Cairo-Palestinian Dialogue: One last chance before an entire era ends

author

Interest in postponing the elections and its repercussions is focused among the political elite. The Palestinian people in their homeland are not interested in holding them or postponing them, because they are preoccupied with other priorities: preserving life, livelihood, home, security, health and medicine, the opportunity to work, and confronting genocide, annexation, displacement, settlement, and settler attacks. This is evidenced by the fact that 66% of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and 55% in the West Bank, according to the Awrad poll, did not know the date of the elections. If the failure of the national dialogue is added to this, if it fails, as expected, if it reproduces previous dialogues and agreements, then an additional nail, and perhaps the last, will be hammered into the coffin of the Palestinian political system with its various components, with further erosion of legitimacy and credibility, a widening of the gap between the leaders and the people, and more external pressures and interventions, especially from donor countries, threatening the return of guardianship and the generalization of the “peace council” experience in the West Bank. Some of them, such as the European Union, and France in particular, have threatened to stop aid if the postponement decisions are not reviewed, and the occupation’s attempts to place obstacles that make holding free elections impossible are not stopped. In this context, we heard ideas about forming a parallel framework for the PLO before rebuilding its institutions, and about asking donors to add to the election request the formation of a government delegated to a prime minister with full powers, and turning the president into an honorary president. This is a good thing if it is adopted, and it is an initiative of the Palestinian people and Palestinian parties, and it is dangerous and strips it of its national character if it is strengthened by external parties.

The postponement is mainly due to the fear of the leadership and the ruling elite of lossSeveral indicators and polls, including those that were conducted but not published, indicated that it would obtain, at best, 24% of the seats, and at worst, less than 10%. This means a decisive change in the political map, which translates politically what happened and reflects the facts and results of the aftermath of “October 7.”

The new political map is intended to fit the realities that the occupation creates daily in the West Bank, where the implementation of the plan to resolve the conflict is escalating at a feverish pace.

The features of the new map appeared in the new Nakba, especially in Gaza, despite the myth of steadfastness and valiant resistance. The confrontation ended, due to the balance of power, the regional and international situation, and a mistake in calculations, and the effort to stop the war of annihilation, with the acceptance of Trump’s plan, which turned into Security Council Resolution 2803, even though it constitutes a kind of external guardianship over the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian side implemented most of its obligations in the first phase, and confirmed its commitment to the rest, especially the Hamas movement’s relinquishment of power, its disarmament, and its transformation into a political party, in an agreement with the “Peace Council” at the end of last July, while Israel did not implement most of its obligations in the first phase, and refused to implement the aforementioned agreement.

The new political map is also intended to fit the realities that the occupation creates daily in the West Bank, where the implementation of the conflict resolution plan is escalating at a feverish pace: which aims to liquidate the Palestinian issue from its roots, including the continuation of the war of extermination and displacement, liquidation of the refugee issue, preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state, undermining the authority, impoverishing the population, giving free rein to the settlers, creeping annexation, expanding settlements and building new outposts, apartheid, and internal displacement by gathering Palestinians together. In isolation in Areas A and B, and evacuating Area C, in preparation for their displacement abroad at the appropriate time, after annexing, settling and Judaizing the largest possible area of land.

There is nothing strange about what is happening, as something similar happened after the first and second intifadas. The first achieved major achievements in its beginning and then turned into failures, due to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the collapse of Arab solidarity after Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait, and the drying up ofThe organization's resources, one party ignoring the importance of investing them, and another party rushing to harvest its fruits before they mature. This explains the fall into the Oslo trap, the major fall that occurred as a result of harmful illusions and losing bets. The second intifada came as a result of a trap set by Ehud Barak for Yasser Arafat by moving to the final status and merging the entitlements of the two stages, the transitional and final, and inviting Clinton to the Camp David summit under the pretext of reaching peace, while the real goal, as Barak stated, was to remove the mask from Yasser Arafat’s face, and then hold the Palestinians responsible for its failure, contrary to his promise. The reaction to Sharon's provocative visit to Al-Aqsa was based on an assessment that was proven wrong, according to which a limited armed uprising could be controlled and would improve the conditions for negotiation. Then the events of “September 11” (2001) led to an American and global shift against the resistance, by linking it to terrorism, and opened the door to demanding a change in the Palestinian leadership and the creation of a new leadership that fights terrorism, as stated in Bush Jr.’s speech in June 2002. After that, the road map that Sharon had reservations about was put forward and he undermined it by making 14 reservations and developing a plan to disengage from Gaza. In the same context, “reform” of the Palestinian Authority was proposed by creating the position of Prime Minister and transferring the powers of the President to him. That was a statement of truth intended for a falsehood: to weaken Arafat’s leadership and create a leadership more responsive to American and Israeli conditions. Despite the birth of that leadership, the Israeli position did not improve, but rather became more extreme despite the provision of more Palestinian concessions.

The conditions for stopping the genocide have become Hamas’ relinquishing power, disarming the Gaza Strip, excluding it from the Palestinian future, and refusing to participate in the elections.

What is taking place today is a new episode in this context, in worse subjective circumstances, and under an old, renewed title, “reform of authority” or “renewed authority,” and with several tools, including elections, in light of the continuation of genocide, annexation, settlement, and apartheid, and the strong blows to which the authority and the resistance were subjected, which greatly weakened them and created a vacuum that there are those preparing to fill. The conditions for stopping the genocide have become Hamas's relinquishment of power, the disarmament of the Gaza Strip, its exclusion from the Palestinian future, and its refusal to participate in the elections, not only at an Israeli-American demand, but also at a regional and international demand.

This plan cannot be thwarted, or even its conditions improved, without the success of the Palestinian dialogue in Cairo, and reaching a national consensus, not only to hold elections as quickly as possible, but also to redefine the national project, or at least agree on a political program capable of confronting the existential risks that threaten the cause, the land, the people, the rights, and the unity of representation of the PLO. The success of the dialogue requires awareness of the risks and opportunities without exaggeration or minimization, and a political will that puts unity, pluralism, and partnership above everything else.

If this is achieved and the people and their living forces move to impose their will, then there is a chance for the dialogue to succeed this time. This requires expanding the circle of participants to include representatives of women, youth, places of asylum, the diaspora, civil society, the private sector, and independent figures, and changing the agenda, so that it does not reproduce factional quotas, and is centered around developing a vision, strategy, partnership, pluralistic unity, and one leadership, whose primary goal is to provide the elements of steadfastness and survival for the people and the cause, and to thwart the plan to liquidate the issue with its various roots.It also requires betting on the Palestinian people (the Camel of Bearings), the embodiment of the myth of steadfastness, survival and the phoenix, and on the Arab and Islamic peoples, the peoples of the world and the forces of freedom, after we witnessed an irreversible historical transformation from it, when the issue became the title of freedom and justice in the entire world, and the struggle for it mixed with the global struggle, until it became an internal issue in the countries of the West.

The factions did not reach their weakness until they abandoned their national democratic programs, became obsolete, flabby, and became corrupt and did not renew or change.

The opportunity exists for the success of the dialogue, although it is not great, due to the deep impasse and great weakness that the national movement and all its components are suffering from. Despite this, there is a chance that the threat of annihilation threatens all Palestinians, and because an important part of the causes of the dispute has been removed from the conflict and can be removed from the internal dialogue table, as the competition for power between two conflicting authorities was the most important root of the division. Now the authority in Gaza has been destroyed and Hamas is preparing to abandon what remains of it, while the authority in the West Bank is being undermined, and its future, if it is not changed within a new approach, ranges between dissolving and dismantling it and turning it into local authorities, and remaining emptied of any political or national content, without a horizon, and its function is to manage the population under occupation. This raises the question about the function of the elections: Is it to elect someone who runs the prison, improves the conditions of families, and perpetuates and deepens division, or is it someone who seeks to break its bars and achieve unity as a path to victory by ending the occupation and embodying the right to self-determination and independence? There are elections and elections.

We warn against putting aside the national social democratic program and condemning the experience of the factions, with what they have and what they have to do, under the pretext that they have reached a dead end, and that priority is given to livelihood issues. This and that are true, but they alone mean coexistence with the occupation, submitting to its conditions, and relying and betting on donors and others. The factions did not reach this weakness until they abandoned their national democratic programmes. They became obsolete, flabby, corrupted, and did not renew or change. Their survival became the goal, and they became more like “the sailors of everyone who has a hand.” Therefore, if electoral and non-electoral competition turns into a competition between individuals, without...An agreement on the basic foundations, goals, and rules of joint action, such that each one of them now seeks his interests, the interests of his family, his clan, or the financial or security sector he represents. If this is achieved, we will reach a worse state than we are in.

There was previously disagreement over the program of the Palestinian state, and there is currently broad national agreement about it, and there was disagreement about forms of resistance, between those who support negotiations and those who embrace armed resistance. Today, however, we have entered a stage in which there are no solutions, no negotiations, and no political horizon for years, and in which it is not possible to resort to armed resistance, given the high cost and the regional and international position, until there is a general Palestinian consensus to stop it, even though it is a legitimate right for any people under occupation, as is evident from the Palestinian approval of the Security Council resolution, which is based on the Trump plan and the agreement to implement it.

There is a way, if there is the will, to develop awareness, review, accountability, renewal and change. If it is not available, we will quickly witness the curtain coming down on a Palestinian era that has extended since the Nakba in 1948, and it will be followed by a period of decline, shorter or longer, but it will not close the conflict. Rather, a new era and a new wave of the Palestinian struggle will come, which we hope will be and will be different, especially in the results, as the Palestinian people deserve and deserve victory.