The national movement is facing phase changes... Renewal is a necessity, not an option

Writer: Marwan Emil Toubasi

After it has become certain that the electoral due date will be postponed once again, it is no longer possible to read the reality of the Palestinian national movement, led by the Fatah movement, with the tools and approaches that have governed its performance over the past decades. What happened since October 7, 2023, and the Oslo process that preceded it and the war of genocide that followed, and the political, regional and international transformations, revealed the depth of the crisis in the structure of the Palestinian political system, and the limited ability of its forces to respond to the requirements of a stage in which facts change faster than reviewing options and renewing tools.

Our people have known major historical turning points, from the crime of the Nakba to the launch of the contemporary Palestinian revolution, the recognition of the PLO as the sole legitimate representative, the Stone Intifada and the Declaration of Independence, all the way to Madrid and Oslo and what followed later, milestones that left an impact on the transformations of national consciousness and forms of organization and struggle. Today we are facing a turning point no less dangerous, in light of the completion of the stages of a replacement colonial-settler project targeting the unity of the land and the people, all the way to the olive trees, and reshaping geography and politics together through killing, destruction, and displacement, which requires a combative national awareness of the necessities of confronting it.

The decline that befell the National Movement is not the result of the mistakes of individuals alone, but rather the result of political, organizational, and intellectual accumulations, most notably the decline of internal democracy and the blurring of identity, and the interference of the National Movement, specifically “Fatah,” with the authority on the assumption that it is considered an alternative to the liberation project and not a tool of its components or a substitute for it, the widening gap between the leadership and the rules, the priority of loyalties over belonging, competence, and pluralism, and the absence of a critical review of the “Oslo” experience and the path of the National Movement as a whole. All the way to division and the repercussions of the war of extermination on Gaza and attempts to replace the national project with arrangements for population management and geographical separation in relation to the wrong estimates that accompanied the welcome of UN Resolution 2803 and Trump-Netanyahu’s plan to form what was called the “Peace Council,” and the continuation of dealing with the illusion of the American mirage, without investing in the rise of popular international solidarity everywhere and the changes in the structure of the international system, especially after the New Delhi statement to the BRICS countries.

Perhaps the eighth general conference of the “Fatah” movement took place after a delay of ten years from the previous one, and the accompanying serious observations about membership inputs, outputs, representation, and the absence of serious review of policies and programs, and even to discuss drafts of conference documents and determine what had been prepared from the political program, when the conference was supposed to constitute a station for correction, clarity of identity, and its organizational structure, which was supposed to be renewed horizontally. However, the problems of the conference resurfaced in the arrangements for selecting the movement’s list of candidates for the legislative elections, from which I announced my withdrawal, in objection to the mechanism and in anticipation of me imminently announcing its postponement again, in repetition of what happened in 2023, after it had been scheduled after twenty years of its absence and due date.

The movement has adopted separate “electoral colleges” and selection committees for “wise men” in the governorates, as if each governorate is an independent political unit, despite the fact that the country is a single electoral district according to proportional representation and the electoral system, and in the absence of a unified national mechanism that guarantees the selection of all Fatah list candidates at the national level at the same time, according to the competence, experience and ability of this position and national biography, and with procedures consistent with the movement’s bylaws.

What is most telling is that the nomination procedures and pledges to accept the mechanisms and their results preceded the announcement of a clear political, social, economic and regulatory electoral program, which is supposed to be the basis of commitment before any organizational pledge. The electoral list is not a collection of names, but rather an expression of a national vision, program, and responsibility. People do not elect people according to the applicable electoral law, but rather a list with a clear vision and electoral program that distinguishes itself from others.

The irony increases with the increasing indications of postponing or even confirming the elections, what is being circulated regarding the Cairo dialogues, and the possibility of the Executive Committee of the Liberation Organization recommending postponement tomorrow, Saturday. If these possibilities were present in the decision-making centers in Fatah, and that is why they went to Cairo, then why were the cadres involved in competition procedures, nominations, “electoral councils,” and “wise committees” that caused confusion and were accompanied by exclusions and sensitivities that would leave an impact once again, just as the repercussions of the Eighth General Conference left, before frankness and transparency in political assessments? Why did discussion and knowledge remain confined to narrow circles, far from institutions and regulatory rules? Or is it a mechanism to keep people busy, away from their national and livelihood concerns, such as bread, salaries, and settler terrorism?

The problem goes beyond procedures to the concept of central democracy, participation and accountability. The national factional consensus, despite its importance in the stage of national liberation, cannot be a substitute for the popular will or a permanent mandate for the powers that monopolize the decision, apart from the right of the people to participate politically as the source of legitimacy and the holder of the authorities to have their say.

The obstacles of the occupation in Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank cannot be ignored, but confronting them requires turning the elections into a political and legal battle over sovereignty and national jurisdiction before the world, not postponing them in anticipation of what the occupation may impose.

As for the completion of the Cairo dialogues, they should lead to a road map after renewing legitimacy, and after holding comprehensive, transparent, democratic elections for the National and Legislative Council and the Presidency, and rebuilding the political system under the umbrella of the PLO as a legitimate representative, with a clear, comprehensive liberal program that takes into account the method of sound democratic action, its status, its international obligations, and accelerating changes, and links the national struggle to democracy, social justice, public freedoms, and people’s increasingly complex livelihood concerns. It expands the participation of youth, women, qualified individuals, national independents, and civil society institutions.

The “Fatah” that we need does not derive its legitimacy from its history alone, but rather from a renewal of its program, practices, and relationship with the people. Loyalty to its history is not achieved by protecting tools that have exhausted their ability, but rather by having the courage to review and change them.

Whatever the fate of the elections, postponing them should not turn into postponing mobilization and building an effective and renewed national movement, or a deadline to reproduce the crisis. Historical transformations do not wait for political forces to settle their differences, and the time we spend postponing change may become time in which we lose our ability to create the future, and even to protect the present of our existence.