Palestinian Reconciliation and Rebuilding Palestinian Culture

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Ever since the Palestinian disputes and divisions broke out, opinion has held that the Palestinian people need to achieve national unity, not merely reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, because reconciliation can collapse at any moment, and Palestinian internal understanding collapses along with it. Moreover, the future of the Palestinian people must not be tied to the factional relations between Palestinian groups. The factions can fall out at any moment over the pettiest of reasons, and the Palestinian street returns once again to discord. This is why I did not expect — and I have said so repeatedly — that reconciliation would last, nor that the Palestinian division would disappear. At the very moment the reconciliation agreement was signed, the division was still present and had not vanished for a single instant. The agreement suffered from severe shortcomings in the following respects:

Palestinian reconciliation was carried out according to the rules of Arab custom, which sees the exchange of kisses as an effective means of achieving reconciliations, and according to the rule of bread and salt. The exchange of kisses is no longer sufficient, nor is the drinking of coffee, nor the eating of mansaf. Whoever wants to bring about a reconciliation must first search out the causes of the dispute, and only then move on to devising solutions. Palestinian reconciliation was thrown together hastily, drafted in a rush, and left hanging in the wind, liable to collapse at any moment.

It is difficult for any agreement to hold up if it is not built on clear foundations and principles that those bound by the agreement actually adhere to. The agreement reached between Fatah and Hamas was a procedural agreement, not an agreement of principles, and it could never have withstood the very first gust of wind. An agreement is like a building: it cannot stand upright unless there are clear foundations governing the conduct of those who have agreed. The Palestinian agreement never discussed the principles around which Palestinians could unite. The agreement, for example, does not clarify the position on security coordination with Israel, nor relations with Arab and Islamic countries, nor relations with the forces of resistance in the region, nor did it clarify the path Palestinians should take to obtain some of their rights. The agreement did not distinguish between resistance and terrorism, nor did it clarify a position on foreign financial support for the Palestinian Authority, on Palestinian economic development, or on the failed negotiations with the Zionist entity. There was no mention of any principle to govern the conduct and policy of each faction, or to bind the factions to a particular position. Matters were simply left to drift. Even the question of elections, which is a purely procedural matter, was left without a set date, even though that date should have been fixed to coincide with the formation of a Palestinian consensus government.

A procedural agreement cannot hold up, because it is not guided by principles during implementation, and signing an agreement devoid of principle is a sign of the narrow horizons of the Palestinian politician. This politician’s problem is that he follows in the footsteps of the Arab rulers, in the sense that every ruler believes he knows everything.

Some Palestinians came to express the view that their internal wars deserved more attention than their war with the enemy. Internal discord took on multiple forms, to the point that cooperating with the enemy became far more important than cooperating with a member of the other faction. Security coordination with Israel has contributed to the destruction of the social and moral fabric of the Palestinian people; and if Palestinian national unity is ever to be achieved, a new culture must be developed to do away with this newly emergent culture. The factions were required to focus on educational, media, pedagogical, and political programs infused with national values, so that people could step out of their narrow frameworks in favor of the broader framework — the Palestinian people as a whole. But do the factions possess the scientific and analytical capacity to grasp the importance of this matter?

The factions ought to have worked to bring people out of the captivity of factions and their narrow view of society, toward something more general and comprehensive, so that a healthy Palestinian society might take shape.

Over the past twenty years — the years of the Oslo Accords — fragmented Palestinian political identities have formed, each with its own particular interests, which often contradict the humiliated Palestinian identity as a whole. So how can a reconciliation agreement possibly withstand partial identities that have already taken root, psychologically and morally, within the ranks of the Palestinian people?

Palestinian National Unity

Many are those who sing the praises of Palestinian national unity and push toward achieving it. But many also imagine that their own particular view of things constitutes the sound basis for achieving Palestinian national unity, and this is a kind of political delirium.

For Palestinian national unity to be realized, the following must be done:

Draft a Palestinian national charter. Every people on earth has charters and constitutions, or political and legal traditions, that unite it — except the Palestinian people, even though it is more in need of a unifying charter than any other people. The eloquent Palestinian National Council annulled many of the Charter’s provisions and amended other articles to the point of effective abolition, at the request of Israel and America, until there was, in effect, no charter left at all. A charter is essential because it clarifies the goals the people are working to achieve, and the national principles and values, and it addresses the ideal means and methods that must be employed to achieve these goals. A charter or constitution is a compass that governs the conduct of individuals, and one that people can turn to for guidance if they lose their way. How can a people in search of freedom ever achieve liberation if it is incapable of formulating the standards of its own conduct? There are no factions on the Palestinian scene speaking of the importance of this matter, which indicates that every faction wants to remain master of itself, even at the expense of the Palestinian common good.

After the charter is drafted, the Palestine Liberation Organization must be rebuilt according to its principles, and in a manner in which everyone participates. The Liberation Organization is meant to be an umbrella for the entire Palestinian people, and it cannot be so unless it possesses a charter that everyone unites around.

It is also essential to establish a constitutional or charter-based court to hold accountable any individuals or factions who fail to abide by the provisions of the charter. Palestinian heritage is full of instances of charters and resolutions being violated, and the Palestinian National Council, which ought to have been the guardian of the charter that was annulled, was itself at the forefront of those who violated it.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “المصالحة الفلسطينية وإعادة بناء الثقافة الفلسطينية” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.