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The PLO and building on the impossible

January 17, 2017 at 5:37 pm

The Palestinian National council meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah [Issam Rimawi/Apaimages]

The Preparatory Committee to rebuild the Palestinian National Council (PNC) convened in Beirut on the 10-11 January in the presence of the PLO factions, with the exception of two small factions, Fatah al-Intifada and the Popular Struggle Front. Hamas and Islamic Jihad also attended, despite not being a part of the organisation.

Talks were held in an atmosphere of optimism amongst the parties and there was a consensus regarding the importance of Hamas and Islamic Jihad joining the PLO, as well as the need to restructure the PNC by means of elections as soon as possible, or by consensus if elections could not be held.

In light of the optimistic atmosphere we have become accustomed to after each meeting of the Palestinian “revolutionary” factions, and after the national reconciliation meetings between Fatah and Hamas, we have become aware that there are two faces to reality. The first is the external, superficial face for public relations and the national media discourse that is keen on reconciliation and the rebuilding of national institutions based on democratic foundations.Then there is the other, unspoken or even hidden face that remains locked away out of sight.

The Beirut meeting was supposed to be held in 2006, as a natural result of the 2005 Cairo agreement. However, it did not see the light of day until after 11 years of conflict and clashes, and even then it suffered delays due to various excuses. This makes us wonder about the possibility of this path’s success in light of the current increase in local and regional complications.

In this context, we must look at a number of points that may show us the extent of the potential success these meetings will have in restoring or rebuilding the PNC, followed by reviving the Palestinian people’s leadership institutions that lost their national legitimacy a long time ago. Here are a few points to discuss in this regard:

First, in terms of its form, the meeting should have been convened in its original form, in the presence of the PLO’s Executive Committee and the secretary-generals of all the factions. However, Mahmoud Abbas, as the head of the Executive Committee and Fatah, was absent, along with the secretary-generals of the other major parties, including Khaled Meshaal of Hamas and Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, the head of the Islamic Jihad group.

This means that the current Preparatory Committee does not have the authority to approve or ratify anything that may be agreed upon unless it refers back to the faction leaders and President Abbas. This indicates that the path of these talks is very long, especially with the possibility of future meetings witnessing a rejection of any point that was discussed previously after receiving feedback from each faction’s leaders. This may require returning to square one.

Secondly, the final statement mentioned “the need to implement all the reconciliation agreements and understandings, starting with the formation of a national unity government that will exercise its powers over all the PA territories, including Jerusalem, in order to hold presidential, PNC, and PLC elections.” It also noted the importance of consensus in the future regarding the elections committee and electoral law regarding Palestinians outside of Palestine, as stated by senior Hamas figure Moussa Abu Marzouk.

If we disregard the discussion of the Palestinian representation outside Palestine, then we are facing a miserable and complicated reality regarding the potential for achieving a national reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, as well as forming a national unity government due to this experience for the past ten years. What has changed in order for things to go back to the way they were?

Third, the Preparatory Committee has met while Fatah is divided between those supporting Abbas and those supporting dismissed Fatah leader, Muhammad Dahlan, who has reinforced his presence lately mostly amongst Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. He is also strongly present amongst Fatah supporters in Gaza and the PLC, while he also receives support from the Arab states, especially Egypt, to go against Abbas. This will create an additional challenge in the Palestinian arena, and specifically within Fatah.

Fourth, most of the influential Arab states reject any qualitative or radical change to the PLO and its political positions. Therefore, any Arab acceptance to rebuild the PLO is stipulated by Hamas’s recognition of the Oslo Accords and the Arab Peace Initiative, hammered out in the Beirut summit of 2002. This includes the explicit recognition of the occupation, the normalisation of political and economic relations with the occupation, and agreeing to negotiate the right to return for refugees, who make up the majority of Palestinian people, on the basis of resettlement and compensation and based on a “fair” solution from a compromising perspective between the occupation and the Palestinian negotiator.

Based on all of the above, one can say that the manoeuvres by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, as well as their agreement to attend the Preparatory Committee’s meetings without preconditions with the intention of penetrating the impenetrable PLO, is considered very difficult, if not impossible, and is hindered by many thorny challenges. How can someone who refuses proceed with the national reconciliation under the pretext of “I can’t”, as claimed by Abbas in one of the leadership’s meetings, accept the reconstruction of the PLO via democratic elections?

Holding the reformation of the PNC, which represents the highest authority for the Palestinian people, hostage to the completion of the reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas and the formation of a national unity government in the West Bank and Gaza, according to Fatah’s position expressed in the Preparatory Committee, seems like a recipe for sabotage cooked up by Abbas. He has used his acceptance of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad’s attendance to promote his “legitimacy” as a means to confront Arab pressure as well as his archenemy Dahlan.

Translated from Arabi21, 14 January, 2017

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