The Political Future of Palestinians, According to Palestinians
The questions surrounding Palestinians' political future have become even more urgent since President Trump scrambled the regional calculus, suggesting the United States could take over Gaza and send its roughly two million people packing. (The next day, aides tried to walk back aspects of the proposal.) Coupled with last month's cease-fire, which paused the 15-month war, we have again arrived at a time when Palestinians are moving fast to figure out how to run their own lives.
Times Opinion spoke to five Palestinian scholars and analysts in Gaza, the West Bank, Egypt and the United States about what they believe the future holds for their people. The discussion, which took place on a video call on Jan. 17, was moderated by two Opinion editors, Krista Mahr and Meher Ahmad. It has been condensed and edited for clarity and accuracy.
What are the forces shaping Palestinians' political future today?
Raja Khalidi, director, Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute, speaking from Ramallah, West Bank: The first thing Palestinians are doing is surviving. That's what's happening in Gaza, it's happening in the West Bank, and it's happening as a people globally.
The question is: How do we move from that into some sort of peace? We all want peace. There are two weaknesses that are critical to answering that question.
The first is Israel and what happens in Israel. We all know that what happens to us, our future, is determined by what happens in Israel before anything else.
The second thing is what we do about our own affairs, and the Gaza and West Bank disunity, and these institutions that have continued to claim legitimacy but have certainly lost their effectiveness and legitimacy.
Leila Farsakh, professor of political science, University of Massachusetts Boston, speaking from Boston: I think Raja explained it very neatly: What Israel does matters a lot to how we can act or not and that margin of maneuver we have for acting.
There is also regional power. We cannot forget that the cease-fire would not have been possible without Egypt, but more important, Qatar, as well as the United States.
The biggest problem and the biggest agent in this is the Palestinians themselves. What is unforgivable in this juncture is the behavior of the Palestinian Authority. Whether you like Hamas, you don't like Hamas, the position of any Palestinian leader should have been unity, at all costs.
P.A. legitimacy right now is stemming from the outside, rather than from the inside. It's stemming from the support of Israel and the security coordination with Israel and the United States.
New leadership and new elections are going to be very important. At what stage what will happen, we don't know.
Dana El Kurd, a senior nonresident fellow at the Arab Center Washington DC, speaking from Washington: Palestinians have agency. The fact that they didn't maintain unity at this moment was really problematic. But to look at it even a little bit more broadly than just Fatah and Hamas, it's the fact that the P.L.O. as an organization has been so minimized.
At the end of the day, we do need the international community to also buy in and to provide a space for Palestinians to engage in this way and not remain in the structures that they've been imprisoned in.
Can the Palestinian Authority be reformed? Do you see a role for it in a future Palestinian state?
Abeer Barakat, lecturer at the University College of Applied Sciences in Gaza, speaking from Gaza City: What we aspire for right now is a government that has a coalition of groups from the Palestinians themselves, for them to be technocratic people, to be people with knowledge, to be people who are fair and they are not following their political party blindly.
I don't feel that the P.L.O. is the only representative of the Palestinian people. We do not want the P.A. to come back again in Gaza and to be compliant with the Israeli side, or to be compliant with the American side. We want it to be a government from the Palestinian people to the Palestinian people and to be free from any kind of international interference.
El Kurd: The P.A. can be a part of service provision. There are bureaucrats and technocrats. I'm not suggesting we close down every office, but the P.A. cannot be the starting point for the discussion moving forward.
When we reduce the question to just the West Bank and just bits of the Gaza Strip, we're not engaging other communities. We're not engaging Palestinian residents of Jerusalem. We're not engaging Palestinian citizens of Israel. We're not engaging the diaspora.
Khalidi: The P.A. is obsolete. It has no legal existence anymore because of how much Israel has violated the agreements with it.
The P.L.O., as has been said, does not represent the Palestinian people the way it did, say, 30 years ago, even, when it signed Oslo. And Hamas, of course, is a spent force as an organized resistance. Obviously, it will remain an essential part of the Palestinian people's future governance.
How do we reunify the Palestinian people?
The state of Palestine — regardless of where it eventually is established and with what sovereignty and with what territory — should become the national address of the Palestinian people. And then we reorganize our government, our constituent assembly, our constitution.
Farsakh: We need to acknowledge that we have some institutional structures for how to govern. This is a fact. The P.L.O. is recognized internationally as a body that does exist. Without the P.L.O., you would not have a Palestinian state. There is a question of whether you want to reform the P.L.O.; this question is on the table.
Especially since 2000, Israel has done everything to kill potential leaders. The targeted assassinations happened in Gaza. The targeted assassinations happened in the West Bank. But this is not going to work strategically. We have a level of sophistication that is not going anywhere, and it will not be eliminated if you kill everybody who negotiated in Gaza.
What are the next steps that can be taken? Is it elections?
Omar Shaban, director, Pal-Think for Strategic Studies, speaking from Cairo, where he moved after the war broke out in Gaza: For three years, we cannot talk about politics. We cannot talk about elections. But eventually we will have a new leadership — represented not by Mr. Abbas, not by Hamas — a new leadership who represents the Palestinians. And you in diaspora are very welcomed to contribute to this future.
Farsakh: The core issue will be how far the rebuilding or the cease-fire will allow the youth to come and express what they want for their statehood or for their independence. You need to encourage and allow democratic elections to take place. Do you give them the institutional mechanism to actually express themselves?
Civil society is very, very strong, whether it is in Gaza or the West Bank. So everything is there. You have the intelligence. You have the people. You have the organization.
El Kurd: There is a discussion, especially among young people, about decoupling the idea of sovereignty from statehood. Part of it is disillusionment and anger over what's happened in the last 15 months and a hardening of positions that they don't accept Israel existing at all. There is this discussion that we already live in a one-state reality.
They're saying, if we're going to talk about a two-state solution, the concept of state is a state that has no sovereignty, really. It's this demilitarized zone. It's so much more limited in scope and scale and capacity than what the average Palestinian needs to be able to engage in a dignified life with freedom of movement and freedom of expression.
A lot of people are saying, if we want Palestinians to remain in the land with a dignified life, all Palestinians, Palestinians in Jerusalem, Palestinian citizens of Israel, then statehood under the terms that the international community is discussing will never give us what we want. I know that it's not a majority by any means that are against a two-state solution.
Khalidi: The next step is consecrating Palestinian nationhood, national identity, national cultural coherence. The fact that 14 million Palestinians around the world connected in the last year in one way or the other, that needs an address. That needs a place where we are all equal. We're not going to find that in the P.L.O. and its factions who represent nothing, nor in the P.A. and its top-heavy 23 ministries which cannot run without international advisers.
Farsakh: I disagree with you, Raja. The consecration of the Palestinian nationhood or national identity is strong. It doesn't need anything. We see it on display this past year like never before. Those inside, those outside, everybody is in solidarity.
The core issue, though, is that there are now two million Palestinians in Gaza, three million in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and two million inside Israel. These are the ones whose notion of equality, political rights and right to life are under attack.
We have a Palestinian state, but the leadership presently did not and is not interested in a representative unified leadership of these five million, forget even those who are inside Israel. And this needs to change.
My generation wanted the state because we thought if we'd do this, we'd get independence. But the new generation are telling you: What is the state that we have? It's not giving me freedom of movement. It's not giving me elections. So this fundamental question goes back to participation, equality and representation. How do we develop that?
What role do you see Hamas playing in the future of Palestinian leadership?
Barakat: Hamas is an integral part of Palestinian society, and it should have a role in the government, but not take the whole government to itself. Israel couldn't end Hamas because Hamas is about the idea of resistance, and the idea cannot be dead. Even if Hamas was completely eliminated, the idea of resistance will continue.
Shaban: The military option is not anymore valid in Gaza. We need to bring into consideration what happened in the region, with Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. So the future of Gaza might be better. We wanted Hamas to stay as a social, as a political, party. But Hamas needs the time to repair itself. Israel, Egypt and Qatar will make sure that there will be no more rehabilitation of the military capacity. I don't think the Palestinians in Gaza want another war.
Farsakh: If we look at how it evolved over time, Hamas of 2022 is not the same Hamas of 2000. So it's a party that is well structured, that has some form of accountability, that has shown flexibility. It has received a very big blow and has caused the Palestinians, according to many, a big catastrophe.
Who are the emerging leaders you would like to see stand in elections?
Shaban: In the election that was supposed to happen in May 2021, there were 36 candidate lists. Twenty-six of them were formed and led by young people. Sixty-eight percent of the Gaza population and 65 percent of the Palestine population are young people who are under 30. They didn't vote for Hamas. They didn't know about Arafat. They didn't know about the P.A. The problem is that we haven't had presidential elections since 2005.
America and Israel itself need to understand that election in Palestine is good for the stability of the region.
Khalidi: Palestinians are very deeply now involved in the blame game. Rather than thinking about all the mess that Hamas made and the mess that we're into because of Oslo, let's think: Is there anything in what Hamas did which actually strategically was the right thing?
I would say yes. Showing that Israel could be confronted militarily for 14 months is a very important lesson that Abbas had forgotten. Is there anything that Abbas has done in the last 14 months that we can say was the right thing? I would say yes: keeping the West Bank out of this.
Let's talk about where can we find somewhere that Hamas will feel induced to drop its arms and participate in politics.
The P.A. leadership did not allow people like me, my generation, in positions of influence. The average age of the P.A. leadership is 70 plus. So there is a big gap between them and my kids in their 30s who want a place to participate.
We have nowhere for people to come together as Palestinians.
What should be the place where people can go?
Khalidi: The state of Palestine should organize elections for Palestinians outside and inside.
El Kurd: You're describing the P.L.O.
Khalidi: No, I'm describing the state of Palestine, which should represent all Palestinian people inside and outside. The P.L.O. cannot do that. It's a dinosaur. It's an empty shell.
El Kurd: When the immediate needs are met for democratic accountability for Palestinians in Palestine, then we can start discussing what role the different diasporas can play and the organizations that they can start to engage with, whether it's the P.L.O. or something like it.
We're seeing a lot of Palestinian young people, Palestinian citizens of Israel, because of their privilege — they are able to engage in a way that people who are trying to meet basic survival needs in the West Bank and Gaza are not able to. There's also student leaders in Birzeit [University] and in lots of different places.
What do you think of the cease-fire deal?
Khalidi: It's very clear that Israel's definition of victory as declared early last year was not achieved. The Palestinian resistance's definition of victory was achieved, in the sense that it's still standing militarily. It's still governing Gaza to the extent that it's able to.
El Kurd: Dahlia Scheindlin recently wrote that phased conditional plans are often slated for collapse. So I'm a more anxious interpreter of the cease-fire agreement.
Shaban: What happened since October is a catastrophe for the Palestinian cause. There is nothing good out of that. We are in a very, very bad situation.
Farsakh: The Palestinians are here to stay. Palestinians are resisting for the right to self-determination and freedom. They were not expelled like in '48. This deal symbolically says that they can go back to their homes, even if they are demolished.
Barakat: I want to comment, but I'm so sorry about the deafening sound of the drone. We don't have the leverage of thinking whether it's good or not. It cost us 15 months here in Gaza. I'm in the middle of this genocide. We have to accept that Israel exists. And we have to accept the two-state solution. But at least let's stop the blood bath. Let's go back to living a normal life, because this kind of life is not living. We feel like walking dead.
We hope that we will continue to have peace until we rebuild Gaza.
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