THE CONTINUED DEVOLUTION OF PALESTINIAN POLITICS / GEOPOLITICAL FUTURES

The Continued Devolution of Palestinian Politics

Once binary, the body politic is breaking down into a more fractured landscape.

By: Kamran Bokhari

As U.S.-led efforts continue for a ceasefire in Gaza, the future of the Palestinian territories is still in question. 

The Palestinian Authority, based in the West Bank and ruled by Fatah, had hoped that the decline of Hamas would give it the opportunity to regain control of the Gaza Strip. 

However, the PA is unlikely to fill the emerging power vacuum, and its inability to do so underscores the devolution of the Palestinian national movement from larger entities to local clans that seek to go it alone.

On July 8, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a meeting – the second in two days – with U.S. President Donald Trump on how to bring an end to the Israel-Hamas war. 

On the same day, following a meeting with U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, Netanyahu told reporters, "We have still to finish the job in Gaza, release all our hostages, eliminate and destroy Hamas' military and government capabilities.” 

Shortly thereafter, Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, said the disagreements between Israel and Hamas that have stalled talks had dropped to one from four. 

Separately, a spokesperson for Qatar's Foreign Ministry told reporters that more time is needed to finalize a ceasefire.

Aware that it has suffered military losses that will prevent it from governing Gaza after the war, Hamas is trying to salvage as much influence as it can. 

A BBC report from July 6 seems to corroborate as much. 

The report says the group’s security and governing structure have all but collapsed. 

Quoting an unnamed Hamas official, it says the group controls only about 20 percent of Gaza, while 95 percent of its command structure has been eliminated. 

In Hamas’ place are some six armed clans struggling against one another to fill the political and security void.

To be sure, Hamas will likely maintain some sort of presence in Gaza; it was created there, and it will continue to find sympathy among Gaza's residents. 

But it will be in no position to dominate Gaza's politics. 

This was a shared objective of not just Israel and the United States but also regional stakeholders such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. 

Even those like Turkey and Qatar that have closer relations with Hamas appear uninterested in returning to the status quo ante.

The political logic of the situation suggests Gaza will be brought back under the rule of the PA. 

But the Palestinian Authority's influence has diminished considerably since 2007, thanks to Hamas’ armed takeover and the concomitant expansion of Israeli settlements. 

Internal divisions, corruption, mismanagement, authoritarianism and geriatric leadership have also contributed to its decline. 

The PA’s president, the nearly 90-year-old Mahmoud Abbas, has appointed two potential successors over the past seven months. 

Last November, he nominated 75-year-old Palestinian National Council chairman Rawhi Fattouh as interim president in the event of his death or incapacitation. 

Then in April, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Council overwhelmingly voted to create the new position of vice president of the State of Palestine, to which Abbas appointed his longtime lieutenant, Hussein al-Sheikh. 

Yet these appointments amount to little when the PA’s position is slipping in the areas of the West Bank ostensibly under its control.

Already there are challenges to its influence. 

A July 5 article in The Wall Street Journal reported that a group of five tribal sheikhs from Hebron, apparently led by Sheikh Wadee al-Jaabari, seek to establish an emirate separate from the Palestinian Authority. 

Claiming to represent a majority of the 700,000 Palestinian residents of Hebron, these clan leaders sent a letter to Israeli Economy Minister Nir Barkat saying their emirate would recognize Israel as the Jewish state and join the Abraham Accords. 

It’s unclear whether the leaders can achieve these objectives, but their move brings home the unpopularity of the PA. 

The areas of the West Bank with a Palestinian majority do not constitute a contiguous landmass but exist as localized cantons. 

Such an environment works in favor of those seeking local rule, which necessarily undermines the PA’s writ.

Put differently, the Palestinian national landscape has devolved since the 1993 Oslo Accords. 

By the time the Palestine Liberation Organization made peace with Israel, Hamas was already challenging it as the sole representative of the Palestinians. 

When the PA was founded in 1994, the expectation was that it would be a sovereign state by the end of the decade. 

Negotiations toward that end failed, and the rise of Hamas contributed to the empowerment of the Israeli political right. 

It also led to a Palestinian civil war, pitting two ideological factions against each other in two separated territories. 

Since then, both regimes have been weakened – Hamas through several wars with Israel, and the PA through its inability to provide security and governance.

Now that both have lost ground, the Palestinian body politic, once binary, has become a fragmented landscape of various factions vying for control over locales in the West Bank and Gaza. 

This dynamic has serious implications for the Trump administration’s strategy for post-war security in Gaza, which involves Arab states taking the lead in stabilization efforts in the Gaza Strip. 

The unraveling of the PA in the West Bank represents a threat to Jordan and, by extension, the already fragile broader region.