The destruction and massacre of Gaza have brought the Palestinian question to an existential crossroads. At the same time, Israel has been plunged into an internal crisis with no clear end in sight. The Palestinian people find themselves at one of the most critical moments in their history and require, more than ever, a national strategy and political instrument. For the Palestinians, refounding a united and representative political leadership is crucial to managing the “day after” the Gaza war and safeguarding their national project.
Formulas for the post-war period were already being discussed just weeks after the start of the war. All have revolved around the Israeli demand for security, the governance and status of the Strip, reconstruction and its funding. One way or another, a key question has been what role the Palestinians themselves will play in the governance of that new scenario. Several of the proposals involve extending the logic of Oslo: a new interim period with a purely implementing interim authority, followed by negotiations to find a long-term solution. This would mean once again establishing an intermediary, non-sovereign pseudo-Palestinian authority and postponing the core issues: ending the occupation and realizing the Palestinians’ inalienable rights. On the other hand, Israeli insistence on the weakness or absence of a legitimate, capable and effective Palestinian authority has given rise to other formulas that would supplant the Palestinians or encourage the involvement of foreign actors with their own agendas.
This issue goes beyond the mere governance of Gaza and its reconstruction. The Palestinian political system is key to the very survival of the Palestinian national question and can be either the final nail in the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s coffin or the opportunity needed to redefine a united Palestinian political leadership.
The Decline of the Palestinian Authority
In the 1970s and 1980s, the Palestinians had a political organization that was truly their own, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which operated as a political-military national liberation movement. The PLO brought together a plurality of Palestinian political actors, was internationally recognized as representative of the Palestinian people, and, at the same time, functioned as a quasi-state entity in exile, even proclaiming independence (Argel 1988). The vicissitudes of Palestinian history witnessed a series of diplomatic successes and military failures. The accumulation of decades of fragmentation of the Palestinian people, Israeli occupation and colonization, the PLO’s military defeats and exile, and the decisions of its leadership in a context of profound geopolitical changes marked the start of a loss of political capital for the organization that has continued up to today (Abu-Tarbush, 2024). The Oslo Accords, signed by the PLO and Israel in 1993 but challenged by numerous actors for their asymmetry and ambiguity, exacerbated this drift. It was further compounded by the emergence of new players in the Palestinian political arena, who took up the mantle of continuing the resistance without joining the PLO.
In 1994, in the context of those agreements, an interim Palestinian political structure, the Palestinian Authority (PA), was established in the Occupied Territories as a transitional governing entity. It was to become a sovereign state entity within five years. From the outset, the Palestinians perceived it as the political embryo of their future state, and it acted as such, even though that was not strictly true. The Palestinians called it the Palestinian “National” Authority (PNA), and it was democratically legitimized through elections and the establishment of representative institutions. It also absorbed a significant part of the PLO leadership both inside and outside Palestine. However, it soon became apparent that the established horizon was not so clear-cut. The Authority could only operate in a limited part of the territory, lacked sovereignty, had been granted only limited powers, was tasked with controlling its own population, and was financially dependent on Israeli transfers and international aid. It moreover had to contend with a context of unbroken occupation and rampant colonization. In practice, the PNA became a functional and intermediary entity for prolonging the occupation. For Israel, having an intermediary Palestinian authority was less costly than managing the occupation directly. It is no surprise, then, that the historic Oslo agreement was challenged by a large part of the Palestinian national movement and a variety of other groups.
The gridlock of the Palestinian
leadership has prompted new local
players and coalitions to carry
out a wide range of political,
civil and armed resistance initiatives
Hopes were dashed in 1999. The collapse of the Oslo process and return to hostilities with the second Intifada further eroded the PNA. Palestinian political organizations returned to the resistance, donors began to demand internal political reforms, and PNA cabinets began to bring in technocrats to stave off collapse and the suspension of financial aid. Hamas rode the ensuing frustration to victory in the 2006 elections. In response, Israel and Western countries made demands that Hamas could not meet (the Quartet conditions). Nevertheless, a Palestinian national unity government was formed. However, in 2007, an attempted coup by a faction of Fatah split the government in two, leaving Hamas in power in Gaza and a government led by Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank. Thus, for the last 17 years, the territories have been controlled by two governments operating at loggerheads, without holding new elections, both of them dysfunctional, dependent on foreign funding, with waning legitimacy and increasingly authoritarian (El Kurd 2022). This situation was exacerbated by Abbas’s punitive measures against Gaza, such as funding cuts in 2017 or the refusal of Qatari aid for Gaza in 2018 to purchase fuel. Meanwhile, Israel has encouraged this state of affairs, capitalizing on the division to criminalize Hamas and punish Gaza, control the West Bank PNA and pursue its policies of facts on the ground.
The Palestinian political crisis has become a core and highly problematic issue. During and after the peace process, the PLO has been considerably weakened. The Palestinian movement is deeply divided, its members at odds, and the new PNA/State authorities are ineffective, lack legitimacy and are increasingly questioned by the people. One need only look to their complete absence from the various manifestations of Palestinian collective action against the occupation in recent years. The gridlock of the Palestinian leadership has prompted new local players and coalitions to carry out a wide range of political, civil and armed resistance initiatives.
The Palestinian political system’s dysfunction and crisis can be summed up in four dimensions.
First, the PLO, once the paradigm of the liberation movement for its means and organizational development, is crumbling and has virtually melted away. Its member organizations have grown weak and its leadership institutions do not work. Adhering to Yasser Arafat’s old practices, but lacking his charisma, the new “Abbas faction” holds all the key leadership positions and decision-making power and has brought its functioning to a grinding halt. Historically, the PLO managed its diversity internally; there were disagreements and dissent, but its legitimacy was undisputed. Today, this is no longer the case; the current PLO is questioned. The exclusion of Palestinian factions and political orientations has undermined the PLO’s standing among Palestinians. Frustration with the Oslo process and the radical struggle between Fatah and Hamas have jeopardized the organization and given wings to critical, pro-resistance organizations, challenging the PLO’s claim to be the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. The lack of legitimacy is due not only to the absence of democratic renewal, ineffective governance or corruption. The PLO’s original legitimacy was grounded in its leading role in the liberation effort, the provision of services and its representative nature; today, that legitimacy has been diluted. Oslo entailed a loss of representativeness and a distancing from the national liberation struggle, but the Palestinian leadership has maintained insufficient “default legitimacy” to engage in negotiations. The lack of a credible and coherent Palestinian leadership has important implications not only for the future of the Palestinian national movement, but also for any Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. For many Palestinians, it is imperative to “remake” the PLO.
Second, the broader National Liberation Movement, beyond the PLO, is divided and splintered. Clearly the PLO does not include all components of the national movement and must incorporate organizations with an indisputable social base and capacity for political action, such as Hamas or Islamic Jihad of Palestine, if it is to fulfil its role. Since the 2005 Cairo Conference, more than fifteen attempts have been made at unification, which would enable these organizations to join the PLO and reunify the PNA. None have come to fruition, in some cases due to internal strife and schisms within the organizations, in others due to mistrust between Fatah and Hamas or disagreements over security matters, not to mention the ongoing interference of Israel, which is bent on fostering Palestinian fragmentation. In the face of this political stagnation and national fragmentation, an intra-Palestinian agreement is perceived as crucial yet remains out of reach.
Third, the PNA has become a dysfunctional structure and part of the problem. It is no longer the interim authority of Oslo, nor is it a full state, although it uses that name. In practice, it is regarded as a functional body for the occupier, with whom it continues to coordinate on security matters, while as a resource manager, it has become a provider of jobs and perks. The Authority is inevitably associated with socioeconomic decline and corruption. Its structural weakness and loss of credibility have only grown. The erosion of its legitimacy is the combined consequence of the Oslo deadlock (its inability to achieve the goal of sovereign statehood), wilful Israeli policy, mismanagement and internal undemocratic drift. Within it, Abbas centralizes decision-making and his inner circle has become increasingly precarious. In recent years, Abbas has been concentrating powers to the detriment of institutions and ministers, reinforcing his presidential approach of “one authority, one law, one gun.” He has concentrated power, dissolving Parliament (in 2018), consolidating his control over the judiciary, legislating by decree and purging his political rivals. It 2021, he blocked presidential and legislative elections that would have been the first in Palestine since 2006, blaming the decision on Israeli restrictions on voting in East Jerusalem, even though he clearly feared that he and his party would lose to Hamas.
The PNA is increasingly questioned by the population (Elgindy, 2015). Public opinion polls overwhelmingly point to the very low regard in which the Authority and its leaders are held. As early as 2015, an opinion poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research showed that two-thirds of respondents wanted Abbas to resign and that Marwan Barghouti or a Hamas candidate would win a prime ministerial election.[1] In June 2021, support for Fatah had fallen to just 14% versus over 50% for Hamas.[2] In June 2023, 50% of Palestinians wanted the PA dissolved and 80% wanted Abbas to resign.[3] A more recent poll, from March 2024, found that dissatisfaction with PLO and PNA chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s performance stood at 81%, with 84% of respondents demanding he resign.[4] At the same time, the Fatah party has lost popularity due to the passivity of its public figures, while its rank and file call for the suspension of security cooperation and the youngest are clamouring for a return to armed resistance.
Unquestionably, the Palestinian Authority should have been reformed and redefined long ago. But this was not done due to internal factional and personal interests, as well as the meddling of countries seeking tutelage over the Palestinians, and, above all, because having a divided, delegitimized and dependent PA was in Israel’s interest. Decision-making is highly centralized in the PA, and decision-makers are known for their limited powers. In practice, there is no real and effective government outside of Ramallah. Authority is assumed in each city by local family clans or by Fatah’s Tanzim militias or some other prominent figure. The situation has only worsened in recent years due to decreased support from certain Arab countries and economic collapse. PA officials are not paid and work only a few days a week. This latter dimension likewise grew worse with the last Netanyahu government in 2022, whose finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, immediately announced plans to financially strangle the PNA by withholding the established financial transfers. With the war, the financial pressure has reached its peak; Israel has ceased transferring resources. The PA cannot pay civil servants and the pressure and economic crisis are mounting, to the point that the World Bank has warned of imminent collapse.
Fourth, and finally, the internal division of political organizations and distancing of grassroots activists from the historic parties are also key factors. Fatah, the main PLO organization, is riven with deep internal divisions around more than a dozen figures who espouse discordant positions, represent specific interests or aspire to succeed Abbas. These internal rivalries deepen Palestinian political dysfunction and instability and have led to the disintegration of authority, allowing militant groups to control neighbourhoods and towns. Fatah’s most charismatic leader, Marwan Barghouti, is in prison. Because he is respected by Hamas and public opinion, some fear that his release as part of the prisoner exchange agreements would set off a reunification process that would put an end to the current benefits and bastions of power. Several historical leaders disagree, and the new generations of activists lack direction (Tartir and Seidel, 2019). In an act of internal rebellion, small groups of Fatah militants engage in armed resistance along with other militias, disregarding their leadership. Such was the case of the Arin al-Usoud (the Lion’s Den) group, which was active in several West Bank cities in 2022 and 2023. Other historical PLO organizations, such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), have distanced themselves from Fatah and assumed positions in the resistance. At the same time, after a decade of governing Gaza, in which it demonstrated both its capabilities and its limits, in 2017, Hamas adopted a more pragmatic and nationalist political platform. Seriously affected by its estrangement from Syria in the wake of that country’s civil war, it has also experienced fractures between its inside and outside leadership.
Post-war Management: Oxygen for the PNA or National Unity?
Former Prime Minister Salam Fayyad (2024) has stated, without hesitation, that when the war broke out, the PLO was already reeling from the failure of the Oslo paradigm to lead to self-government, as well as its own failure to deliver effective governance. Its glaring inability to contain settler colonization and violence coupled with its passive and largely reactive stance towards the war have weakened it even further. The massacre and destruction of Gaza have unfolded with a Palestinian political leadership at its nadir. The Abbas government’s obvious inability to respond to the war, and its open criticism of the armed resistance, cast serious doubt on its permanence and, even more, its ability to take charge of Gaza in the post-war period.
Who will take over the Gaza Strip government once hostilities cease is the subject of much speculation and a variety of plans. In Israel, some, such as former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Benny Gantz, who was a minister in the War Cabinet until June 2024, and much of the military establishment, would have the Abbas government take over or participate in the governance. Others, such as the minister Israel Katz, are completely opposed to that, advocating instead an Israeli re-occupation or interim management by Arab states, with the ensuing definitive collapse of the Palestinian government. The United States and the European Union have also expressed support for the PNA to take over the government. UN Security Council Resolution 2735, of 10 June 2024, even stresses “the importance of unifying the Gaza Strip with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority.” This, in turn, has generated considerable tensions between the Gulf monarchies, which aim to maintain some influence over the Palestinians or have their own candidates.
It is hard to believe that, in its current form,
with its highly curtailed capabilities and
utter lack of legitimacy, the PA has the
capacity to take over Gaza, let alone
with the level of devastation caused by the war
This issue has led to a shake-up in the PNA. The post-war period has emerged as its lifeline. It is in this context that a forced change of government has been effected. In January 2024, senior security officials from Saudi Arabia (Musaed bin Mohammed al-Aiban), Jordan, Egypt and Palestine (Majed Faraj) met in Riyadh to coordinate plans for the “day after” the Gaza war, presumably with the consent of the US and Israel. The message from the Arab neighbours was one of support for the PNA to govern Gaza, provided that reforms were undertaken and new figures capable of “revitalizing” Palestinian leadership were brought on board. In February 2024, Prime Minister Shtayyeh (appointed in 2019) tendered his resignation, calling for a reform of the PA and suggesting that “Hamas should participate in the national consensus.” In February 2024, Abbas appointed Mohammad Mustafa as prime minister, a move followed by the appointment of several technocratic ministers. Mustafa is an independent technocrat and member of the PLO Executive Committee who had previously been chairman of the board of the Palestinian Investment Fund. Although a longtime confidant of Abbas, he was also a controversial figure, whose appointment was criticized by the rest of the political forces. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP and the Palestinian National Initiative issued a scathing joint statement underscoring that the top national priority should be confronting Israeli aggression and the war of genocide and that making such a decision without a consensus only deepened internal Palestinian division. They expressed their rejection of the “Palestinian Authority’s persistence in its policy of exclusivity, ignoring national efforts to unite Palestinians in the face of Israeli aggression.”
This move is undoubtedly intended to perpetuate the PA as it currently stands, circumventing any consensus-based reform. The appointment of Mustafa, who is close to Abbas, may not portend substantial changes, but it is in line with the interest of the US and of the Arab neighbours in having a functioning PA capable of “maintaining stability in the West Bank,” a “revitalized Palestinian Authority,” according to President Biden (November 2023). It is hard to believe that, in its current form, with its highly curtailed capabilities and utter lack of legitimacy, the PA has the capacity to take over Gaza, let alone with the level of devastation caused by the war.
A “reform” of Palestinian governance that glosses over the framework of unaltered occupation and dependency, ignores the current disaffection with the PNA, excludes representative political actors and disregards the wishes of the population is clearly not enough. Obviously, it would serve only to prolong the problems that have marked the last decade and perpetuate the PA’s dysfunction. The current PNA is hampered by its status as an intermediary, which cancels out its emancipatory demands and has led to a dramatic loss of credibility and legitimacy.
A large part of the Palestinian political playing field is calling for a unity agreement that would necessarily change that status, renewing the PNA’s sources of legitimacy, and which would also affect the external support it receives. What the Palestinians need, more urgently than institution-building is national consensus-building. At present, a genuine process of Palestinian reunification and re-democratization is imperative. It must include greater space for political opposition and harness youth-led activism and its new practices of resistance. Without prior unity around national goals, no Palestinian political leadership can tackle the overall situation or assume management of the territories in the wake of the war. The “day after” may thus set the stage for a repeat of what Abbas’s West Bank has become or provide an opportunity for a political re-appropriation of self-government, with the legitimacy of national unity.
The unification of the Palestinian national movement, under a reconstituted PLO that includes all Palestinian political organizations (including Hamas and Islamic Jihad) and is open to new young leaders, is perceived by the majority of political players and public opinion as essential to reorienting the national struggle. But this requires a national agreement. To that end, numerous meetings have been held to normalize relations between the factions. Since the start of the war, the Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Fatah, have continued their meetings and dialogues to hammer out a form of political unity and agree on a national position within the PLO. They met in Moscow in late February and in Beijing in April. The main stumbling block is Abbas’s refusal to include Hamas, whom he perceives as a competitor and whose normalization he fears could give oxygen to factions of Fatah critical of the current management and in favour of participating in the resistance. With its social base and representativeness, even after 7 October, Hamas is an ineluctable political actor. It thus cannot be excluded from any attempt to rebuild the Palestinian political arena. Hamas and Jihad have several times expressed their readiness for a consensus national unity government, not based on factional quotas, which would administer both Palestinian territories for a transitional period culminating in elections.
The Temptation to Intervene in Palestinian Governance
The Palestinians have a right to self-determination and self-governance and are thus the only ones who should freely decide. The anomaly is the occupation and any external interference, Israeli or international, in the governance of the Palestinian territories that contributes to maintaining the occupation and works to the detriment of the occupied population.
Despite the claims of Zionism’s most extremist sectors, Israel is unlikely to reoccupy Gaza, with all the consequences that would entail. Instead, it will encourage any arrangement that allows it to keep the Palestinians under control at the lowest possible cost, whether that means resorting to a domesticated PA, its Arab allies or the international community. In any case, Israel will not give up its approach of nullifying the Palestinians’ political response capabilities and using all available means to prevent Palestinian national unity, which would necessarily involve not repeating Oslo and reiterating its goal of ending the occupation.
There is currently no shortage of fanciful proposals calling for an interim international administration or government of technical experts with no political affiliations. Nor for the deployment of Arab troops, despite the fact that no Arab country would send troops without a call from the Palestinians themselves or contribute to an even greater division between Gaza and the West Bank. More attuned to Israeli imperatives, their authors refuse to accept that a return to the logic of Oslo and extending the life of an ineffective and illegitimate Palestinian authority would only prolong the problem. There is no truly viable alternative to a new Palestinian authority resulting from a national unity agreement in the framework of a new approach to the occupation.
There is no truly viable alternative
to a new Palestinian authority resulting
from a national unity agreement in the
framework of a new approach to the
occupation
International actors that have contributed to the state-building of Oslo for the last three decades and wish to see this issue settled should critically consider the consequences of supporting a revamped “intermediary entity” to satisfy Israel’s interests, repeating slogans that exclude some Palestinian actors. Instead, they would do much better to support a reconstituted PLO and take actions aimed at ending the occupation and enabling the Palestinians’ self-determination.
First, a Palestinian national consensus must be reached to rebuild the political leadership and agree on a national strategy in accordance with the current situation. And, second, a government is needed to take charge of the West Bank and Gaza. As former Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh (2024) says, “Any governance arrangement has to be designed and led by Palestinians rather than imposed from outside. It must draw strong support from Arab countries and receive international backing. And it must provide a unified Palestinian leadership and a path to statehood while satisfying the security needs of both the Palestinians and the Israelis, thereby laying the foundation for regional peace and security.”
Even before the war, Hugh Lovatt (2023) wrote, “Without a national political leadership that commands public support, reviving the PA’s flagging institutions and rehabilitating the Palestinian political system will prove nearly impossible. This will, however, likely require European donors to accept a more robust political strategy to secure Palestinian self-determination that is no longer beholden to the moribund Oslo peace process.” This reflection is truer now than ever.
References
Abu Tarbush, José. “De la OLP a la ANP: erosión del capital político del movimiento palestino,” in Thieux, Laurence; Barreñada, Isaías (eds). La cuestión palestina 75 años después de la Nakba. Colonialismo, desposesión, ocupación y genocidio. Madrid: Dykinson, 2024.
Elgindy, Khaled. “Lost in the chaos: The Palestinian leadership crisis,” The Washington Quarterly, 38(4), p. 133-150, 2015.
El Kurd, Dana. Polarized and Demobilized: Legacies of Authoritarianism in Palestine. Hurst, 2022.
Fayyad, Salam. “Why Palestinian Unity Matters,” Foreign Affairs, 20 June 2024
Lovatt, Hugh. “House in disorder: how Europeans can help Palestinians fix their political system.” ECFR Policy Brief, September 2023, https://ecfr.eu/publication/house-in-disorder-how-europeans-can-help-palestinians-fix-their-political-system/.
Shtayyeh, Mohammad. “Reviving the Arab Peace Initiative Would Resolve the Conflict—and Build a New Palestinian Reality,” Foreign Affairs, 4 July 2024.
Tartir, Alaa; Seidel, Timothy (eds). Palestine and Rule of Power: Local Dissent vs. International Governance. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
[1] Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. Public opinion poll, 57, 6 October 2015. www.pcpsr.org/en/node/621.
[2] Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research . Public opinion poll, 80, 4 July 2021. www.pcpsr.org/en/node/845.
[3] Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. Public opinion poll, 88, 7-11 June 2023. https://pcpsr.org/en/node/944.
[4] Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research . Public opinion poll, 91, 15 April 2024. https://pcpsr.org/en/node/973.
Header photo: A demonstrator holding a Palestinian flag uses a sling to hurl stones at Israeli troops during a protest at the Israel-Gaza border fence, in the central Gaza Strip January 25, 2019. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa