A thesis on postponing the postponed... while the people are hostage to putting the house in order...

Writer: Younis Al-Amouri

We had hardly finished talking about postponing the postponed one when the new postponement came to us to confirm that we have enough appointments in Palestinian political life so that we do not reach an appointment, enough decisions so that we do not have to implement a decision, and enough national reasons to remain outside the national entitlement. On the seventh of last September, we wrote about postponement as a way to manage what we do not want to resolve, and about that political ingenuity that makes us postpone the entitlement and then postpone its postponement, and set a new deadline in order to give the postponed one an additional life, and celebrate that we still have a date in the future. We said that we have been postponing failure, reckoning, confession, and questioning, until the postponement itself has become a political achievement that deserves to be told for generations. We did not know at that time that the new presidential decree would come to us so quickly, putting our words to a new test, giving the dictionary of postponement an additional article, and confirming that what was postponed was not waiting for a solution as much as it was waiting for another deadline. It was decided to cancel the date of the legislative elections, which was set for November 28, 2026, and to call for the presidential and legislative elections to be held simultaneously on September 11, 2027. Thus, we moved from one date to another, from one entitlement to a postponed entitlement, and from a promise of renewal to an additional year of waiting. The question is no longer just when the elections will be held, but how did it become possible to postpone them again, and who decided that the Palestinian people could wait another year, and who gave the decision-makers the right to dispose of people’s lives as if they were a reserve balance in their political accounts?

We are not talking about regular elections that were postponed in a stable country due to a technical malfunction or emergency circumstance, nor about a periodic election that can be replaced at a soon date without its absence having major political consequences. We are talking about a people who have not known legislative elections since 2006, and have not known presidential elections since 2005, about institutions whose role has been disrupted or eroded, about a long-standing political and geographical division that has become part of people’s lives, and about a political system that demands trust from society while depriving this society of one of the most important tools for renewing trust and accountability. We are talking about an entire generation that was born, grew up, entered universities and the labor market, and perhaps gave birth to children, without having the opportunity to participate in general elections in which it chooses its representatives and holds accountable those who manage its affairs. Then the decree comes to ask this generation to add another year to the waiting list, as if the previous years were a period of training in patience, and as if the authority has the right to extend the time whenever the due date approaches, and as if the people are no longer citizens with political rights, but rather a public who is required to understand the decisions of others, no matter how long the period lasts and no matter how wide the gap between promises and reality. What meaning remains for elections when their date becomes subject to cancellation as it approaches, and what meaning remains for legitimacy when it does not find its way to renewal, and what meaning remains for talking about reform when reform itself remains out of date?

The official justifications came to bring back to the forefront the Israeli occupation and restrictions, the attacks and settlements, the situation in Jerusalem and Gaza, and the difficulty of creating the necessary conditions for holding comprehensive, free and fair elections. These headlines are not new to the Palestinians, nor are they merely details that can be ignored. But what is new and worth asking about is how the realities we have been experiencing for years turn into justifications for postponing a new political entitlement, without seeing a clear path that guarantees that this time will be different. The occupation exists, settlement is expanding, Jerusalem is being subjected to Judaization, Gaza is experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe, and Israeli restrictions on Palestinian life are not a secret that needs to be discovered. Have we discovered all that now? Were these facts absent when the previous decree was issued and the election date was set? If it was known, why was the date set in the first place without sufficient guarantees? If developments arise that prevent implementation, where is the alternative plan that prevents the scene from recurring? But if the circumstances are known in advance, the question becomes more urgent: On what basis was the first date set, and on what basis was the new date chosen, and what guarantees that we will not return to the same point when the hour of the next due date approaches?

We are not required to ignore the occupation, nor to grant it an absolution from its responsibility for disrupting Palestinian life. Rather, what is required is that the occupation not turn into a broad political umbrella that everyone can take refuge in as the date of accountability approaches. The occupation does not need justification to continue its policies, and it does not wait for the approval of the factions to confiscate land, expand settlement, or impose restrictions. He practices what he practices, while the Palestinian remains required to face this reality with leadership that possesses renewed legitimacy, effective institutions, and the ability to make decisions. As for the occupation becoming a reason for postponing the elections, then the continued absence of elections becomes a reason for disrupting accountability, then the absence of accountability becomes a factor in the continuation of the crisis, then this is a cycle that should not be treated as a fate that cannot be broken. No one is demanding that the Authority defeat the occupation by electoral decree, but people have the right to ask why Palestinian political life is unable to renew itself at a time when confronting the occupation requires the utmost levels of cohesion, participation and accountability. If the occupation can prevent elections in Jerusalem or obstruct their holding in Gaza, does this mean that the Palestinian political system will remain suspended for an indefinite period? Are we required to wait for the occupation’s approval in order to decide that the people have the right to choose who represents them? Or do we have to confront the occupation politically, put our options before the people, and define our responsibilities, instead of turning impossibility into a final answer to every question?

Then let us get to the issue that seems to be more disturbing than talking about the occupation and difficult circumstances... the issue of the factions, their interests, and the arrangement of their situation. Whenever an electoral due date approached, a list of conditions, demands, and reviews appeared, and voices rose talking about the necessity of putting the national house in order, reorganizing the factional house, reviewing the laws, completing the dialogue, ensuring consensus, addressing differences, and providing appropriate conditions. These are titles that all seem important in themselves, but the question that no one wants to answer is: When will the house be put in order? Who determines that this arrangement is complete? Who has the right to turn it into a permanent condition for the people to exercise their right to choose their representatives? We have heard about putting the Palestinian house in order for many years, and we have heard about reconciliation for even longer years, and we have heard about reforming the political system, rebuilding institutions, and unifying national decision-making, until these terms have become a fixed part of political discourse, while the results have remained far less than the promises. Will we need another year to put the house in order, then discover when the date approaches that a room has not been arranged, or that a dispute has not been resolved, or that a law needs to be reviewed, or that the circumstances have not yet matured? Who said that the houses that were not arranged during all these years will be arranged within an additional year? Who convinced us that the problem lies in the lack of time, and not in the way of managing differences, interests, and positions?

Putting the national house in order is not a crime, reforming the factions is a necessity, and dialogue between the powers is indispensable. But for the house to be in order becomes a condition for renewing legitimacy, and then this condition turns into a reason for postponing the elections, this is a political paradox that should not be overlooked. Who decided that the people should wait until the factions finish arranging their situation? Has the Palestinian citizen become a hostage of organizational disputes, positions and ranks, and fear of results that may not come as the leadership desires? Have elections turned from a right of the people into an entitlement that is only allowed when the forces are satisfied with their situation? Elections, in their true meaning, are not an occasion that gives the factions an opportunity to rearrange their positions according to what suits them. Rather, they are the mechanism through which people decide who deserves to be in the decision-making position. Therefore, making the arrangement of the factions a precondition for the elections turns the relationship upside down. Instead of the people choosing their representatives, the people must wait until the forces agree on the conditions that allow them to choose. Instead of the factions being in the service of political life, political life becomes dependent on their calculations. Instead of electoral competition being a means to resolve disputes peacefully, disagreement between forces becomes a reason for suspending the entitlement that is supposed to allow people to express their choices.

Exactly here the question arises that must be stated without ambiguity: Did the interests of some forces and factions intersect, at least objectively, with the decision to postpone? We do not need to invent a conspiracy or distribute ready-made accusations in order to ask this question. It is enough to look at the political consequences of the decision. Postponed elections mean that the existing forces remain in their positions without a new electoral test, that organizational calculations get additional time, that forces whose sizes or positions may change in the ballot box do not face this test now, and that the citizen remains deprived of a direct mechanism to renew his representatives and hold them accountable. If these are the results, people have the right to ask whether the national interest alone governed the decision, or whether some organizational interests found in it, even without prior agreement on that, additional space for survival and recalculations. Saying that interests intersect does not necessarily mean that all parties secretly agreed to postpone, nor does it mean that their motives are the same, but it does mean that the result may serve existing positions even when the declared justifications differ. This is exactly the function of political accountability: to ask who benefits from the decision, who bears its cost, who stays in place, who loses his right to choose, and who has the right to explain what happened to people instead of asking them to just understand.

If the leadership believes that postponement is necessary, and if the factions believe that circumstances do not allow holding elections, and if the various forces are talking about the national interest, then let all of these parties put before the people a clear plan, specific dates, and measurable commitments. As for asking people to wait an additional year, without knowing what will change during this year, what will happen if circumstances do not change, and what prevents the date from being postponed again, this is not a solution to the crisis, but rather an extension of it. The new date does not answer the question, but rather moves it to the future. The decree does not guarantee that the elections will take place, but rather specifies a date on which they are supposed to take place. There is a whole area of ​​political responsibility between setting the date and ensuring implementation, which should not be lost in statements and justifications. Will the relevant authorities publish the necessary practical steps to overcome the obstacles? Will the preparation process be subject to an announced periodic review? Will the powers commit to not using their organizational differences as a new excuse for postponement? Or will we discover next year that the date is approaching before the house is finished, that the house needs another arrangement, and that the postponement requires a new postponement? We do not want to be pessimistic, but long experience does not give us sufficient reason to treat the new date as a guarantee in itself.

As for the people, they cannot postpone their lives the way the powers postpone their appointments. He cannot postpone rising prices, loss of work, deterioration of services, fear for the future of children, attacks on land, or threats to homes, villages and cities. He cannot ask the settlements to wait until the factions finish arranging their situation, nor can he ask Gaza to postpone its need for life and reconstruction, nor can he ask Jerusalem to stop confronting the policies of Judaization until the national dialogue matures. Only the people are required to be patient, alone are asked to understand the circumstances, alone are they to receive decisions after they are made, and then they are asked to applaud the political wisdom that made them wait again. As for the decision makers, they have the time to postpone and the time to set the date, and they have the power to transfer entitlements from one year to another, and then return to the public with a new speech explaining why what was scheduled to happen did not happen. This is not a healthy relationship between power and society, and it cannot be. The citizen is not a time surplus for the political system, people’s lives are not an additional deadline granted by factions to themselves, and the right to participate should not remain hostage to balances that the citizen does not have influence over.

Perhaps the deepest disaster in this postponement is that it comes at a time when the Palestinian political vacuum is expanding, not because the Palestinians have lost the ability to think or act, but because the distance between society, its institutions, and the forces that speak in its name has become more painful. The vacuum is not merely the absence of an elected legislative council, nor merely the absence of presidential elections. Rather, it is the absence of mechanisms for accountability and renewal of legitimacy, the continuation of major decisions without direct popular participation, and the decline in people’s ability to influence the political path that determines their future. It is also the case that the files of reconciliation, reform, and rebuilding institutions remain suspended, while the political system continues to manage its daily affairs without providing a clear answer on how to get out of its crisis. We are facing a vacuum that cannot be filled by a statement, cannot be addressed by a decree, and cannot be ended by a new round of dialogue unless its results turn into actual commitments. The more the elections are postponed, the greater the space in which the authority and forces can move without a direct popular test, the less the citizen’s ability to be held accountable, and the greater the risk that the absence of participation will become commonplace, and that people will treat the elections as a seasonal promise rather than a fixed entitlement.

Here we should focus on the relationship between postponement and legitimacy. Legitimacy cannot remain a deferred question forever, and it is not enough for the authority to rely on a previous history to exempt itself from the need to renew the popular mandate. The legitimacy of the factions does not come from their statements, nor from the size of their slogans, nor from historical sacrifices that no one denies, but rather from their ability to represent people, express their interests, and submit to accountability. National sacrifices must not be turned into a political asset that gives any party the right to remain outside the electoral test for an indefinite period. History is important, and sacrifices are important, but they do not cancel the right of new generations to choose who represents them, and they do not give anyone an open hand to manage public affairs without renewing legitimacy. If the current circumstances prevent holding elections, this does not negate the need for them, but rather makes the need for a clear and specific path towards them more urgent. As for the eligibility to remain suspended, and then people are asked to trust that things will change in the next year, this means that trust is required from one party, and that responsibility does not go in both directions.

The question that imposes itself here: Who fills this void? Is it filled with forces that could not agree on clear rules for renewing legitimacy? Is it filled with institutions whose role has declined in the absence of elections? Is it filled by dialogue committees that meet, issue recommendations, and then return to the meeting? Or will the vacuum remain open until the circle of reluctance and loss of confidence expands, and the citizen becomes less convinced that his participation is capable of changing anything? We should not underestimate this issue, because the most dangerous thing that can happen to political life is not only that the elections be delayed, but that people lose the belief that the elections will happen at all, or that their occurrence will lead to real change. When society reaches this point, damage has not only been done to an electoral date, but also to the meaning of political participation, the relationship between the citizen and the institution, and confidence that there is a peaceful and democratic path to holding those in charge of the decision accountable.

We do not write these words because we believe that elections alone will solve all the problems of the Palestinians. Elections do not end the occupation, do not reconstruct Gaza on their own, do not end the division simply by opening the boxes, and do not guarantee that the best will reach positions of responsibility. But it remains a political right and a tool for accountability and renewal of legitimacy, and it should not be treated as a reward given to the people when the forces agree or circumstances become appropriate. The essence of the problem is that the entitlement that is supposed to return the decision to the people has itself become subject to the decision, interests and understandings of the powers that be. This is a revolution in the meaning of politics. Instead of institutions and factions being tools to serve society, society becomes required to serve its conditions and wait for its arrangements. Instead of elections being a means of determining the sizes of forces, determining the sizes and locations of forces becomes a condition for holding elections. Instead of the national interest being a criterion for judging the performance of the factions, the national interest becomes a broad umbrella under which each faction can place its appropriate calculations and positions.

We wrote in (Delaying the Deferred) that postponement does not solve the issue, but rather changes its size, and that what we do not face today will be more complex tomorrow. Today, we don't need to repeat the phrase as much as we need to consider what we have done with all this time. We postponed elections, we postponed reconciliation, we postponed reform of the political system, we postponed the renewal of institutions, we postponed accountability, and then we started talking about these files as if they needed more time to become resolvable. But how much time do we need? How many generations should he wait? How many times can we ask people to postpone their rights until the forces finish arranging their situation? If the factions were unable to put their houses in order during the past years, what makes us believe that an additional year will do what previous years did not do? If conditions are not ripe, who is responsible for preparing a plan that makes them more ripe? If national consensus is necessary, why is there not consensus on a clear path towards elections, instead of consensus on postponing them?

The most dangerous thing about the new decree is not only that it moved the elections to September 2027, but rather that it reproduced the question that can no longer be ignored: Do the Palestinian people still have the right to decide the form of their political system and choose their representatives, or have they become hostage to the deadlines of the forces that speak in their name? Did the interests of some factions intersect, directly or indirectly, with the continued postponement, such that their positions remained far from the electoral test? Who bears responsibility for the political vacuum that expands whenever elections are absent, institutions are disrupted, and reform is delayed? These are not marginal questions or intellectual luxury, but rather questions that relate to the essence of the relationship between the people, the authority, and the factions. The answer to it should not be limited to official statements or a letter of reassurance, because the people who pay the price of waiting have the right to know why they are waiting, what they are waiting for, and who is responsible for waiting to turn into a permanent pattern of political life.

If postponement is necessary, let the leadership and forces announce what they will accomplish during it, how they will confront obstacles, when they will review what has been achieved, and who will be held accountable if nothing is achieved. If putting the national house in order is a condition, let it have a clear time limit, and let reforming the factions be an affair for which the factions themselves bear responsibility, not an excuse to suspend the people’s rights. If the occupation is the obstacle, then let there be a declared political plan to confront its obstruction, and not let its name remain present when announcing the postponement and absent when talking about responsibility for the lost years. If the national interest is the focus, then let all decisions be subject to the test of this interest, and not use the national interest to justify a decision to which people do not know what it will lead to.

Palestinians are tired of the waiting room. They are tired of being told that the time has not come, that the circumstances have not matured, that the house needs to be arranged, that the dialogue needs more time, and that the stage does not allow for rush. This language has become so familiar that it no longer explains reality, but rather has become part of the problem. As the due date approaches, a new title for postponement appears, and whenever people ask about the date, they are told that the national interest requires waiting. But who said that the national interest requires that the people remain outside the decision? Who said that protecting unity means suspending elections? Who said that the arrangement of factions must precede the right of people to choose who represents them? Who decided that the year 2027 would be different from the years that preceded it, except that the decree wrote a new date on paper?

The people are not a waiting committee, the nation is not a factional operations room, legitimacy is not a private property that sites bequeath to each other, and elections are not a deadline that can be extended as the moment of reckoning approaches. If the powers need another year to put their affairs in order, then the people have the right to ask why they should pay the price for this year, who can guarantee that things will be arranged after it has passed, and who will prevent us from finding ourselves facing a new postponement, under a new pretext, and with the same old rhetoric. Arranging the situation of the factions cannot be a substitute for arranging the relationship between them and the people, and protecting political sites cannot be more important than renewing the legitimacy that gives those sites their meaning. Unless we realize this, we will continue to postpone the elections under the pretext of putting the house in order, and postpone putting the house in order under the pretext of unity, and postpone unity under the pretext of circumstances, and then we will discover that the people are the only ones who did not get the opportunity to arrange their future.

Postponing the postponed again does not mean that we have gained time. It means that we gave the crisis an additional year, allowed the political vacuum to expand, and kept people's right to participate dependent on arrangements that they cannot decide. If we reach September 2027 and find that the house has not been arranged, that circumstances have not changed, that the dialogue has not ended, and that the elections need a new date, who will apologize to the people for the year that has been added to the years of waiting? Who will hold accountable those who decided to postpone? Or will we once again be satisfied with issuing a statement explaining that the national interest requires more time?

We have been waiting for so long that we have almost forgotten why there was a deadline in the first place. While decision-makers are busy setting new appointments, the people continue to pay the price for old appointments that were not fulfilled. While the factions talk about arranging their situation, the nation remains without political renewal that matches the magnitude of its crises, institutions remain waiting for legitimacy that restores their meaning, and the citizen remains required to trust those who do not give him the opportunity to be held accountable. Did the interests of the powers and factions intersect with the postponement? Who has the courage to answer? Who will fill the void created by the absence of elections, continued division, and delayed reform? And most importantly of all... who gave the factions and leaders the right to hold the people hostage to a wait whose end is unknown?

We do not need a new date as much as we need a real end to the postponement policy. We do not need more data explaining why what should have happened did not happen, but rather clear commitments specifying what will happen and when, and who is responsible for implementing it. As for the Palestinian people to remain a hostage to putting the house in order, and for the elections to remain a hostage to consensuses, and for legitimacy to remain a hostage to dates that can be changed, this means that the postponed matter is no longer just a file on the table, but rather has become the table itself, and the decision-makers have taken turns sitting around it, while the people remain standing outside it waiting for permission to enter.

If a final question is necessary, it is not only when will the elections be held, but for how long will the Palestinian people continue to pay the price for the inability of the forces to arrange their situation, and for how long will the political vacuum continue to expand without anyone bearing responsibility for it? We have postponed the postponed once again, but what cannot be postponed indefinitely is the question of reckoning: What did you do with all this time, and what did you do to the people’s right to be partners in the decision, and who decided that waiting for the people was less costly than facing the entitlements of politics?

Elections are not a gift from the leadership, nor a reward from the factions, nor an entitlement awaiting the completion of the interests of the powers. It is a right of the people. As for postponing it, time after time, it is a political decision that has a cost, and a responsibility that should not be lost among decrees and justifications. The Palestinians have the right to ask, louder this time: If the powers have not finished arranging their situation, why should the people remain idle until they finish? If the void expands, who will fill it? If national interests require postponement, who can guarantee that the interests of the factions did not find in it an additional opportunity to survive? Until the answer comes, the question will remain, not postponed this time, but due now.