On Sunday, the northern Egyptian coastal city of New Alamein hosted a meeting of the secretaries-general of 11 Palestinian factions to discuss developments in the occupied territories and ways to end ongoing Palestinian divisions.
According to a statement released after the opening session, the agenda included holding elections and forming a national unity government representative of all factions, along with other ways to end the longstanding Palestinian rift. An informed Egyptian source told Al-Ahram Weekly that Cairo, which sponsored the meeting, had taken great pains to ensure its success.
During a meeting with President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas praised Egypt’s role in supporting the Palestinian cause. It is a role Cairo will continue to play as it helps the Palestinian parties implement the outputs of the discussions.
Before the meeting, the Palestinian Authority (PA) — it was Abbas who had called for and chaired the gathering of factions — had stated that the goal was to reaffirm recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and to promote the option of peaceful grassroots resistance and the principle of one authority and one army.
Hamas said its aim was to address the escalation in Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people, including continuous raids on Al-Aqsa Mosque, and to promote Palestinian unity in the face of occupation.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), for its part, said it would work with the other participants to reach an agreement capable of enabling the Palestinian people to confront Israel’s extremist government.
In his keynote speech, President Abbas underscored the role of the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and the need to abide by its charter and international commitments. He argued that peaceful grassroots resistance was the best way for the Palestinian people to continue their struggle and attain their national goals.
“We want to hold elections as soon as possible, provided that our people in Jerusalem can take part. The Israeli aggression compels us to rise to our national responsibility and order our national home accordingly,” he said.
“We are at an extraordinary juncture in the history of our struggle against the enemy, one that compels us to think collectively and take exceptional decisions regarding how to confront and resist the enemy’s policies,” said Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the Hamas political bureau. “It compels us to devise plans to reinforce the steadfastness of our people stationed in Jerusalem and to support everyone active in the uprising and the resistance.”
Haniyeh called for a restructuring of the PLO, the creation of a democratically elected National Council and new Palestinian institutions in the West Bank and Gaza.
At the end of the meeting, Abbas suggested that a steering committee be established composed of representatives of participant factions to follow through on outcomes and keep in touch with Cairo. He also proposed a national unity government of technocrats, representative of all factions, to manage administrative arrangements between the West Bank and Gaza, and stressed the need to move towards general elections as soon as possible.
According to an Egyptian source, the Palestinian delegations will remain in New Alamein in order to form the steering committee.
A Palestinian source told the Weekly that the aim of the national unity government is to deliver a message of hope to the Palestinian people that the 18-year-old factional rift is nearing an end, and to convey a message to international powers that Palestinians will unite to surmount the political, economic and security challenges posed by Israel.
Palestinian news outlets reported that Hamas had insisted the Palestinian electoral system must be reformed before elections can be held. Hamas officials also said that there must be guarantees elections can be held in Jerusalem without Israeli obstruction.
It is not the first time that Hamas voiced such demands, an Egyptian source told the Weekly. There are two possible reasons why it reiterates them whenever the subject of elections comes up. One is that Hamas knows the conditions — especially the demand for guarantees that Palestinians in Jerusalem will be able to vote — cannot be fully met. The second is to urge greater flexibility on issues, such as electoral reform, over which discussions have failed in the past.
Though forming a national unity government is now a stated priority, some observers in Cairo believe the use of the term is a ploy to avert the nomination of names that could incur an international veto or refusal to recognise the government.
The term technocrat may make it easier for the government to perform its envisioned bureaucratic functions, such as administrating the crossings, especially in Gaza which will require the stationing of PA representatives and coordination between the Strip and the West Bank.
It may also help the government pursue its stated aim at the foreign policy level, i.e. to act dynamically in the international arena to counter Israeli threats and settlement expansion.
As the meeting in New Alamein was taking place, demonstrations erupted in Gaza to protest against living conditions. The protesters wanted to deliver a message to the factions meeting in Egypt that they need to take definitive action towards ending their economic plight. It is premature to assume that Israel, which continues to withhold PA tax revenues, will agree to steps that might ease the blockade against Gaza. Israel, tellingly, is now using events in the West Bank as another excuse for withholding revenues.
There are reports that the issue was raised during the meeting, occasioning arguments over the nature of resistance in the West Bank. Apparently, the PA urged the adoption of the term “peaceful grassroots resistance” to forestall a repetition of Israel’s deadly raid against Jenin which was one of the reasons Abbas had called for the meeting.
It is a formula that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) oppose, not least because it restricts resistance to grassroots action. While the question of armed resistance has mostly been limited to Gaza, recently the idea has gained ground as a way to counter Israeli actions in the West Bank. Increasingly, Palestinian factions believe that grassroots resistance alone is not enough to halt the construction projects that Israel’s extremist government is pushing through.
On the sidelines of the meeting there was a degree of give and take on how the factions manage the urgent challenges they face. While some held that general elections could resolve Abbas’ succession crisis, others worried that there are too many aspirants waiting in the wings to succeed him and that elections might not be enough to settle the power struggle between them.
Egyptian sources believe the meeting reaffirmed the cardinal principles of the Palestinian cause, and that while the factions voiced different views on some issues, it still marked a breakthrough.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 3 August, 2023 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
Short link: