Since the Secretary Generals’ meeting in Ramallah and Beirut on September 3rd, the Palestinian street has not witnessed any essential changes in the behavior of the Palestinian Authority. The PA has not taken any important steps nor contributions to the success of the reconciliation. In addition, it has not stood up against the Israeli and American policies. All what it did was making statements and holding meetings with Hamas.
A Strategy or a Tactic?
To the PA, the Palestinian reconciliation could either be a strategy or a tactic to exit a complicated reality that was enforced by the US and Israeli policy. In order to identify the accuracy of such statement, the PA’s behavior internally and externally should be examined.
Internally, the PA has not offered the West Bank more freedoms, nor has it released the political detainees as was expected.
As for its relation with the Israeli occupation, will it change its position on political settlement? Reality shows that it has not yet abandoned Oslo although the public negotiations with the occupation had stopped. Also, it has not withdrawn its recognition of the occupation.
The popular resistance has not made any real action in the West Bank, so if the PA is serious in its position against the normalization agreements and the termination plans of the Palestinian cause, why has it not turned to popular resistance at least?
International and Arab Pressure
The PA is under American, Israeli and Arab pressure demanding it to return to negotiations through cutting or reducing financial aids.
The clearing funds, for example, are estimated about 700m shekels paid on a monthly basis representing 60% of the PA’s budget. Although the PA rejected the financial blackmail, it suffers from a financial deficit reflected in the half-salaries paid to 134,000 employees since last May.
Undoubtedly, the PA’s rejection of the blackmail is a recognized behavior. However, how will it compensate such deficit? Nikolay Mladenov, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, said, “The grants cannot replace the clearing funds”.
Similarly, during the first seven months of this year, the PA’s aids received from Arabs were reduced from $267m in 2019 to $38m in 2020 (that is 85%).
In Conclusion
The PA is facing American, Israeli and Arab rejection due to its relation with Hamas. President Abbas also knows that continuing to reject negotiations and heading to a more bold resolution (i.e. unleashing the resistance) will drag him into the same Israeli scenario with the late President Yasser Arafat.
Based on the above, the fate of the Palestinian reconciliation is the same as the previous rounds. The PA is using it as a tactic to gain more time hoping its situation would improve with the negotiations should Trump loses. It also indicates President Abbas’ sole belief in negotiations only through calling for an international peace conference that is held next year after the US presidential elections.