Between Rearranging the House and Disassembling the Homeland ... Who Comes First?

Author: Marwan Emil Tubasi

While we are preoccupied as Palestinians with discussions about election dates, national dialogue, and the rebuilding and democratic renewal of our political system, and despite the importance of these entitlements, a faster and more dangerous process is ongoing on the ground, characterized by the existence of our people and the reconfiguration of the Palestinian geography itself. It is as if we are facing a race between a Palestinian time burdened with disputes and waiting for consensus, and an occupying, colonial time that does not wait for anyone, continuing to impose facts and change the boundaries of place, its functions, and its future, supported by successive American administrations and remnants of Western colonial thought.

The settlement expansion in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, is no longer confined to Area C, while attacks and terrorism from settlers are escalating, settlements are expanding, and the Palestinian space is eroding, as part of a broader trajectory to fragment the land and reshape its geography.

Israel is the settlements, and the settlements are Israel, as stated by the leftist Israeli journalist and friend Gideon Levy. The settlement project was not created by individuals rebelling against the state; rather, it was provided with land, funding, infrastructure, and military, legal, and political protection by governments and official institutions, serving a colonial project that seeks permanent expansion even in the broader region.

This coincides with what is happening in Gaza, where the crimes of occupation, daily killing, and destruction continue, along with the suffering of our people there and the absence of reconstruction illusions, and the dangers of separation and reconfiguration of administration and political future away from the unity of land and national authority, in light of the arrangements of Resolution 2803 and what has been called the 'Peace Council' and its administrative committee, which we miscalculated when we welcomed it in exchange for what could have been the presentation of the Russian draft resolution supported by China before the Security Council.

Inside Palestine, the policies of Jewish supremacy and racial discrimination against our people are escalating, along with attempts to prevent their lists from participating in parliamentary elections, while the disagreements among Zionist parties transcend the issue of our people's rights and ending the occupation to a struggle over who controls the governance at the expense of our people's rights and blood.

We are, therefore, facing a battle for existence and an accumulated path to reshape the Palestinian space and transform its gatherings into population islands and geographical enclaves within a space controlled by the occupying state, making the realization of the Palestinian state more difficult as these realities become entrenched, despite the widening international recognition of it, which remains politically and legally deficient unless it transforms into a force to end the occupation and realize the state recognized by the world on the ground.

In contrast, we are preparing today for an anticipated national dialogue in Cairo, while the legislative elections are still officially scheduled for the twenty-eighth of November, despite the possibility of postponement being present in political and factional discussions.

Here, the question is not limited to the timing of the elections or who will participate in the dialogue, but extends to the content of the political system that must be rebuilt and renewed democratically, with its references and its relationship to the Declaration of Independence and the status of the State of Palestine, and the necessity of transitioning from managing a transitional self-rule authority that emerged in the context of Oslo, after the failure of its political path, towards realizing the State of Palestine under occupation with its national and legal authority over its land and people, and benefiting from international changes, especially after the New Delhi declaration of the BRICS countries and the Global South, and the expansion of global popular solidarity and Israel's increasing isolation, including within American public opinion, which has become a central axis in the electoral programs of parties in European elections and in Latin America.

Here, the crisis of our political system cannot be addressed without acknowledging our responsibility for part of it, and the necessity to change the tools and not repeat the mistakes, without this obscuring the fundamental and direct responsibility of the occupation based on the nature of the conflict. The coup, division, institutional paralysis, absence of democratic renewal, prioritization of factional calculations, and consideration of external conditions have weakened our ability to confront the settlement project and maintain our independent national decision and the unity of our people.

Therefore, the national dialogue should not turn into an understanding between factions or merely seeking an exit for an electoral date, important as their struggle and historical role may be, but rather into a broad dialogue about our national liberation project and rebuilding its tools and institutions. It should not be limited to factions, but should include civil society, independent competencies, youth and women movements, and representatives of our communities in the diaspora, within the framework of renewing the role of our Palestinian national movement, foremost of which is the Fatah movement, in a way that preserves its identity and goals.

In this context, elections become part of the answer and not the whole answer; they are a tool for restoring the people's right to choose their representatives, renewing legitimacy, and reinstating the principle that the people are the source of authority. They are also a tool in the political battle with the occupation, especially in Jerusalem. If national consensus necessitates reconsidering their date, it should not mean returning to open postponement, but rather agreeing on a binding path for legislative and presidential elections, leading to the democratic election and renewal of the National Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization with the participation of our people in various places of their presence.

It is also required from the dialogue to redefine the function of the authority as a tool of the national liberation project and not a substitute for it, and to develop it towards the institutions of the State of Palestine under occupation, in parallel with developing the Palestine Liberation Organization and restoring its role as a broad national front for a liberation movement that has not yet completed its tasks.

The occupation does not wait for the results of our dialogue, our election dates, or our conferences. While we discuss who governs, how we elect, and when we dialogue, the land we will govern and the geography we will elect on are being changed.

Therefore, the question that should accompany us to Cairo, in my opinion, transcends the fate of elections and their dates, important as they are, to how we can, with responsibility and courage for review and self-criticism, rebuild and renew our political system democratically and link the national with the social to solve our people's living issues by embodying justice, separating powers, and upholding the rule of law, and from the tools of our national liberation project, a force to protect the unity of the land, the people, and the cause, and to effectively empower our steadfastness, before the maps of the occupation precede us in completing the imposition of a new reality on the present of our existence and our future.

If colonial settlement seeks to transform the Palestinian from a landowner into a problem and an obstacle that must be resolved by getting rid of him, then our national entitlement is to rebuild and renew our liberation project capable of protecting the existence of our people and our land, and to transform steadfastness from merely the ability to survive into a political liberation force capable of reclaiming rights and defeating the occupation first.