A Critical Reading of the Final Statement of the Eighth General Conference of Fatah Movement

 
A series of fundamental questions arise regarding the final statement issued from the proceedings of the Eighth General Conference of the Fatah Movement, not only in terms of its political and intellectual content, but also concerning the mechanisms of its preparation and approval within the conference itself. Was this statement actually discussed by the members of the conference in formal and open sessions? Were the members given the opportunity to express their comments, amendments, and objections before it was ratified? Was it approved according to the organizational rules, internal regulations, and traditional norms that governed the previous conferences of the movement, or was it issued in a ready-made form reflecting a specific leadership vision more than it reflects a collective organizational discussion? Then what about the committees that are supposed to have been formed within the conference proceedings? What is the nature of the reports they presented, and what are their political, organizational, and intellectual recommendations? Were these reports presented to the conference members and discussed in a real manner? What specifically happened regarding the Internal Regulations Committee of the movement, which is one of the most important committees supposed to discuss issues of organizational structure, intellectual reference, and internal work mechanisms? Were amendments made to the internal regulations? What do they entail? Do they align with the historical organizational traditions of the movement, or do they reflect new transformations in the nature of the political and organizational structure? A question of no less importance arises regarding whether the conference created a real space for critical review and political-organizational evaluation, or if it was limited to producing a final statement that reaffirms the existing political and organizational legitimacy without opening a deep discussion about the crises, transformations, and current challenges facing the movement...

This statement represents an attempt by the Fatah Movement to effectively re-establish its political and organizational legitimacy at a very critical Palestinian moment, but at the same time, it reveals a deep crisis in how the movement defines itself: Is it still a national liberation movement leading the liberation project, or has it transformed into a governing party managing the crisis of occupation within the confines of the existing international system? The statement, despite its high emotional language and dense national and revolutionary terminology, seems closer to a state or authority speech striving to consolidate its political and institutional presence, rather than a speech of a national liberation movement still engaged in the battle for liberation and independence in the face of colonial occupation. Here lies the essential paradox within the text, as much of what is included may be suitable to be issued in the name of an independent state or a stable authority, but it does not align with the nature of a liberation movement that is supposed to still be struggling for freedom, independence, and dismantling the structure of occupation.

The statement elaborates on institutions, elections, international legitimacy, administrative reform, international relations, recognition of the Palestinian state, all of which are concepts more related to state and authority discourse than to liberation movements. In contrast, the central question that should be at the core of any liberation movement is absent: How will the occupation be ended? What are the tools of power and liberation? What is the nature of the ongoing conflict? What are the limits of political settlement? And what if the international path fails completely? The statement focuses on the end result of statehood but does not provide a real vision for the liberation mechanism itself, as if statehood could be achieved solely through negotiation and international legitimacy, without a clear fighting project or comprehensive confrontation strategy.

This is also clearly evident in the statement's discussion of resistance, as it repeats the concept of "peaceful popular resistance" as the central option, despite the fact that the Palestinian reality is witnessing a genocide in Gaza, comprehensive settlement in the West Bank, continuous displacement, and wide-ranging arming of settlers. Nevertheless, the statement does not present any vision for developing or escalating forms of resistance, but keeps it within the limits of popular activities and community committees. This raises a fundamental question: Can a national liberation movement confront a military settler colonial project solely through peaceful resistance, while simultaneously continuing to uphold the political and security commitments that arose after the Oslo Agreement? Notably, the statement completely avoids discussing security coordination, reviewing the Oslo Agreement, rebuilding the struggle doctrine, or even evaluating the failure of the settlement process, which means that the movement remains a prisoner of the political structure that was established after Oslo, despite the enormous transformations that the Palestinian cause has undergone over the past decades.
At the same time, the statement attempts to combine the rhetoric of revolution with that of authority, frequently using terms like martyrs, revolution, struggle, steadfastness, liberation, and fascist occupation, but politically it focuses on good governance, transparency, administrative reform, government, international relations, and international legitimacy. All of these represent the language of a state or authority seeking management and stability, not the language of a liberation movement facing existential colonization. Herein lies the movement's crisis since Oslo: Is it an authority under occupation or a liberation movement against occupation? The statement attempts to reconcile the two roles but fails to resolve the existing contradiction between them.

The statement also notably repeats references to the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, international resolutions, international recognitions, and the international community, despite the fact that the long Palestinian experience has shown that international legitimacy has not stopped settlement, prevented wars, established the state, or ended the occupation. Nevertheless, the statement still bets on it as the main tool for achieving national goals, revealing a kind of strategic impotence, as the movement no longer possesses a real self-power project and instead awaits international pressure that may never come.

More importantly, the statement is completely devoid of any real critical review of the previous experience. Any national liberation movement, after all these transformations and setbacks, would ideally ask itself: Why did the Oslo project fail? Why did the movement's popularity erode? Why did division intensify? Why did the authority lose its sovereign power? Why has settlement expanded despite negotiations? Why has the two-state solution practically collapsed? However, the statement does not provide any self-critique; it rather suggests that the problem lies solely in the intransigence of the occupation, while the crisis is much deeper than that; it is a strategic crisis of leadership, popular legitimacy, and an entire political structure.

The call for national unity in the statement comes from a position of political dominance rather than from a place of true national partnership, as it asserts that unity can only be achieved within the framework of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and by adhering to its legitimacy and international obligations, which practically means that any faction wishing to unite must first accept the existing political ceiling, including the logic of Oslo and international legitimacy as well as the current program of the organization, making the proposed unity closer to merging into the existing project rather than rebuilding a new national project based on partnership.

Although the statement heavily relies on national symbolism through references to Jerusalem, martyrs, prisoners, the Nakba, Yasser Arafat, and steadfastness, granting it an emotionally impactful dimension, this symbolic density sometimes appears as an attempt to compensate for the absence of a clear and specific liberation program. The emotional discourse attempts to fill the strategic void and compensates for the lack of a practical vision for liberation.

Ultimately, the statement reveals a deep transformation in the nature of the movement, appearing closer today to a "national movement seeking to establish a state through the international system" than to a "liberation movement seeking to liberate the land through a revolutionary project". It manages an authority, seeks international recognition, bets on diplomacy, and tries to maintain its representative status, while the concept of comprehensive liberatory struggle and the idea of strategic engagement with the Zionist project have receded. Therefore, the statement, despite its powerful linguistic and emotional strength and its adherence to Palestinian national identity and the defense of Jerusalem, Gaza, and prisoners, and the unity of the Palestinian people, suffers from clear ideological and political contradictions, the most important of which are the absence of a clear liberation strategy, subservience to international legitimacy despite its failure, avoidance of reviewing the Oslo experience, reduction of resistance to limited peaceful forms, confusion between revolutionary logic and authority logic, absence of self-criticism, and dealing with national unity from a position of dominance rather than partnership.

Thus, the statement, at its core, is closer to a document for affirming political and organizational legitimacy than to a new national liberation program. This is precisely the greatest challenge facing Fatah today: Is it still capable of redefining itself as a true national liberation movement in light of the reality of both authority and occupation, or has it fully moved within the logic of the state before liberation?