the elements of steadfastness on the ground in Palestine – the resistance, boycott, the justness of the cause as well the Arab, Islamic, regional and international dimensions, especially the International Solidarity Movement, international law, and the United Nations resolutions which still provide for the minimum Palestinian rights – in order for Israel to realise that they cannot have their cake and eat it too; that they cannot continue their aggression, expansion, and apartheid and also gain the benefits and profits of occupation and peace.

It is imperative for the occupation to become costly for Israel and its supporters so that it must choose either to withdraw and pave the way towards a two-state solution, or to achieve a one-state solution. In order for this last solution to be fair, it must be based on the dismantlement and defeat of the colonial settlement project, as well as the Apartheid system on which Israel is based.

In recent weeks, I have been involved in meetings and seminars organised by The Palestinian Centre for Policy Research & Strategic Studies (Masarat), in cooperation with other institutions and organisations in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Gaza, Nazareth, and Amman, as well as the National Dialogue meeting organised by Yasser Arafat Foundation in Cairo. Perhaps the greatest common denominator between all of the attendees has been that we demand a radical change in the approach and path currently adopted by the Palestinian leadership.

The Palestinian leadership cannot continue to be supported and driven by Arab regimes in the hope of going back to the Security Council, as if the American veto does not exist. It also cannot rely on the upcoming Israeli elections in the hope of it producing a new government headed by the “Zionist camp” and resuming negotiations on the same previous foundations with minor modification – namely involving Arab and international parties to pressure the Palestinian side to pave the way for establishing an Arab-Israeli-American-International alliance against terrorism, extremism, and Iran. This is especially true if the negotiations between Iran and the superpowers do not lead to an agreement regarding the Iranian nuclear programme, and if they agree on dividing the region, after re-mapping it, into spheres of influence amongst regional and world powers, led by Israel, disregarding the people of the region and their interests. This is what may occur in light of the current absence of an unified Arab project.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.