Palestine Think Tank

(artwork by Carlos Latuff) The time has come for looking deeper into the Palestinian political system and empowerment of the Palestinian, Arab and international think tanks worldwide to face the thought-provoking challenges of the Palestinian divide and its negative impacts on the Palestinians, their neighbors and the international community. If it matters, measure it.

Firstly, the delay of the Goldstone Report has led to a heated controversy in the Palestinian arena, since the two rivals, Fateh and Hamas, spared no effort to gain semi-victory of the elections by inciting their supporters on their own information: nothing has been achieved for both factions since they tried to put the cart before the horse and using the double-standard methods in maintaining factional interests.

This rigorous controversy is not as random as some of the people may say, but the burning desire to gain interests is what is at stake here – not one of the political parties has read the report carefully, but they tried to use the regional interest as a card to achieve their goals and objectives and to convince the people they are in favor or against the report for an implicit end.

The delay of the report has put even deeper roots in the political breakdown and made the reach for reconciliation closer to fantasy and craziness in the eyes of the Palestinian monitors and even for the people in the general public.

Secondly, the call for the presidential and parliamentary elections in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, issued by the President, Mahmoud Abbas on 23 October 2009, has led to an additional splintering of the already political and strategic divide among "the factions to reconcile", where the first agreement signed in Mecca had no tangible actions on the ground after 4 months of holding it, the impending signing of the Egyptian document was projected to carry the same dilemma due to the lack of looking up the hidden, creative ways of achieving the reconciliation.

The same strategic flaws of the "Mecca agreement" were scheduled to be repeat those of the "Egyptian document" for the following reasons: the control of the donors' countries on Palestinian decision-making; lack of confidence; the factions' fear of destroying the movements' image before their supporters; two different security and even theoretical visions of reaching reconciliation; and some partial reasons like: Hamas' fear of the shuttling visits of the Egyptian intelligence, Omar Solieman, to the USA in an unscheduled time—these factors led them to delay and then run away from the reconciliation consequences.

What comes first, the reconciliation or the elections?

Out of the accelerating events in the Palestinian community, no one can speculate on the status quo or the future, but the core result for all spoiling efforts of the two factions' dialogue will be the collapse of the Palestinian political system, deepening the geopolitical divide; enhancing the role of the police policy; delay of the reconstruction process until further notice, and giving more justifications to the international community that there is no hope in dealing with the Palestinian divided people and then returning to the first square.

Lastly, the need to reconcile is not so easy in the Palestinian community because the world has the ability to change, but the Palestinian has just been allowed to listen to the mastermind. The international community can help Palestinians reach the reconciliation via respecting their own think tanks’ recommendations, and then they will find the best upheaval change on the Palestinians, their neighbors and at the international levels. 

Ayman Nijim is a strategic researcher working in Pal Think for Strategic Studies, Gaza-based think tank.

You can contact him via: ayman_trans@hotmail.com

Ayman A. Nijim

Interpreter and strategic researcher

Email': Ayman_trans@hotmail.com , for Arab Journalists.

think_do.thank@hotmail.com , for Foreign Journalists.

ayman_trans@yahoo.com .  

Website: http://aymannijim.wordpress.com/