President Mahmoud Abbas has issued a decree setting a date for presidential and legislative elections, reversing a course he himself had previously charted toward elections for the Palestinian National Council, an alternative widely viewed as a substitute for long-overdue national elections.
Since the last general elections, Palestinian political life, long known for its vitality and dynamism, has sunk into a state of deadly stagnation. The affairs of the Palestinian Authority have been managed through ad hoc administrative measures and improvised decisions, while presidential decrees have gradually become a substitute for elected institutions, the only bodies with the legitimate authority to enact legislation governing the affairs of both the Authority and Palestinian society.
Since the last legislative elections in 2006, and the presidential election of 2005 held after the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian national movement has endured some of the gravest crises in its history. The internal division that emerged during that period remains unresolved. The promise of peace born of the Oslo Accords gave way instead to a brutal conflict imposed on Palestinians across the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem, culminating in Israel's war of annihilation in Gaza and its campaign to tighten its grip on the West Bank.
At the same time, the threats of displacement and annexation have intensified dramatically. Together, they represent different expressions of a single objective: the liquidation of the Palestinian cause through the destruction of the two foundations upon which any future solution depends, the land and its people.
During years of internal paralysis, as every avenue for completing the process launched by Oslo gradually closed, Palestinians increasingly focused on preserving whatever remained of the very possibility of the Palestinian cause's survival. Internationally, meanwhile, attention shifted toward demands for reforming the Palestinian Authority so that it could credibly represent the Palestinians in matters concerning both their national cause and their political future.
The reform agenda promoted by the principal external actors involved in Palestinian affairs, the United States, Europe, and Israel, consisted largely of measures the Palestinian Authority could neither realistically nor fully implement in the form demanded of it. By contrast, the reform that commands broad Palestinian consensus is fundamentally different. It is also the approach preferred by Europe and much of the wider international community: genuine reform rooted in presidential and legislative elections.
The Palestinian leadership attempted to chart an alternative path to reform, one that differed substantially in both substance and procedure from the internationally preferred approach. Rather than holding general presidential and legislative elections, it proposed elections for the Palestinian National Council. At the same time, it launched a parallel process beginning with elections for Fatah's youth movement, followed by local elections and internal Fatah elections.
Important as these measures were at the local level, they nevertheless appeared to the outside world as an attempt to play the wrong game altogether. They were never accepted as a substitute for presidential and legislative elections. President Emmanuel Macron captured this reality when he asked President Abbas: If you are capable of organizing all of these elections, why not hold presidential and legislative elections as well?
Everything associated with the Palestinian cause is now viewed negatively in Washington and Israel. Elsewhere, however, it continues to command support, even if that support has become less influential than before. Arab and Islamic countries remain at the forefront, joined by many other states that continue to express solidarity with the Palestinians. All seek to see a Palestinian political order capable of placing this long-running national cause on a realistic path toward a sovereign state.
That objective requires genuine reform of the Palestinian Authority, reform that equips it to participate meaningfully in efforts to resolve the crisis, beginning with the deadlock in Gaza and extending to the unresolved questions surrounding the future of the West Bank.
It would be a denial of both reality and common sense to ignore the influence of external actors on Palestinian internal affairs, down to the smallest details. That influence is a consequence of the Palestinian need for political and financial support. In today's world, no assistance is given purely out of humanitarian concern or moral sympathy. Every form of support carries a political price, and those who depend on it are expected to pay it. Otherwise, they must rely solely on their own resources, if they are capable of doing so.
President Abbas remains the official face of the Palestinian political system and the central figure through whom its crises are managed and its possible solutions pursued. He possesses enough realism and pragmatism to distinguish between populist slogans repeated in statements and speeches and the politically difficult obligations that must be met if any opportunity for a solution is to emerge, however uncertain or difficult that prospect may be.
The Palestinian Authority, trapped beneath a thick layer of internal paralysis and external political constraints, cannot afford to turn its back on those whose support it seeks, particularly its Arab and Muslim partners and the Europeans. They want to see a Palestinian political system that derives its credibility and authority from the confidence of its own people, and one capable of fulfilling its responsibilities effectively.
That is a far cry from the current reality. The deepening Palestinian division has revived two questions that remain unanswered: Who should negotiations be conducted with? And who truly represents the Palestinians?
Abbas's decision, long overdue by any measure, is like throwing a large stone into still water. Without reading more into it than it can reasonably bear, it should nevertheless be regarded as a step in the right direction.
Yet unless the decision is implemented with the integrity, transparency, and credible procedures that genuine elections require, procedures capable of convincing Palestinians before they convince the rest of the world, the downward trajectory will continue. When that happens, even government by presidential decree will no longer be enough.
