National dialogue or deaf dialogue?

author

Walid Al-Awad

News is leaking shamefully from the corridors of the Palestinian dialogue about the faltering of the first round of consultations that began with bilateral meetings between the Fatah movement and Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front, amid talk about fundamental reservations expressed by the Hamas movement regarding some of the points raised by President Mahmoud Abbas as a basis for moving to a comprehensive national dialogue. According to what was reported, the movement needs more time to study these points within its leadership frameworks.

If this news is true, it brings back to the forefront a question that the Palestinians have been asking bitterly after many years of dialogues and agreements that did not find their way to implementation: Are we facing a serious national dialogue aimed at ending the division and rebuilding the Palestinian political system, or are we facing a new round of wasting time, closer to a dialogue of the deaf, in which each party clings to its prior positions and waits for others to agree to them?

What is more worrying than the news of the faltering is that the reservations attributed to the Hamas movement, if true, relate to the same issues that presented obstacles to previous dialogues, most notably the establishment of a Palestinian state on the borders of June 4, 1967, the adoption of peaceful popular resistance, and adherence to the resolutions of international legitimacy. Here a question arises that cannot be avoided: What should happen more than what happened during the past three years so that everyone realizes that the political review is no longer an option that can be postponed, but rather a national necessity imposed by the facts, the balance of power, and the size of the sacrifices paid by the Palestinian people?

It is important to distinguish between the points presented by President Mahmoud Abbas as keys to opening the doors of comprehensive national dialogue, and the political program that this dialogue should reach. These points are not a substitute for dialogue, and its results should not be determined in advance. Rather, they provide an initial common ground that allows discussing the entire political path, drawing lessons from experience, and identifying options to end the occupation and embody the sovereignty of the State of Palestine. Without agreeing on a minimum of these foundations, how can we move to a comprehensive dialogue on the most complex issues, most notably the future of the political system, the unity of institutions, forms of struggle, and confronting settlement, annexation, displacement, and attempts to impose guardianship?

The experience of the past three years, with its war of extermination, destruction, displacement, and attempts to liquidate the Palestinian cause, has revealed the gross imbalance in the balance of power, and the limited military stakes in confronting the American-backed Israeli war machine. Recognizing this fact does not detract from the right of the Palestinian people to resist the occupation, but rather an awareness that the legitimacy of resistance does not absolve political forces from the responsibility of choosing the forms of struggle most capable of protecting the people and achieving their national goals.

A political paradox emerges here that is difficult to ignore. At a time when Israel controls approximately 70% of the area of ​​the Gaza Strip, and the rapid settlement occupation of West Bank lands continues, threatening to undermine the possibility of establishing an independent Palestinian state, reservations are emerging, according to circulating news, regarding the Palestinian state’s reliance on the 1967 borders, peaceful popular resistance, and international legitimacy resolutions as the basis for a unified national program.

What is most surprising is that this coincides with showing flexibility in dealing with the Trump plan, despite the arrangements it contains that affect the future and sovereignty of the Gaza Strip, and raises the issue of disarmament and subjecting the Strip to security and administrative arrangements outside the Palestinian national will, in the context of Resolution 2803. The paradox deepens when the discussion with the so-called “Peace Council” focuses on adhering to the yellow line and programming the gradual Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, while Israeli control over most of its area continues.

How can flexibility become possible in the face of an American plan that includes disarmament and guardianship arrangements, while it seems impossible in the face of a Palestinian national program based on peaceful popular resistance at this stage and the resolutions of international legitimacy? How can the yellow line in Gaza be negotiated, while obstacles are being placed in the way of agreeing on the borders of June 4, 1967 for the State of Palestine?

The yellow line may not be transformed into new borders for the Gaza Strip, nor into a permanent reality that dedicates its division or cuts off parts of it, and the programming of gradual withdrawal should not become an alternative to the clear demand for complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, within the framework of ending the occupation of the entire territory of the State of Palestine.

Embodying the sovereignty of an independent Palestinian state on the borders of June 4, 1967, with Jerusalem as its capital, adhering to the resolutions of international legitimacy, and adopting peaceful popular resistance at this delicate stage, are not free concessions to anyone, nor a response to external conditions, but rather the foundations of a realistic national program that can unite the Palestinians and mobilize Arab and international support. Also, agreeing on these foundations does not mean demanding that Hamas or other factions recognize Israel, but rather a commitment to a common national political program.

On the other hand, the required review also imposes on the Palestinian leadership the responsibility of reviewing its political experience, first and foremost the impasse that led to the Oslo process, and the necessity of abandoning the bet on the United States of America as an honest mediator or gateway to achieving national rights, as well as the illusion of continuing the transitional phase that will not automatically lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state, no matter how long it waits.

The state is not born from extending the transitional phase or reproducing its arrangements, but rather from a new political and struggle path based on the fact that Palestine is a state under occupation, and on employing its growing international recognition, and mobilizing Palestinian, Arab and international energies to end the occupation and embody national sovereignty over its entire territory occupied in 1967, while rebuilding the institutions of the PLO on democratic foundations and true national partnership.

Also, the dialogue, which is supposed to be national and comprehensive, must not remain hostage to bilateral understandings between Fatah and Hamas, or for any party to consider that it has the right to use the veto to impede national consensus and get out of the impasse. The Palestinian issue is bigger than any faction, and what is required is the participation of all political and societal forces in formulating a unified national strategy, under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the only legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and on the basis of the unity of the land, the people, and the institutions, and one national authority, one law, and one weapon.

The decision of the Executive Committee of the PLO to postpone the legislative elections and open the door to a comprehensive national dialogue came to provide an opportunity to rebuild national consensus. But the painful irony will be that, after postponing the elections, we find ourselves facing a faltering dialogue, and then postponing the elections will turn, in the eyes of citizens, from an opportunity to restore national unity into an excuse to disrupt the democratic entitlement, without achieving unity or renewing the legitimacy of institutions.

The dialogue in which each party enters convinced that it alone possesses the truth, and that what is required of others is to review their positions without it reviewing its own positions, is not a national dialogue, but rather a reproduction of the division using new tools.

The required dialogue is not a compromise between two programs that experience has proven incapable of achieving national goals, nor an attempt to annex one party to another, but rather a station for courageous political review, drawing lessons from the past three years, and agreeing on a national strategy that moves the Palestinian situation from managing the reality of occupation to united struggle to end it.

Every political movement has the right to adhere to its convictions, but no party has the right to demand that an entire people pay additional prices to prove the validity of options that the experiment did not succeed in achieving its goals. Leadership is not a permanent test of the people's patience, but rather a responsibility for their lives and future.

The Palestinian people have paid a heavy price for the division, and they no longer have time to pay an additional price for the dialogue of the deaf. Either a national dialogue opens the way to unity, democracy and liberation, or all political forces, without exception, bear responsibility for wasting another opportunity to save the Palestinian national project. Gaza / 10-20-2026