FiMED — News Desk

The Palestinian National Movement has called for the formation of a «united national front» bringing together the resistance factions and Palestinian national forces at home and in the diaspora, to serve as a temporary representative framework based on collective leadership and partnership in decision-making. It also demanded the withdrawal of legitimacy from the current leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority, holding them responsible for the political course that has brought the Palestinian cause to its current reality.

The call came in a statement issued by the movement on the 109th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, in which it warned against a repetition of what it described as the experience of political concessions, deeming US moves to form a so-called «Peace Council» to administer the Gaza Strip an extension of a course that, in its assessment, aims to re-engineer the Palestinian political reality and diminish the national and historical rights of the Palestinian people.

From the Balfour Declaration to the Oslo Accords

The statement recalled the repercussions of the Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917, describing it as «a grant from those who do not own to those who do not deserve», and deeming it the political foundation of the Zionist project in Palestine despite its lack of legal legitimacy, according to the statement.

The movement criticised what it described as the capitulation of the official Arab regime to the fait accompli imposed by the occupation, and the international and Arab abdication that, in its view, contributed to entrenching the legitimacy of the occupation within international institutions.

The statement linked the Balfour Declaration to the Oslo Accords, arguing that the agreement contributed to conferring political legitimacy on the outcomes of the Zionist project, after the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization signed a document recognising Israel in exchange for recognition of the organization and its leadership as the representative of the Palestinian people.

It noted that this course led, in its assessment, to the relinquishment of 78% of the area of historic Palestine in exchange for limited self-rule, and to the subjection of parts of the West Bank to political bargaining, culminating in what it described as their reoccupation and the expansion of Israeli control over them.

The «second promise» and fears of liquidating the cause

The movement warned that current US moves to form a «Peace Council» and administer the Gaza Strip may, as it described them, represent an attempt to produce a new formula of guardianship over the Palestinian decision and to tie the future of the Strip to political arrangements outside the Palestinian national will.

It considered that these moves raise fears of infringing upon the national and historical rights of the Palestinian people, completing the course of liquidating the cause and imposing control over the land, and called for dealing with these developments as an existential challenge requiring a reordering of the Palestinian house on inclusive national foundations.

A call for a national front and collective leadership

In the face of these challenges, the movement addressed an appeal to the resistance factions, the national forces and active figures at home and in the diaspora to expedite the establishment of the «United National Front» as a temporary representative framework based on collective leadership and genuine partnership in decision-making, away from the monopoly of representation or factional exclusivity.

The statement stressed the need to withdraw legitimacy from the current leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority, accusing it of responsibility for the deterioration of the national situation, and warning against attempts to reproduce its leadership in forms consistent with American and European dictates and Israeli conditions.

The movement concluded its statement, issued from occupied Jerusalem, by affirming adherence to the Palestinian land and rejection of any relinquishment of national and historical rights, saluting the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and paying tribute to the steadfastness of the Palestinians and the sacrifices of the martyrs, the wounded and the prisoners.

The call to form a «united national front» reflects an escalation in political discourse rejecting the continued monopoly of Palestinian representation, and raises anew the question of rebuilding the national reference and decision-making mechanisms, amid disagreements over the future of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority and the political arrangements being proposed regarding the Gaza Strip.