The Palestinian National Popular Action Forum slams ‘official leadership’ exclusionary polices

The Palestinian National Popular Action Forum has issued a statement condemning recent policy moves taken by the Palestinian Authority to appease Israel and other foreign parties. At a time when the Palestinian people face grave “existential challenges”, and the need for genuine national unity could not be greater, the forum has denounced attempts by the “official leadership” to enforce policies that contradict the national will.  

The statement highlighted a number of policies that lack national consensus. Foremost among them are: The suspension of payments to the families of martyrs, the wounded, and prisoners; the issuance of a decree-law related to local government elections, which requires candidates to declare and acknowledge positions that contradict their national convictions; the initiation of preparations to form a Palestinian National Council through appointment, subject to the same exclusionary criteria and conditions; and compliance with external dictates aimed at stripping Palestinian educational curricula of their national content that safeguards the national identity.

The Palestinian National Popular Action Forum which includes the Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad, the Palestinian National Conference, the Palestinian Popular Conference, the Palestinian Federation in Latin America, and a number of independent Palestinian figures said that it will work together with the Palestinian masses to confront these policies by all means to force their reversal.

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The full statement can be read here: Continues to monitor the ongoing criminal Zionist aggression against the resilient Gaza Strip, where the rivers of blood have not ceased amid a sustained war of genocide, destruction, and starvation. Meanwhile, the occupation persists in escalating its settlement project in the West Bank, not only through the E1 plan aimed at severing the southern West Bank from its northern part, but also through the Israeli government’s decision to establish 19 new settlements across the West Bank. This coincides with the daily escalation of settler attacks against our people, the desecration of holy sites, and the displacement of northern refugee camps, in a move that constitutes the first phase of an integrated plan targeting the dismantling of UNRWA and the liquidation of the refugee issue.

In the face of these existential challenges, which require genuine national unity grounded in confronting the crimes of the occupation and its liquidation projects, the official leadership, under Israeli and external pressure, continues to issue decrees, measures, and decisions that starkly contradict the popular will, lack any national or popular consensus and further deepen divisions within the Palestinian arena. Foremost among these dangerous policies are the following:

First: The suspension of payments to the families of martyrs, the wounded, and prisoners, despite the fact that these entitlements represent a national, moral, and popular duty, and a fundamental commitment to honouring their sacrifices. This issue has been transferred to the so-called “Tamkeen” Foundation, whose administrators have explicitly declared that there are neither national rights nor obligations towards martyrs, prisoners, and their families, but rather that they are treated as “social cases” subject to the harshest forms of social scrutiny. This constitutes a blatant denial of the rights of martyrs, the wounded, and prisoners as enshrined in the Palestinian Constitution.

Second: The issuance of the decree-law related to local government elections, which requires candidates to declare and acknowledge positions that contradict their national convictions, particularly in Articles (16) and (19). These provisions compel any candidate to adhere to the commitments of the official leadership, including recognition of the occupying state as it continues to expand occupation and settler-colonialism, as well as adherence to the Oslo Accords and the so-called “international legitimacy”. This measure represents an assault on freedom of opinion and belief, a deliberate exclusion of the overwhelming majority of our people and a denial of their right to stand for election in order to serve their communities at the local level.

Third: The initiation of preparations to form a Palestinian National Council through appointment, subject to the same exclusionary criteria and conditions.

Fourth: Compliance with external dictates aimed at stripping Palestinian educational curricula of their national content that safeguards our people’s identity, strengthens their options in defending their rights, upholding their homeland, and struggling for its liberation, thereby undermining the Palestinian historical narrative and collective memory.

As it closely and gravely follows these policies, which inflict serious harm on the causes of our people and their struggle for their rights, The Palestinian National Popular Action Forum affirms its categorical rejection of them. It believes that we are living through the most dangerous phase; one that most urgently requires unity, cohesion, and the consolidation of efforts to confront conspiracies targeting our national rights. Accordingly, the Forum, together with the masses of our people, affirms its determination to confront these policies and to work by all means to force their reversal, and calls for the following:

1) Safeguarding the rights of martyrs, the wounded, and prisoners as approved by elected Palestinian bodies, recognising them as inherent rights for them and their families, and as a national duty incumbent upon our people, the Palestinian Authority, and the Palestine Liberation Organisation, as an inseparable part of honouring their sacrifices. This includes the immediate initiative to abolish the so-called “Tamkeen” Foundation.

2) Working towards the broadest possible national, civic, and popular alignment to confront and annul the decree related to local elections, and mobilising at all levels through all legal, field-based, societal, civic, and popular means, to achieve this goal. The Forum also calls upon our people, and their national, social, civic, and tribal forces, to declare a clear and explicit position to boycott local elections should they be held under the rejected conditions and imposed dictates.

3) Upholding educational curricula in their national dimension, strengthening the values of freedom, sacrifice, national belonging, and resistance in confronting the occupation, and rejecting dictates aimed at distorting these curricula and harnessing them to serve the enemies of our people.

4) Undertaking serious and immediate efforts to rebuild the Palestine Liberation Organisation on democratic and electoral foundations, by returning to the people and holding elections for the Palestinian National Council with the participation of our people at home and in the diaspora.

The Palestinian National Popular Action Forum pledges to continue working, alongside all those committed to safeguarding their national rights, so that the banner of struggle remains raised until the end of the occupation, the liberation of our land, and the full and undiminished realisation of our rights.

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