Ageing politicians clinging to privilege by all means: this is the shameful theatre playing out on the Palestinian national scene,writes Hassan Nafaa* Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is not in an enviable position right now. As president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), his duty is to salvage what remains of its stature and legitimacy. Not an easy task, considering that the PA is increasingly looking like a patient on a respirator with few chances of survival. As chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), Abbas has a duty to revive a national liberation movement that is all but gone. Even the casual observer would have no trouble concluding that the Palestinian cause is in dire straits. Many, including myself, feel that unless an immediate revival of national awareness on the part of all Palestinian factions takes place, perhaps accompanied by a corresponding and simultaneous revival of collective awareness on the part of Arab and Muslim leaders, the Palestinian cause will slip into deep coma. Should this happen, it would be hard for the long-suffering Palestinians to pick up the pieces. It is abundantly clear that the PA has lost much of its legal and political legitimacy as questions abound regarding the legality of Abbas staying in office past 24 January 2009. Palestinian basic law is quite specific about the duration of the presidential term. A president is allowed a term of four years renewable once. This is why many believe that the Palestinian presidency is now legally vacant. Because presidential elections didn't take place on time, the speaker of the Palestinian National Council (PNC), or his deputy, should have taken over the presidency until elections are held. But the Palestinian president refused to hold the presidential elections on time, citing a law that states that presidential and legislative elections must be held simultaneously. Trying to be helpful, the Arab League made a decision to the effect that the Palestinian presidential term could be extended for an additional year, so as to allow legislative and presidential elections to be held simultaneously in January 2010. But these measures cannot obscure the fact that the Palestinians now have a constitutional vacuum. Laws are not above the constitution. And political legitimacy is not above constitutional legitimacy. Right now, the only political legitimacy Abbas has is derived from his ability to achieve national reconciliation, a task in which he has patently failed. It is little wonder therefore that many balked at the decree Abbas issued ordering simultaneous legislative and presidential elections in January 2010. The controversy that followed is likely to deepen differences among Palestinian factions. One can find legal and political excuses for the decree. From the legal point of view, one can justify the decree by citing the absence of Palestinian reconciliation. Without reconciliation, no date for elections can be acceptable to all factions as one. From a political point of view, it is easy to blame Hamas for refusing to sign, or even obstructing, the reconciliation agreement. Hamas, for its part, will come up with enough legal and political grounds to refute the above arguments, which takes us back to square one. And once the arguments offered by both sides cancel each other, one is left with the obvious fact that the decree to hold the elections is just another nail in the coffin of a Palestinian national movement that many want to send to an early grave. Apportioning blame is not going to do much good for the Palestinian national movement. Our main task should be to protect the Palestinian national movement until it reaches its goal; that is, until a Palestinian state is created and Palestinian refugees are allowed to go home. I am completely convinced that Hamas has made many mistakes, especially since it won the majority of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council. But it is also my opinion that President Abbas bears the biggest blame for the current Palestinian situation. Abbas has acted as a leader of Fatah or chief of the hapless PA, rather than a PLO leader and thus a guardian of the Palestinian national movement. I know that Abbas may have wanted to get back at Hamas, especially after the scandal triggered by the decision to postpone the submission of the Goldstone Report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. This is perhaps what tempted Abbas to issue the decree. But the PA president overlooked the fact that the only beneficiary of this move, regardless of how people see it, is Israel. One has to judge actions by their consequences. And it should be obvious to all that any elections taking place by virtue of this decree would only deepen Palestinian divisions. Ultimately, such elections may reduce Abbas into a leader of a "municipality" in Ramallah, and Hamas into the patron of an "emirate of darkness" in Gaza. While the Palestinians bicker, nothing would be easier for Israel than to claim that it cannot find a Palestinian partner credible enough to negotiate with, an argument many would believe. Right now, many international and Arab parties are eager to forget about the Palestinian cause. They cannot wait for the opportunity to say that they can no longer care more about Palestinians than the Palestinians do. The ill-advised elections promise to send the Palestinian national movement into a dark tunnel from which it cannot emerge in one piece, if at all. The Palestinian national movement came of age in 1968. Its highpoint was when the unanimously approved Palestinian National Charter adopted the goal of creating a united democratic and secular state on the entire Palestinian soil. This was the highpoint of Palestinian maturity, and it couldn't have been reached without an Arab consensus to refrain from recognising Israel and to continue to struggle through all means, including military action, until a united democratic state is established on the entire land of Palestine. Things changed when the Arab consensus began to unravel after the 1973 war. Arab solidarity hit a low point when Egypt signed a separate peace deal with Israel. In the following years, the Palestinian consensus disintegrated as well. In both cases, tyranny was responsible for the disintegration of Arab and Palestinian unity. Just as president Anwar El-Sadat went to Jerusalem without consulting anyone, including his closest aides, Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo Accords without telling anyone either. The road of concessions for the Palestinians began with the adoption of the stage-by-stage programme of the PNC in 1974. The worst provision in the programme was the call for the "creation of the Palestinian state on any part that is liberated of the historic land of Palestine". A major step backwards happened in 1988 when the two- state solution was officially adopted. The lowest point came in 1993 with the signing of the Oslo Accords. In the Oslo Accords, the Palestinians recognised the State of Israel in return for the latter's recognition of the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. Israel allowed the Palestinians to have a self-rule authority committed to fighting "terror" on the land from which the Israelis are to withdraw. Israel didn't recognise the 1967 borders. It didn't even promise to stop building settlements during the interim phase. These serious concessions were crowned with Clinton's arrival. Clinton didn't come to witness the declaration of a Palestinian state. He came on 14 August 1998 to attend a ceremony that erased 12 provisions of the Palestinian National Charter and amended 16 others. The aim was designed to reassure Israel that the PA would not only give up all armed struggle, but would fight Palestinian "terror". All this was done without any guarantees that a Palestinian state would be established up to 1967 borders or that Palestinian refugees would be allowed to return. I think that this is a good time for all Palestinian factions to sit together and assess in a candid manner the course of the so-called "political process". The aim must not be to apportion blame or dodge responsibility, but to learn the lessons of the past and correct the course of the Palestinian national movement. Palestinian factions need to sit together and think long and hard of what to do next. I have noticed that some Arab countries are pleased with the course of events on the Palestinian scene. They see current events as an excuse to dump a cause that they were reluctant to support to start with. But let these countries keep in mind that the current events are going to be as harmful to Arab national security as they are to Palestinian interests. A cause as just and noble as that of the Palestinians cannot die. But it is sad to see a handful of aging politicians cling to office against the odds, preferring to capitulate instead of letting a youthful generation lead the way with new ideas and fresh thinking. It is not too late for President Abbas to realise that elections under occupation are not the answer. * The writer is professor of political science at Cairo University.
