Cutting Through: Palestinian Elections
And the latest on Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics
The first Palestinian national elections in fifteen years are scheduled to be held in the spring and summer of 2021. While many factors, including Palestinian infighting and the omnipresent Israeli occupation, may derail those elections, this is the best chance we’ve seen for desperately needed Palestinian elections since 2006.
But there are significant dangers in these elections as well, and we on the outside need to understand them and be prepared for worst-case scenarios. Indeed, we need to watch for some dangerous outcomes even in the less than worst-case scenarios.
Palestinian elections are to be held in three stages. The first will be for the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) in May. The PLC is the legislative body of the Palestinian Authority, although, as it functions only under the auspices of Israel’s overriding authority as the occupying power, its real authority is drastically limited, all the more so because of the domineering role the Palestinian president plays.
That president, Mahmoud Abbas, will also face an election, in July. Abbas might be called an authoritarian, albeit a low-level one. He derives his power from being simultaneously the leader of the Palestinian “government” under occupation and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), as well as from his cooperation with Israel, which relies on his leadership in helping to coordinate the often draconian security measures targeting members of various Palestinian militant groups that both Israel and the United States have so often praised.
Finally, in August, elections will be held for the Palestinian National Council (PNC). The PNC is the decision-making body of the PLO. In practice, its primary role is selecting the PLO Executive Committee which manages the day-to-day leadership of the PLO. The PNC still plays a major role in the biggest Palestinian policy decisions and setting a course for the PLO as a whole.
These elections have the potential to have a powerful impact on the future of the Palestinian people and their movement to escape Israeli occupation. But it’s a very bumpy road and significant concerns have been raised by some Palestinians.
Although the elections back in 2006 were certified as free and fair even by those who refused to abide by and accept the results, there is a major lack of faith in such an outcome today among Palestinians. A recent poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) showed that only 50% of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza “trust the integrity and capacity of the Palestinian Election Commission to successfully manage the election process,” while 44% did not.
That mistrust comes from a lack of faith in the integrity of Palestinian institutions, both in the PA and in Hamas, as well as in the Palestinian security forces’ ability to ensure that polling places will be open and free from intimidation. This, of course, includes interference by Israel, which can easily prevent the ability of many Palestinians to reach polling places with well-placed checkpoints and other measures.
Yara Hawari, the Palestine Policy Fellow of Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network, despairs of the integrity of potential elections. Pointing out that these elections will be, in any case, held under occupation and cannot be, therefore, fully democratic by any reasonable definition of that term, Hawari posits that it is “…likely that the two parties (Hamas and Abbas’ Fatah party) will come to an agreement to fix the elections in a way that would allow them to maintain dominant positions in the territories they currently rule over.”
That pessimistic outlook is not a product of political cynicism, although few have more reason for such cynicism than Palestinians. It’s a reaction to the authoritarian and self-interested politics of both Fatah and Hamas, earned over years of experience. And it’s dangerous to have that much doubt in electoral institutions. We just got a hard lesson in that fact here in the U.S.
Still, the last Palestinian elections were valid, and that should not be ignored. To be sure, that was many years ago, so it’s far from a conclusive reason to have faith in the current process. But the PA and PLO back then was still authoritarian and it was in considerable disarray, having just lost its respected leader, Yasir Arafat, in 2004, and coming out of the bloody second intifada at that time. Israel was also far less than fully cooperative in those elections, preventing some Palestinian candidates from traveling, harassing voters trying to register, blocking roads and interfering in many other ways. Yet the elections took place, and they were certified as honest by international observers. It was a remarkable feat by the Palestinian people, one which was not only unrewarded, but punished by the international community.
With Fatah splitting its own vote and running multiple candidates in the same voting districts, Hamas ended up winning a majority in the PLC. The U.S. and Israel immediately led a campaign to undo the results of this election that even they did not claim was anything but honest. It eventually led to the failed U.S.-backed coup attempt led by Fatah’s Mohammed Dahlan that left Hamas in full control after they routed the Fatah forces. One might call it a Gazan Bay of Pigs.
The seeds for a similar turn of events are already there. As Amira Hass reports, a group of Fatah legislators, weary of Abbas and his inner circle, are putting together an alternative Fatah slate to challenge the status quo. They do not seem to be planning a challenge to Abbas directly, as they hope that the imprisoned Marwan Barghouti—a singularly popular figure in Palestine, and one who has broad appeal both inside Fatah and among other factions, including Hamas—will serve in that role.
We on the outside should welcome the new Fatah slate. Led by Nasser al-KIdwa, a Fatah veteran, former Abbas ally, and nephew of Yasir Arafat, it may or may not turn out to be the sort of democratic, pluralistic leadership it currently professes to be. But it is clear that the present leadership is none of those things and given the well-worn refrain about the need for a new Palestinian leadership, this should be a welcome development. One would think it would be something the Biden administration would want to build on, now that communication with the PA leadership has been restored.
They are being urged otherwise by groups like AIPAC, of course, who are trying to pressure the Palestinians into barring Hamas from running. They surely understand that disenfranchising that big a part of the Palestinian polity would render any possibility of easing the tensions in the region, let alone ending the occupation, virtually impossible. That, indeed, is likely the point.
These are only some of the obstacles to a free and fair Palestinian election. But we in the United States should recognize our clear interest—politically and more importantly, morally—in such elections. And we should be agitating in support of them. Palestinians, even under occupation, deserve as much democracy as we can help them get. We should be working to ensure that Palestinians are at least free to decide how they want to fight for their freedom, and who they want leading that process.
As Palestinian scholar Dalia Hatuqa sums it up, “Ultimately, the Palestinians can’t hope for a successful election—whether presidential, parliamentary, or local—without long-overdue institutional overhaul. Israel, for its part, must also be willing to negotiate publicly with a new leadership that includes Hamas; it is common knowledge that Israel constantly negotiates with the group via Egyptian intermediaries, so this isn’t a big ask. And the United States must learn to accept the results of free and fair elections, even if it doesn’t like the results. Only then can elections actually be the exercise in national unity that Palestinians desperately need.”
Except for Palestine Is Here!
The book is finally out! You can get it in hardcover, audiobook format or ebook and those links will allow you to buy from an independent bookseller. It’s also available from all the big places too, if that’s your jam.
The buzz around the book has been amazing, especially for a non-fiction book with a niche appeal like this one. It’s been a thrilling ride already and it’s only beginning.
We’ve already had a good number of events around the book’s release, and there are more coming. I will be updating this page at my web site regularly as we add more upcoming events, videos and audio recordings of past events, and new interviews and podcasts, so you can hear and see all we have around this book.
Some particular highlights:
Occupied Thoughts Podcast: Peter Beinart w/ Marc Lamont Hill & Peter Beinart. Listen Here.
Bad Faith Podcast with Briahna Joy Gray. Listen Here.
Book Launch Event With Mitchell, Marc, Dima Khalidi, and Angela Davis. Watch Here.
Politics & Prose Live!: Marc Lamont Hill and Mitchell Plitnick — Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics - with Michelle Alexander. Watch Here.
More events are being scheduled. To keep informed about Marc’s and Mitchell’s upcoming podcasts, interviews, and live events, follow us on Twitter, @MJPlitnick and @marclamonthill. We tweet events multiple times, so if you follow us, you won’t miss them. You can also follow me on Facebook, just search my name. And of course, don’t forget the web page I mentioned that will be updated as new events come up.
Recent Articles
The book has limited my other publishing the past couple of weeks, so just one other article this time, though there are already a few more to be published soon, so keep an eye on ReThinking Foreign Policy and my social media for more.
At The New Arab, I look at AIPAC’s efforts to dictate who is and is not allowed to run in Palestinian elections, and why this is not only anti-democratic and immoral, but counter-productive.
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