POLICY BRIEFING / DECEMBER 2019 From Confusion to Clarity: Three Pillars for Revitalizing the Palestinian National Movement Omar H. Rahman1 he Palestinian national move- ment is in a state of crisis. The sovereign, independent state, Twhich has been its goal for more than 30 years, may finally be forever out of reach. The Oslo Accords, the set of agreements manqué designed to facilitate a negotiated peace, have become a massive burden and source of confusion, trapping Palestinian institutions in a system of cooperation with a dysfunctional process that allows for the gradual dispossession of their own people. Despite mounting and coalescing challenges from successive Israeli rightwing governments, and now a sympathetic Trump administration, the Palestinian body politic remains too weak and divided to face down these challenges and reorient itself to pursue a new national agenda. Palestinians must immediately put their house in order. This starts by dispelling the confusion that has amassed around Palestinian institutions, representa- tion, and relations as a result of the Oslo Accords. By bringing clarity to these three pillars, Palestinians will be on better footing to reinvigorate their national movement so that it may serve their collective interests, and to articulate a clear, unifying vision of the future. KEY RECOMMENDATIONS • Institutional Clarity: Decouple the Pal- elections as soon as possible; restructuring estinian National Authority (PA) from the the PLO to be more representative; and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), creating a public space for the exchange of and prohibit officials from holding leader- ideas and political platforms. ship positions in both institutions. Clearly • Relational Clarity: demarcate the roles and status of both the Through the PLO, PA and the PLO, restoring PLO primacy reassess and reposition the Palestinian over national politics and decision-making. relationship to Israel outside of the Oslo framework based on non-cooperation; • Representational Clarity: Reconcile consider redefining the nature of Israel’s Palestinian factions at the PLO level by: regime and the Palestinian position reforming the electoral system and holding within it. Copyright © 2019 Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution is a private nonprofit organization. Its mission is to conduct high-quality, independent research and, based on that research, to provide innovative, practical recommendations for policymakers and the public. The conclusions and recommenda- tions of any Brookings publication are solely those of its author(s), and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institution, its man- agement, or its other scholars. Brookings recognizes that the value it provides to any supporter is in its absolute commitment to quality, independence and impact. Activities supported by its donors reflect this commitment and the analysis and recommendations are not determined by any donation. INTRODUCTION The signing of the Oslo Accords in the mid- estinian state may be forever out of reach. If 1990s between Israel and the Palestine Liberation this is true, it raises profound questions for Organization (PLO) ushered in a period of both all parties, but especially for the Palestinians: promise and confusion, especially for the Pales- Where do they go from here? What do they tinians. The creation of the Palestinian National do with the state-building project that has con- Authority (PA), a transitional government of lim- sumed so much energy and so many resources? ited self-rule in the occupied territories, added How do they revitalize and reorient their na- an institutional layer to Palestinian politics that tional movement? quickly became difficult to distinguish from the PLO, in no small part because the leadership of Figure 1: both entities was the same. West Bank: What a One State Really Looks Like Lebanon Over time, Palestinian representation also suf- 1949 Armistice Syria Line fered from this institutional ambiguity, with the Golan Heights PLO, the representative of all Palestinians, sub- (Israeli Haifa occupied) sumed by the far more parochial PA. Subsequent Mediterranean Sea Israel events led to the rupture of the Palestinian body 1949 Armistice politic, the deterioration of the democratic pro- Line cess in the occupied territories, and the strength- Netanya ening of authoritarianism in both the West Bank Nablus and Gaza Strip, all of which have undermined the River Jordan legitimacy of Palestinian representation. Tel Aviv-Yafo West 1994 Treaty Bank Line The Oslo Accords also reconfigured the rela- Ashdod tionship between Palestinians and Israel, which, Jerusalem pursuant to the agreements, became partners in Ashqelon Dead the peace process. Yet this relational shift was far Sederot Gaza Hebron Sea from clear given that Israel continued its military Gaza Strip 1949 occupation of Palestinian territory, which is still Armistice 1949 Line Armistice ongoing more than two decades later, for the du- Beersheba Line Jordan ration of the negotiating process. Dimona Today, the peace process is dead. The Oslo Ac- Egypt cords are no longer operable,2 reflecting neither (Sinai) the reality on the ground nor the trajectory of the conflict. Yet the effects of the Accords continue to KEY confound Palestinian political life, which is fac- Areas A and B ing an unprecedented level of division and dys- Area C function. The Palestinian political leadership is unable to address the range of pressing challenges it now confronts. Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), “The West Bank including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip,” The most significant of these stems from the accessed November 30, 2019, www.ochaopt.org mounting realization that an independent Pal- 1 Policy Brief • December 2019 BACKGROUND cess,7 the calls have grown louder to formally in- corporate into Israel the territory on the West Bank While these questions would be difficult to an- where those settlements have been established, a swer under any circumstances, the complete dis- portion of land designated “Area C” under the Ac- array of Palestinian politics at this moment has cords. Area C comprises more than 60 percent of rendered such a task almost impossible. the West Bank and is essential to the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. Yet more than 620,000 The Palestinians’ two main institutional bodies, settlers are now living there illegally in more than the PLO and PA, are weak, divided, stagnant, and 240 dispersed settlements, including in East Jeru- dysfunctional. In the West Bank, the Fatah-dom- salem.8 In addition to the physical barrier to Pal- inated PA-government exercises limited auton- estinian statehood, the settlers and their organized omy over an archipelago of ghettoized enclaves movement have become an even bigger political separated by Israeli-controlled territorial zones obstacle. The rightward slide in Israeli politics has and connected by an Israeli-controlled transit sys- tipped the scales in favor of the advocates of ex- tem.3 In Gaza, Hamas rules over a single, larger tending Israeli sovereignty beyond the Green Line. ghettoized enclave that has been under siege by Israel, with cooperation from Egypt, for 12 years. The policy of annexation was both adopted by the Neither side appears capable on its own of revers- ruling Likud party in its political platform in De- ing these adverse circumstances. cember 2017,9 and promised by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the eve of the April 2019 The political and territorial rupture that occurred elections,10 as well as multiple times since. It is in- in 2007 between these two factions has para- creasingly improbable that any political coalition lyzed the democratic process and institutional could take action to reverse the settlement project governance.4 PA elections have not been held in without collapsing itself, igniting large-scale politi- 13 years. The PA president and PLO chairman, cal upheaval, or even provoking a civil war.11 Mahmoud Abbas, rules by decree without legisla- tive or judicial constraint. Not surprisingly, with- Indeed, today there is no appetite in Israel, from out elections the PA is facing an acute crisis of the political leadership or the majority of the legitimacy. Contending with growing dissatisfac- public, to take concrete steps toward partition.12 tion and unrest, politics in both the West Bank The status quo has proven too convenient, espe- and Gaza Strip have become increasingly authori- cially when measured against the potential risks tarian and repressive.5 involved in facilitating the establishment of a Pal- estinian state. Moreover, as political scientist Ian Beyond the challenge of reorienting the national Lustick once predicted, the occupied West Bank, movement, this weak and divided Palestinian or Judea and Samaria in Israeli parlance, is in- body politic faces a growing set of challenges on creasingly perceived by Israelis as an integral part the ground. Successive rightwing governments in of the society, the state, and the collective identity Israel seek to secure permanent control over the of its polity.13 Few today talk about relinquishing West Bank, and the Trump administration aims to these territories, or of dividing Jerusalem—two “fundamentally reframe” the U.S. approach to the requisites for the two-state solution. conflict by “downplaying [the] political and na- tional” concerns of Palestinians and by supporting Furthermore, the United States under the Trump the agenda of the Israeli