The complex history of Palestinian national liberation and its expression in varied factions and parties is a terrain full of lessons for the future of the Palestinian struggle, writes Qais Abdel-Karim* The Palestinian political banner coalesced with the creation of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 1964. However the more important transition occurred the following year, with the launching of the modern Palestinian revolution, which subsequently brought the Palestinian resistance factions under the PLO umbrella, after which one of these, Fatah, rose to the leadership. With this transition, the PLO evolved from a symbolic organisation created by the Arab League and placed under Arab guardianship to an instrument for mobilising the Palestinian masses inside Palestine and abroad and an embodiment of the Palestinian national entity. As of 1968, the features of an independent Palestinian polity and governing system began to take shape. This was when, for the first time, criteria were formulated for the creation of the Palestinian National Council (PNC). Consisting initially of representatives of the various factions and influential groupings, the PNC subsequently expanded to include representatives of the camps and the popular federations. It was this representative body that elected the PLO Executive Committee, giving rise to the first political leadership of the Palestinian people to receive official Arab recognition. The governing system that was established with the creation of the PNC and the Executive Committee gradually evolved over the following years so as to provide for the representation of the major PLO factions in the Executive Committee and to ensure a broader representation from the camps and federations in the PNC, as well as the inclusion of influential public figures and scholars alongside the active resistance factions. The Arab summit in Algiers in 1972 officially recognised the legitimacy of the Palestinian political organisation in its modified form to represent the Palestinian people, a designation that was reaffirmed in all subsequent summits. The most important of these was the Rabat summit of 1974, which recognised the distinct Palestinian identity, the right of the Palestinian people to national independence and their right to establish an independent, national authority on liberated Palestinian territory. This summit further resolved that the PLO embodied the Palestinian aspiration for independence and that it was the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. From 1969 to 1993, when the Oslo accords were signed, PLO structures remained essentially unchanged. While a certain calcification set in primarily due to the lack of democratic processes and although shifting alliances would alter the composition of the Executive Committee, bringing in new factions and excluding others depending on their positions with respect to the core Palestinian problems, these factors did not detract from the fact that all Palestinian forces recognised the legitimacy of the PLO and the PNC. The exodus from Beirut was all the more calamitous for the PLO as it suddenly cut short the process of formulating a collective national agenda. However, in fact, the PLO was already in crisis and although the expulsion was a contributing factor, in effect it served more to cast into relief the causes of the crisis, which emanated from internal Palestinian decision- making structures. Until this point, the PLO had been so assured of its "safe refuge" in Lebanon that it had failed to perceive the urgency of addressing many complex and crucial issues, most notably the situation of the Palestinians under occupation, the development of the national movement inside Palestine and the need to free it from dependency upon secure bases outside the Palestinian national framework, and the consequent need to promote a greater measure of Palestinian autonomy within the context of Arab-Palestinian relations. The crisis in the Palestinian political order vented itself in the divisions that arose in 1983- 1984 with the creation of the Palestinian national alliance and then with the creation of the National Salvation Front in protest against the Amman agreement of 1985 and the convention of the PNC in the Jordanian capital at that time. In spite of these events, however, the major PLO factions, including those that joined the Salvation Front, continued to recognise the legitimacy of the PNC and the general framework of Palestinian political organisation, even while boycotting the PLO. This situation persisted for two years until the PNC's reunification convention in April 1987, when all the dissenting factions returned to the framework of the PNC and Executive Council, which foreshadowed the outbreak of the first Intifada in December 1987. The PNC assembly in April 1987 marked an important shift in the Palestinian political outlook and, hence, in its political order. In this meeting, the PNC approved, in principle, "the extensive reform of Palestinian political structures" as laid out in the Aden-Algiers agreement. Under that agreement, the PLO was to institute mechanisms that would secure the principle of collective leadership and expand the scope of democratic decision-making processes and institutions. The PNC however proved incapable of transforming the reform programme into practice, especially when new circumstances imposed themselves. However, the convention did adopt a new national action plan, which established three important points that became imperatives following the collapse of the Palestinian safe base in Lebanon in 1982. National unity was an important means for offsetting regional Arab pressures and asserting Palestinian autonomy within the Arab matrix. Secondly, the focus of action would shift to promoting the national independence movement inside Palestine. Thirdly, independent Palestinian decision-making and representation were immutable principles, any departure from which would precipitate the rupture of Palestinian unity of ranks. In establishing these principles, the PLO was clearly setting certain unencroachable red lines regarding its role in establishing the conditions for a political settlement to the Palestinian- Israeli conflict, even though the national agenda contained no explicit reference to a willingness to engage in a negotiating process. As, until this point, all diplomatic activity in this regard was being pursued pragmatically and outside the framework of the national agenda, the 1987 statement of principles constituted the first attempt to link the national agenda to the pursuit of a negotiating process. This position shift manifested itself in what later became known as the "Palestinian peace initiative", approved by the PNC in 1988. As the course for this development had been set in the April 1987 conference, it is perhaps not surprising that this month would also bring another major development: the declaration of the founding of Hamas. Hamas, created to unite the Palestinian Islamist factions, and specifically those operating under the banner of the Muslim Brotherhood, quickly attracted a significant following in the struggle against the Israeli occupation. This was the first time a Palestinian force with considerable grassroots influence emerged outside the PLO framework and refused to recognise the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. In spite of its considerable mass following, the Islamic resistance organisation had little impact on the Palestinian decision-making process. Conversely, the PLO made only a single attempt to extend a bridge to Hamas. This took place prior to the PNC convention in 1988 when Hamas representatives were invited to attend the preparatory meetings, albeit in an unofficial capacity. At the time, some of these representatives stated that the PNC reflected Hamas's opinions, and that they also had some input in the drafting of the declaration of independence. Still, such limited participation would prove insufficient to rally Hamas's weight behind an overhaul of the political structures of the PLO. It was in the interval between the Madrid peace conference and the signing of the Oslo accords that Hamas made its entry as an effective force in the Palestinian polity. This period brought two important developments. The first was the formation of a Palestinian coalition opposed to the negotiating policy adopted by the PLO leadership in Madrid. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad were a part of this coalition, alongside the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) from within the PLO. The second was the Israeli expulsion of Hamas members to Marj Al- Zuhur in South Lebanon, which brought the resistance movement to the forefront of the regional and international tug-of-war over the Palestinian question. Although still outside the PLO framework, Hamas had thus become an influential factor in the Palestinian decision-making process and, hence, in the shape of Palestinian political structures. The return of PLO cadres to the occupied territories and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA) would propel more strongly in this direction, for henceforward the PA would have to deal directly with the existence of Hamas, which had emerged and flourished on home ground. The PNC convention of 1988 introduced a qualitative shift in the Palestinian national agenda. On the one hand, with its declaration of Palestinian independence and its declaration of the establishment of a Palestinian state it resolved once and for all any question of the discreet identity of the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination and statehood. The first Intifada worked to furnish the notion of independence its material underpinnings, regardless of its eventual official and constitutional projections. On the other hand, this was the first time the PLO officially adopted a programme for peace, declaring that it could be a party to the negotiating process for resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, if such a process met certain conditions stipulated by the PNC. With the rise of the Intifada, the PLO could have scored important inroads on behalf of the Palestinian cause if it had adhered to its modified national agenda. However, with the outbreak of the Gulf War in 1990 and the fading impetus of the Intifada, the PLO gradually began to retreat from the positions it had adopted in its peace initiative of 1988. Following the Gulf War, the US turned its attention to resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict and commenced the drive towards the Madrid peace conference. By the time the conference was held, the PLO, having succumbed to regional and international pressures, had entirely abandoned the negotiating conditions it had established in 1988, to the extent that it finally agreed to participate in the form of a Palestinian contingent in the Jordanian delegation, on the condition, moreover, that this contingent consist of persons that had no official connection to the PLO. These concessions and the abandonment of principles they represented cast the first shadow over the stability of the Palestinian political order, a problem that grew increasingly aggravated with the signing and implementation of the Oslo accords. The PA, in accordance with these accords, precipitated a sharp rift in the Palestinian national movement. Although the Palestinian Central Council recognised the PA as the legitimate heir to the PLO in the West Bank and Gaza, this was not the perspective of the PLO factions opposed to Oslo, as well as of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The situation would not improve with the election of a Palestinian legislative council and a president of the PA, creating the first Palestinian government to be ratified by a Palestinian parliament. Again, this important transition in the form of the political order did not receive a consensual approval of Palestinian opinion, especially as important segments remained outside its framework, whether by deliberate exclusion or by choice. As the new PA institutions were effectively the product of negotiations and agreements with Israel, Palestinian opposition movements branded it a distortion of Palestinian aims and aspirations. Although there were attempts to project the PA and its narrower order as the substitute for the PLO and its more inclusive political system, these attempts were perhaps destined to run aground, especially when it became apparent that the Oslo process would never lead to a lasting peace. It was at this juncture that Palestinian politics took a new and refreshing turn, in the form of the Palestinian national dialogue. Lasting from 1998 to 2000, this process stimulated the democratic forces within the PLO framework in the hope that it would revive the national consensus around the PLO as the supreme authority of the Palestinian people while committing the PLO to the five fixed Palestinian principles. Among the fruits of this dialogue was the agreement on the need to terminate the interim period stipulated under Oslo and to reach a permanent settlement that would provide for the creation of an independent Palestinian state within the pre-June 1967 borders. If this process succeeded in breathing new life into the PLO after a period of stagnation that extended, for all practical purposes, from 1994 to 1999, the second Palestinian Intifada furnished the tangible argument for promoting broader participation in the decision-making process and devising a Palestinian political system representative of all segments of the Palestinian national entity, including the Islamist forces. It was against this background that the idea of creating a united national leadership emerged, an idea that gained impetus because of the broad popular support it received. This, in turn, gave rise to the call to reform the Palestinian political order through the democratisation of the PLO political structures and new elections for the PA. That these demands have yet to be acted upon has exacerbated the crisis of the Palestinian political order. The PA-Fatah debacle, in particular, has thrown into bold relief the need for radical remedies based on the principles of democratic relations, collective leadership, transparency and the fight against corruption. These were the issues addressed in the Gaza document of August 2002 and the Ramallah document of March 2004, and on the basis of these documents preparations are under way for the forthcoming round of inter- Palestinian dialogues in Cairo. All patchwork remedies have been tried and failed. Bitter experience on the ground has proven that the Palestinians' only way out of their current predicament is through the radical overhaul of PLO institutions, including the PA, on the basis of a united front and democratic principles. Above all, we must abandon that cult of personality that has taken such a disastrous toll on the Palestinian cause, the leadership role of the PLO and Palestinian political structures. * The writer is a leading member of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
