Palestinian Reconciliation Trails Behind Coordination with Israel

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Years have gone by with repeated talk of Palestinian reconciliation, and every time Palestinians have felt reconciliation drawing near, it has receded again — or been pushed away by those who promoted it. The Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah in particular, meet; their leaders and commanders embrace and exchange kisses; and political analysts rush forward with analyses of every shape and color about the joyful Palestinian days to come. But matters never reach completion, and optimism quickly gives way to disappointment. The Cairo Agreement was signed in 2005 and never implemented; the same fate befell the Mecca Agreement of 2007; and the fate of the secondary papers signed at scattered meetings has been no different. So is there a Palestinian reconciliation? The answer is no, so long as the objective and subjective conditions now prevailing remain as they are, and what is required of the factions is that they stop deceiving the Palestinian people.

Reconciliation and Palestinian Unity

The observer notices that the talk centers on reconciliation between the Hamas and Fatah movements, not on Palestinian national unity. This presupposes that the broader overall society does not exist, that the problem is merely factional or tribal, and that if the leaders of the two factions call for peace, the internal war will simply end. This means the absence of any general vision for ordering the affairs of Palestinian society at home and abroad, and it reduces the matter to a mere quarrel between two teams with no direct connection to the wider society that binds them both together within a single integrated fabric.

The Palestinian people need a Palestinian national unity that gathers them within a single charter or constitutional framework, binding on everyone, individuals and groups alike, and that establishes a single cultural and struggle-oriented unity capable of producing a single outcome: the restoration of the Palestinian people’s established national rights. But the talks taking place between the Hamas camp and the Fatah camp still operate within a narrow factional vision that does not take on the strategic dimensions needed to serve this goal.

The Palestinian Disputes Are Structural

The disputes on the Palestinian scene are not purely momentary or circumstantial, even though circumstantial factors may help inflame them; rather, they are structural, with roots sunk deep in the Arab mentality of governance, or, in the Palestinian case, the mentality of leadership. For decades the Palestinian arena has suffered from the monopolization of decision-making, the monopolization of control over money, the exiling or exclusion of the other whenever he shows signs of causing a headache, and the exclusion of the people from political participation and cultural formulation at various levels.

The Palestinian factions have fought one another before — in the late 1960s in Jordan, in Lebanon in the early 1970s, and again in the 1980s — and at no point was a clear vision developed and enshrined constitutionally or legally, protected by practical procedures to prevent any fighting that might arise. Palestinian killed Palestinian, and the matter would end with statements of regret and remorse issued by the wretched leaders who had caused the infighting and the bloodletting, and with meetings among these same leaders at hollow conferences, at the end of which they would raise their clasped hands together as proof of national unity.

How many Palestinians actually knew about the Oslo negotiations, and about the agreement reached, before it was publicly signed? I, a university professor of political science, did not know, and the members of the Palestinian negotiating delegation in Washington heard about the agreement from the media. As word later spread, it turned out that only three people had prepared this banquet and served it to a people who had to swallow it, whether they liked it or not. This was no different from the traditional Palestinian pattern of placing decision-making in the hands of one individual or a small handful of individuals, nor was it any different in the bloody entanglement it brought upon the Palestinian arena.

The Palestinian factions ought to have focused their efforts, from the very outset, on developing a scientific mechanism for Palestinian decision-making with the participation of the Palestinian people; instead they focused heavily on power-sharing — that is, on each faction’s share of the cake — and left the Palestinian national interest undefined and unattended to, so that the Palestinian people ultimately paid the heavy price. This state of affairs continues to this day, and it is perfectly clear whenever a government is formed, funds are distributed, or some particular “cake” is on offer. The factions turned their attention far away from the mission of liberation and busied themselves instead with a great deal of political chatter — rationality, flexibility, giving opportunities a chance, peaceful offensives, diplomatic offensives, and so on.

It was clear as far back as the 1970s that the Palestinian leadership structure, and the factional products it generated, was leading the Palestinian people toward defeat — toward abandoning every slogan, every theoretical principle, and every ambition, in favor of justifying rhetoric that turns defeat into victory, failure into a historic achievement, and decline into national ascent. I spoke of these matters in that era and in the eras that followed, and the only response from some of the factions was to wage a campaign branding me a traitor.

Opportunism Versus National Unity

People who live together disagree with one another, whether at the level of individuals, families, or parties, and this is part of the reality of life. But what falls outside the reality of life is disagreement that leads to destruction consuming everything, green and dry alike, and that puts an end to everyone’s future. People may disagree over where to build a school, but they must not disagree over the school’s purpose or the standards for hiring teachers. They may disagree on technical matters, but they must not disagree on matters of principle, or the institution will fail before it even begins. In Palestine, people disagree over who should be the school principal, because they are not always looking for competence but for political affiliation. They may not disagree over the location for building a university, but they quarrel bitterly over the political affiliation of the university’s president. This guarantees the institution’s failure. Naturally, the Arab regimes follow the very same approach.

A view prevailed on the Palestinian scene demanding that politicians balance national unity against any factional interests that might be achieved when making political decisions, and that they must choose Palestinian national unity whenever it conflicts with factional interests. The reasoning was that national unity protects everyone from losses, whereas factional interests serve the faction only some of the time, and do not always protect it. It was widely believed that the Palestinian National Charter — most of whose provisions have since been annulled — expressed the Palestinian national interest, and that adherence to it ought to take precedence over any political consideration. But it later became clear that the Palestinian leadership’s conduct toward the Charter surpassed even the conduct of Arab states toward their own constitutions. Syria, for instance, amended its constitution to suit the younger Assad, and Lebanon amended its constitution to suit a particular president; but the Palestinian leadership ignored the Charter altogether, and signed agreements that flatly contradicted it, only amending the Charter three years later to bring it into line with what it had already actually begun implementing. The principle of national unity was never honored, and the concept of the national interest turned into a subjective concept, defined by each Palestinian faction according to its own vision.

The Oslo Accords and Security Coordination

Security coordination — a polite term for serving Israeli security — is the essence of the Palestinians’ agreements with the Israelis. The Oslo Accords stipulated security coordination between the two sides, and the Taba Agreement came to spell matters out in detail, stipulating the Palestinians’ duty to fight “terrorism” — that is, the Palestinian resistance — and not to hold accountable or harass those who work with Israel. In other words, the Palestinian must stand against the Palestinian who resists Israel, and must pat on the back the one who collaborates with it, normalizes with it, or spies for it. It is true that the Palestinian Authority has arrested some spies, but it appears the matter was meant to divert attention, so that it could tell people it was arresting collaborators with Israel.

In every agreement it has signed with Arabs, Israel has been careful about the security question and has treated it as the cornerstone of every agreement, because its security stands above every other consideration. In every agreement it has signed, Israel has insisted that the Arab party enlist itself, in security terms, in the service of Israel’s own security, and that the army and security services fulfill their security duties toward Israel; if the Arab party does not want to serve as an Israeli security employee, the agreement simply does not go through. This was the case with Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon under the 17 May Agreement. Israel has always been careful to remind us that the Egyptian security forces in Sinai are fulfilling their required security duties, and that the Jordanian army does the same.

The Arab party, and of course the Palestinian party, must do what is required of it in security terms, while being granted the right to decide how to present this, and how to dress it up for its own people in whatever manner suits it. And if it fails to meet the security standards, it is punished. The Palestinian side failed to meet the security standards at times under Arafat, and Israel and the states that support it moved to halt funding or the payment of salaries — and this is what happened after Hamas’s victory, given its refusal of security coordination. And this is what will happen if the Palestinian Authority ever decides to abandon security coordination.

Priority for Security Coordination

Can Palestinian national unity be achieved, or at least reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, under the shadow of security coordination? Yes, it is possible — if Hamas recognizes Israel, lays down its weapons, and decides to resist the resistance. But this will not happen unless Hamas decides to strip off its Islamic garb, cast aside its Islamic slogans, and disavow everything it has promised the Palestinian people. My assessment is that this will not happen.

On the other hand, can the Palestinian Authority abandon security coordination with Israel and decide to breathe new life into the Palestinian National Charter? If the Palestinian Authority were to do so, it would require radical, sweeping steps to ensure a smooth transition from one phase to an entirely different one. It would need to search for new sources of funding, forge new regional alliances, and stop chasing after the United States to solve the Palestinian people’s problems. But this too is not possible, because the Authority has structurally bound itself to Israel and to the Western states generally, and within it are those who have allied themselves with foreign parties, whose standing and circumstances have become tied to these very powers.

So as long as security coordination remains in place, and as long as the Palestinian remains bound to arrest his Palestinian brother for the benefit of his Israeli enemy, reconciliation will remain out of reach — indeed, it is tethered to the tail of security coordination with Israel. Whoever wants to know the fate of reconciliation has no choice but to look to the state of security coordination.

The careful observer will also notice that the Palestinian Authority did not halt security coordination with Israel in response to continued settlement construction; rather, it halted only the public negotiations. The reason is that halting negotiations does not cross the red lines, whereas halting security coordination does cross them, and brings punishment down on the Authority. Israel has no need for negotiations, but it does need security coordination.

The Media Wishes of the Factions

The two big factions continue to recite beautiful poetry about reconciliation and Palestinian national unity, but they will do no more than they have done in the past. Neither faction wants to bear the burden of telling the truth as it is, and each prefers to speak beautiful words, even if doing so keeps the people wandering lost. In the end, the faction’s own interest prevails. Only Mr. Ismail Haniyeh possessed the courage to tell the truth, in his speech marking the anniversary of Hamas’s founding.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “المصالحة الفلسطينية في ذيل التنسيق مع إسرائيل” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.