August 06, 2014
The latest ceasefire announcement in Gaza coincided with a
trip for me from Beirut to Amman and back, during which I spent time discussing
the Gaza situation with Jordanians, Palestinians and Lebanese who follow these
issues closely. Whatever happens on the ground in Gaza and at the expected
Israeli-Palestinian truce talks in Cairo this week, my sense is that we are
passing through a unique and possibly pivotal moment that could lay the foundation
for better days ahead — if effective political decisions are made that build on
the developments of recent weeks.
The most important political action the
Palestinians should take now is to rapidly reconstitute the institutions of the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), so that Palestinians speak with one
voice and benefit from the total backing of the eight million or so
Palestinians around the world. Two important recent developments make this both
possible and useful: the national unity government of Palestinian technocrats
that was recently established, and the joint delegation of Fateh, Hamas,
Islamic Jihad and other factions in Cairo for the ceasefire talks.
A critical weakness for Palestinians in the past
two decades has been their political fragmentation, ultimately leading to the
situation where Hamas controlled Gaza and Fateh controlled the West Bank; the
other four million Palestinians around the world did as best they could for
political leadership and representation. Fateh pursued fruitless diplomatic
negotiations with Israel for two decades, while Hamas engaged in armed
resistance against Israel.
Neither strategy has brought the Palestinians
any closer to their goal of national self-determination, ending refugeehood and
achieving statehood. Israel has continued its colonization of the West
Bank-Jerusalem, and its siege and repeated savage attacks against Gaza. One
reason for the absence of any serious Palestinian gains has been the
fragmentation of the Palestinian leadership, a consequence both of their
occupied/dispersed condition due to the conflict with Zionism-Israel, and also
of their own political incompetence and immaturity. This terrible constraint
can now be removed, if the Palestinian political movements and grassroots community
institutions move swiftly to achieve what is now within their grasp: a single
Palestinian national movement that pursues a consensus political/liberation
program that is supported by Palestinians everywhere, and also enjoys massive
international diplomatic support. Such a unified Palestinian political program
would build on the agreement of the current national unity government as well
as on the 2002 Arab Peace Plan that has been repeatedly reconfirmed by Arab
summits.
A unified Palestinian position of this sort
would put immense pressure on Israel, the United States and others to do two
essential things that they have always avoided: engage with Hamas and others as
part of the single Palestinian leadership represented by the PLO, and discuss
permanent coexistence arrangements based on the 2002 Arab Peace Plan that
acknowledges Israeli and Palestinian rights as having equal validity and
priority.
Hamas and other militants groups’ positions have
evolved sufficiently in recent years to allow all of these things to happen,
which was not the case a decade ago. The armed resistance’s repeated shows of
courage, persistence and technical ability in Gaza also allow Hamas, Islamic
Jihad and others to enter into a more rigorous political negotiation with Israel
with two elements that have always eluded Fateh and its hapless negotiating
legacy: One is pride and self-confidence, and the other is a deterrence
capability based on its ability and will to fight Israel, suffer heavy losses,
but repeatedly force Israel into accepting ceasefires.
Reconstituting and relegitimizing the
institutions of the PLO would allow Palestinian negotiators to speak with a
more powerful and credible voice, because they would be speaking in the name of
Palestinians everywhere in the world. This would help them affirm the
democratic and representative nature of Palestinian governance, which would
enhance their ability to mobilize popular support across Palestinian, Arab and
other friendly communities and governments, ensure that national political
positions reflect a genuine consensus, and thus strengthen the negotiators’
hand.
The combination of the existing national unity
government of technocrats, the unified Palestinian delegation at the Cairo
ceasefire talks, and the widespread sense of Palestinian solidarity in the wake
of the Gaza fighting make this a rare moment. The suffering, destruction and
losses suffered by so many Palestinians in the past month could provide the
foundation for some serious political advances in the Palestinian national
arena. Israel will try to prevent this at all costs, and in the past has
allowed diplomacy to stall because it was always able to deal with only
fragmented Palestinian elements rather than a unified national movement.
A unified PLO could also seriously confront
Israeli crimes by using the institutional of international legitimacy to hold
it accountable, such as the International Criminal Court, which a big majority
of Palestinians supports. A unified PLO is the Palestinians’ top political priority
right now.
Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares
Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American
University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon. On Twitter: @ramikhouri.
Copyright © 2014 Rami G. Khouri—distributed by Agence Global