Between rearranging the house and dismantling the country... who comes first?

Writer: Marwan Emil Toubasi

While we Palestinians are busy discussing the dates of elections, the national dialogue, rebuilding and renewing our political system democratically, and the importance of these entitlements, a faster and more dangerous process is continuing on the ground, the title of which is the existence of our people and the reshaping of the Palestinian geography itself. It is as if we are facing a race between a Palestinian time burdened with disagreements and waiting for consensus, and a time of replacement colonial occupation that does not wait for anyone, and continues to impose facts and change the borders of the place, its functions, and its future with the support of successive American administrations and the remnants of Western colonial thought.

Settlement expansion in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, is no longer limited to Area C, while settler attacks and terrorism are escalating, settlements are expanding and the Palestinian space is eroding, as part of a broader path to fragment the land and reshape its geography.

Israel is the settlements and the settlements are Israel, as the left-wing Israeli journalist and friend Gideon Levy said. The settlement project was not created by individuals who rebelled against the state, but rather governments and official institutions provided it with land, financing, infrastructure, and military, legal, and political protection, in the service of a colonial project that seeks permanent expansion even in the broader region.

This coincides with what is happening in Gaza, where the daily crimes of occupation, murder, and destruction continue, and the suffering of our people there, and the absence of illusions of reconstruction, and the dangers of separation and restructuring of the administration and political future away from the unity of the land and national jurisdiction, in light of the arrangements of Resolution 2803 and what was called the “Peace Council” and its administrative committee, which we miscalculated when we welcomed it in exchange for what was possible by presenting the Russian draft resolution with Chinese support before the Security Council.

Inside Palestine, the policies of Jewish supremacy and racial discrimination against our people are escalating, and attempts are being made to prevent their lists from participating in the parliamentary elections, while the differences between the Zionist parties go beyond the issue of the rights of our people and ending the occupation to the struggle over who controls the government at the expense of the rights and blood of our people.

We are, therefore, facing an existential battle and an accumulated path to reshape the Palestinian place and transform its gatherings into population islands and geographical isolations within a space controlled by the occupying state, making the embodiment of the Palestinian state more difficult the more these facts take hold, despite the expansion of international recognition of it, whose political and legal importance remains incomplete unless it is transformed into a force to end the occupation and embody the state recognized by the world on the ground.

On the other hand, today we are preparing for an upcoming national dialogue in Cairo, while the legislative elections are still officially scheduled for the twenty-eighth of next November, although the possibility of their postponement has become present in the political and factional debate.

Here the question is not limited to the date of the elections or who will participate in the dialogue, but rather goes beyond that to the content of the political system that must be rebuilt and renewed democratically, its terms of reference and its relationship to the Declaration of Independence document and the status of the State of Palestine, and the necessity of moving from managing a transitional self-governing authority that arose in the context of Oslo, after the failure of its political path, towards embodying the State of Palestine under occupation with its national and legal jurisdiction over its land and people. And benefiting from international changes, especially after the New Delhi Declaration of the “BRICS” countries and the Global South, the expansion of global popular solidarity, and Israel’s increasing isolation, including among American public opinion, which has become a fundamental focus in the parties’ programs for the European elections and the Latin continent.

Here, it is not possible to address the crisis of our political system without acknowledging our responsibility for part of it, and the necessity of changing tools and not repeating mistakes, without this obscuring the basic and direct responsibility of the occupation based on the nature of the conflict. The coup, division, the failure of institutions, the absence of democratic renewal, the predominance of factional accounts, and the observance of external conditions have contributed to weakening our ability to confront the settlement project and preserve our independent national decision and the unity of our people.

Therefore, the national dialogue should not turn into an understanding between the factions or the search for a way out for an electoral date solely on the importance of its combat and historical role, but rather into a broad dialogue about our national liberation project and rebuilding its tools and institutions. It should also not remain limited to factions, but rather include civil society, independent competencies, youth and women’s movements, and representatives of our people’s groups in the diaspora, within the framework of renewing the role of our Palestinian national movement, first and foremost the Fatah movement, in a way that preserves its identity and goals.

In this context, elections become part of the answer, not the entire answer. They are a tool for restoring the people’s right to choose their representatives, renewing legitimacy, and reconsidering the principle that the people are the source of authorities, and also a tool in the political battle with the occupation, especially in Jerusalem. If the national consensus requires reconsidering its date, this must not mean returning to open postponement, but rather agreeing on a binding path for legislative and presidential elections, leading to the democratic election and renewal of the National Council of the PLO with the participation of our people in their various locations.

What is also required from the dialogue is to redefine the function of the authority as a tool of the national liberation project and not a substitute for it, and to develop it towards the institutions of the State of Palestine under occupation, in parallel with the development of the PLO and to restore its role as a broad national front for a liberation movement that has not yet accomplished its tasks.

The occupation does not wait for the results of our dialogue or the dates of our elections and conferences. While we discuss who rules, how to elect, and when to engage in dialogue, the land over which we will govern and the geography over which we will elect are being changed.

Therefore, the question that should accompany us to Cairo, in my opinion, goes beyond the fate and dates of the elections, important as they are, to how, with the responsibility and courage of review and self-criticism, we can rebuild our political system and renew it democratically and link the national with the social to solve the livelihood issues of our people by embodying justice, separation of powers and the rule of law, and among the tools of our national liberation project, a force to protect the unity of the land, the people and the cause and to enable our steadfastness. In fact, before the occupation maps preceded us to complete the imposition of a new reality on our present existence and future.

If settler colonialism seeks to transform the Palestinian from a landowner into a problem and an obstacle that must be solved by getting rid of him, then our national entitlement is to rebuild and renew our liberation project capable of protecting the existence of our people and our land, and transforming steadfastness from a mere ability to survive into a liberation political force capable of seizing rights and defeating the occupation first.