Palestinian National Council Elections: Is the Horse in Front of the Cart or the Cart in Front of the Horse?

Author: أحمد صيام

President Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree stipulating that elections for the Palestinian National Council be held before the end of this year, conditional on the participants’ commitment to the program of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its local, Arab, and international obligations.

There is undoubtedly a paramount importance in the electoral process in terms of renewing legitimacy and injecting new blood into the Palestine Liberation Organization, the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian Arab people. However, regardless of the conditions included in the president's decree, which some see as putting the cart before the horse, a series of questions arise strongly: Will the elections truly contribute to rebuilding the fragmented Palestinian house and bridging the gap to close the rift in Palestinian-Palestinian relations? Is the current Palestinian situation, and the delicate phase surrounding the Palestinian cause, conducive to holding elections? Or would it be better to agree among all factions of the Palestinian national movement on a temporary national consensus that prepares for transparent democratic elections? Is it necessary that this is preceded by an inclusive national dialogue that does not exclude any party, paving the way for a navigator to steer the Palestinian ship to safety and work to eliminate emergencies within the Palestinian national movement, allowing for a maturity that can later bear fruit leading to what the Palestinian Arab people aspire to in terms of freedom and independence, and the establishment of an independent state with its eternal capital, Jerusalem? Or will these elections—if held at all—in such a weak state serve as the final nail in the coffin of the Palestinian cause?

A brief overview of the current Palestinian situation reveals that it is floundering to the point of being lost. Palestinian leadership and people are confused and unable to respond at the level of the events!!

Gaza is being annihilated, and those who remain alive there are in an unending displacement, without end to the day or night. Humanity there has become trapped between two jaws: extermination by killing or starvation, or displacement into the unknown!!

The West Bank is on the verge of erasing its Palestinian Arab identity, and the monster of settlement is awaiting to completely swallow it!!

Jerusalem is being Judaized at an accelerating pace, and it is no longer a priority in Palestinian, Arab, and Islamic calculations; it has gone from exception to exclusion. Its crown, Al-Aqsa Mosque, is struggling to maintain its Islamic sanctity, while its beacon, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, calls out to Christ for illumination in its darkness. Its residents struggle to survive with minimal resources, exposed and without support to lean on. After the passing of the late Prince of Jerusalem, the martyr Faisal al-Husseini, and the immortal martyr Yasser Arafat, Jerusalemites have become like orphans at the table of the ignoble!!

The Palestine Liberation Organization is living in a state of marginalization and absence from the substantial Palestinian scene, politically besieged, and its offspring, the National Authority, suffers from a suffocating economic blockade to the extent that it might declare bankruptcy due to the arbitrary occupation measures against it. This is evident from its inability to meet its obligations to both the public and private sectors!!

Diaspora Palestinians are facing various pressures from all directions targeting them and their dreams of return while they exist temporarily in the shadows of alienation, especially those confined in camps in Lebanon and Syria, most of which lack the necessities for a decent life!!
Above all this, and perhaps the most important, is the ongoing geographical and political division between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank since 2007, along with the duality of governance among the members of the same people, and the ongoing strife among factions, especially between the Fatah movement controlling the West Bank and Hamas controlling the Gaza Strip, and even the conflict within the same faction, which is why legislative elections for the Palestinian Authority have been stalled!!

It is true that elections are a pressing necessity to renew legitimacy, clearly expressing the people's choices and reflecting affiliations and orientations to some extent, but given the current Palestinian situation as previously mentioned, even if held with utmost transparency, they will escalate the intensity of conflict and could lead to political, partisan, and social chaos, complicating the living conditions of the residents even more.
However, if we take a step back two decades or more, the elections that took place in 2005 for the Presidency of the Palestinian Authority, followed by the 2006 legislative council elections, were not within the correct framework that was embodied by the Oslo Accords, as these elections distanced Palestinians from their dream of establishing an independent state, which should have been negotiated according to the expiring Oslo Agreement by 1999.

The Israelis capitalized on this to the fullest, remaining at this point while straying from the path they were supposed to take with the Palestinian side and the international community. Successive Israeli governments went even further in marginalizing the role of the Authority until it became an authority without power and among the ranks of the dead!!

From here, President Mahmoud Abbas's anticipated step, and his intention to announce the transformation of the Authority into an independent state at the UN General Assembly meetings this month, perhaps signals that his decree to hold elections for the National Council aims at elections for the parliament of the future state. However, reality suggests that there are difficulties, and even risks, to complicating the Palestinian scene further under the current circumstances. Yet, it is not impossible to overcome the current situation in all its complexities, and to achieve what is desired from the elections, ensuring their success and placing the entire world before its responsibilities. It is crucial to exploit the floundering Palestinian situation to lead to a temporary national consensus among all spectra of the Palestinian color without exception, preceded by an inclusive national dialogue conducted with full transparency, closing the pages of the past with all its pains, embodying self-neglect and factional interests, and prioritizing the supreme national interest, thus paving the way for transparent democratic elections that will yield those who can lead the realization of Palestinian dreams and aspirations.