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- tinian state may be forever out of reach. If this is 1990s between Israel and the Palestine Liberation true, it raises profound questions for all parties, Organization (PLO) ushered in a period of both but especially for the Palestinians: Where do they promise and confusion, especially for the Pales- go from here? What do they do with the state- tinians. The creation of the Palestinian National building project that has consumed so much en- Authority (PA), a transitional government of lim- ergy and so many resources? How do they revital- ited self-rule in the occupied territories, added ize and reorient their national movement? an institutional layer to Palestinian politics that 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 Pales- 1 Policy Brief • November 2019 the calls have grown louder to formally incorporate into Israel the territory on the West Bank where BACKGROUND those settlements have been established, a portion of land designated “Area C” under the Accords. Area While these questions would be difficult to answer C comprises more than 60 percent of the West Bank under any circumstances, the complete disarray of and is essential to the establishment of a viable Pales- Palestinian politics at this moment has rendered tinian state. Yet more than 620,000 settlers are now such a task almost impossible. living there illegally in more than 240 dispersed set- tlements, including in East Jerusalem.8 In addition The Palestinians’ two main institutional bodies, the to the physical barrier to Palestinian statehood, the PLO and PA, are weak, divided, stagnant, and dys- settlers and their organized movement have become functional. In the West Bank, the Fatah-dominated an even bigger political obstacle. The rightward slide PA-government exercises limited autonomy over in Israeli politics has tipped the scales in favor of the an archipelago of ghettoized enclaves separated by advocates of extending Israeli sovereignty beyond Israeli-controlled territorial zones and connected the Green Line. by an Israeli-controlled transit system.3 In Gaza, Hamas rules over a single, larger ghettoized enclave The policy of annexation was both adopted by the that has been under siege by Israel, with cooperation ruling Likud party in its political platform in De- from Egypt, for 12 years. Neither side appears ca- cember 2017,9 and promised by Prime Minister pable on its own of reversing these adverse circum- Benjamin Netanyahu on the eve of the April 2019 stances. elections,10 as well as multiple times since. It is in- creasingly improbable that any political coalition The political and territorial rupture that occurred in could take action to reverse the settlement project 2007 between these two factions has paralyzed the without collapsing itself, igniting large-scale politi- democratic process and institutional governance.4 cal upheaval, or even provoking a civil war.11 PA elections have not been held in 13 years. The PA president and PLO chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, Indeed, today there is no appetite in Israel, from the rules by decree without legislative or judicial con- political leadership or the majority of the public, straint. Not surprisingly, without elections the PA is to take concrete steps toward partition.12 The sta- facing an acute crisis of legitimacy. Contending with tus quo has proven too convenient, especially when growing dissatisfaction and unrest, politics in both measured against the potential risks involved in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have become increas- facilitating the establishment of a Palestinian state. ingly authoritarian and repressive.5 Moreover, as political scientist Ian Lustick once pre- dicted, the occupied West Bank, or Judea and Sa- Beyond the challenge of reorienting the national maria in Israeli parlance, is increasingly perceived by movement, this weak and divided Palestinian Israelis as an integral part of the society, the state, body politic faces a growing set of challenges on and the collective identity of its polity.13 Few today the ground. Successive rightwing governments in talk about relinquishing these territories, or of di- Israel seek to secure permanent control over the viding Jerusalem—two requisites for the two-state West Bank, and the Trump administration aims to solution. “fundamentally reframe” the U.S. approach to the conflict by “downplaying [the] political and nation- Furthermore, the United States under the Trump al” concerns of Palestinians and by supporting the administration has abandoned long-standing