The Palestinian Starting Point.. The Grand Questions and the Beginning of Answers

One of the few merits of the eighth conference of Fatah Movement is that it provided an opportunity to raise the grand questions that the conference itself jumped over, and which did not receive the attention they deserve from the rest of the Palestinian national movement. Among these questions: Is it possible to reform, renew, and rebuild the Palestinian national movement, or even change it, or has time surpassed the possibility of reform and renewal? We find ourselves before another question: Is there a need for the birth of a new national movement, and if this is necessary and possible, what are its requirements and conditions? What makes this question urgent is that the Palestinian national movement, in all its colors and strategies, has reached a dead end. Despite the significant differences between the resistance strategy and the negotiation strategy, Palestine has not been liberated, nor has any part of it experienced complete liberation, nor has the independence of the State of Palestine been achieved. We have become in a more difficult situation, facing continued extermination and displacement at a slower pace, through the destruction of the authority in the Gaza Strip and pushing it towards chaos under the guise of colonial trusteeship, imposing sovereignty and creeping annexation in the West Bank, and undermining authority, despite the heavy sacrifices, heroic acts, legendary steadfastness, and valiant resistance. More importantly than reaching this deadlock is that there is no one proposing a new path or a clear alternative that carries weight, offers promising horizons, and inspires hope in achieving national goals.

Another question arises: Can the Palestine Liberation Organization be reformed or revived by rebuilding it and renewing its institutions on national, democratic, and genuine partnership bases, or is there a need to build a new collective national institution based on current facts and changes, and on lessons learned from previous experiences? This question is justified; the organization has practically been placed in the refrigerator for a long time, its institutions have been emptied, and it has become an alienating framework instead of a unifying national entity. It has turned into a tool in the hands of the authority that manages the population under occupation, instead of the authority being a tool of the organization helping it to end the occupation.

There is also another question: Which comes first, the crystallization of a new comprehensive national vision or the building of a collective national institution? It is not enough to say that the national project is known, and that national constants do not change. Many waters have flowed under the bridges, and what was proposed in 1964 at the establishment of the PLO, or during the 1960s and 1970s in the era of the rise of national liberation movements and the working class and progressive forces in a bipolar world, is not necessarily valid today in light of the stormy transformations in Palestine, the Arab world, regionally, and internationally, in a world and region where the old order is collapsing, and there are increasing signs of the birth of a new world that has not yet been born.

Perhaps the priority is to crystallize the vision in principle, while the priority for the institution lies in need and capacity for embodiment and implementation. In the Palestinian case specifically, the practical starting point may be agreement on the grand questions more than agreement on final answers. The consensus that the national project is facing a deep structural impasse with multiple causes and roots that reflect on leadership, institutions, forms of work and struggle, and that there is a need to rebuild national representation and define the national project, renew the political program, and adopt forms of struggle capable of achieving it...

This consensus on the above can form the basis for launching a new path. It is impossible to build a collective national institution without a minimum agreement on fundamental questions: What is the central organizing goal? What are the objectives derived from it? What is the nature of the current phase? What is the priority now, resilience and survival and thwarting hostile goals and plans, or achieving national goals? What is the required function of this institution? Otherwise, it will turn into a framework collecting contradictions of all kinds without the capacity to act, leading to paralysis or disintegration or self-erasure. Conversely, the vision cannot transform into a material force without an institution or a political and social framework that carries it and translates it into programs, policies, and power balances. Thus, it may be more accurate to say that what is required is not to wait for the completion of the vision to build the institution, nor to wait for the institution to produce the vision, but rather to pursue two parallel and simultaneous paths. The priority is not for the vision or the institution separately, but for creating a historical nucleus that connects them: a group of forces, personalities, movements, and initiatives that agree on a minimum of vision and simultaneously begin to build a unifying framework and embark on action without delay. The vision without a political carrier remains just an idea, and the institution without a vision transforms into an empty structure or into a battleground for influence.

Two other questions remain: What is the required vision? What are its components?... There is no one correct vision in the absolute sense, but one can talk about a vision more capable of responding to existing challenges, achieving the greatest possible national consensus and political effectiveness.

The search for vision does not begin with desires and wishes, but from answering a set of fundamental questions: What is the nature of the conflict today and its distinguishing characteristics? What is the Palestinian narrative and its cornerstone represented in the unity of the cause, land, and people? What are the basic rights and major national objectives, and how can they be achieved? What are the existing balances of power? What are the current and potential changes? What is achievable at this stage, and what can be postponed to later stages?

It is also necessary to identify the resources, tools, and forms of struggle available to the Palestinian people and capable of achieving the objectives, as quickly as possible and at the lowest costs, and what can be benefited from the potentials of brothers, friends, and allies, as the required struggle, despite its Palestinian face, has Arab, Islamic, and global human liberation dimensions. It is not correct to insist on the independence of the Palestinian decision, nor to dissolve it into Arab, Islamic, or human dimensions. Among the legitimate questions that need an answer is: Why have the initiatives and movements that have emerged from within the factions and parties and from outside them failed to reform, renew, or change the national movement, or give birth to a new movement, and what are the requirements for its success?

Also necessary is to adopt strategic flexibility; the issue should not be reduced to one option or one solution, but rather it is preferable to keep the door open for various options and solutions that serve rights and national interests according to the needs of reality and its developments. It is important to conduct a comprehensive critical review of the Palestinian national experience since its inception until today, study the experiences of global liberation movements, benefit from their successes and failures, work to build consensus around common denominators, and start from what is agreed upon instead of waiting for complete agreement on everything. Perhaps it is more important than formulating the vision itself to agree on the methodology of producing and developing it. The vision is not a sacred text or a final document, but a living framework subject to review and development whenever circumstances change. Perhaps the best method for crystallizing this vision is a wide and continuous national dialogue, starting from the conviction and belief in national partnership on democratic and consensual bases, far from accusations of treason, blasphemy, exclusion, monopolizing truth, nationalism, and religion, involving representatives from various communities and political and social spectra, including politicians, thinkers, youth, women, unions, universities, research centers, reputable figures, and the private sector.

We must also note the flaw of considering democracy and elections as the sole entry point for the solution and for answering these questions. While the importance of democracy and periodic elections at various levels is acknowledged, the peculiarities of the Palestinian case make elections, under the current circumstances, insufficient and even potentially misleading if considered the entry point or the magic solution. Half of the Palestinian people live in their homeland under the sovereignty of a colonial, settler, and racist entity, while their communities are distributed among different legal and political statuses. There is separation between Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied territories, between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, between the center and the dividing plan for each community, and separation of the people within the homeland from the people in places of refuge and diaspora, in addition to the deepening of policies of extermination, fragmentation, annexation, displacement, and cutting ties.

The occupying state imposes, on one hand, and the Palestinian Authority, on the other hand, different conditions and restrictions on the electoral process, and the occupation interferes in all its stages, preventing whomever it wishes from running, arresting whomever it chooses from candidates and winners, and the elected legislative council cannot exercise sovereignty or any real powers, as what is permitted is the management of the population under occupation, not the management of the people to achieve their rights of return, self-determination, equality, and independence. Meanwhile, millions of Palestinians in the diaspora face that most of the countries they reside in do not permit holding comprehensive Palestinian elections on their territory, thus the possible democracy is consensus democracy. For all of these reasons, elections alone cannot be considered the entry point or the solution; they are an essential part of the solution and the struggle to end the occupation. The priority should be to provide the political and national conditions that ensure free, fair, and comprehensive elections, and to respect their results. More important than the elections is that those who define the rules of the game before it starts control the outcomes, as happened in the municipal elections and the Fatah conference, and as could happen in the National Council elections if held on their scheduled date on November 1st, as the elections will produce distorted representative institutions that do not genuinely express the will of the Palestinian people, granting legitimacy to the existing situation, solidifying it, and not seeking to change it.

This article is a preliminary contribution to reading the Palestinian situation by stimulating a political intellectual dialogue around these and other questions, added to the numerous contributions during this period, hoping that it will lead to a comprehensive national dialogue paving the way for crystallizing a new vision and a national path capable of facing challenges and risks and achieving Palestinian goals.