The crisis of legitimacy of Palestinian power

Every two weeks, a current scientific topic is explored by a researcher from the Collège de France.

When it was created, the Palestine Liberation Organization was intended to bring together the various Palestinian political forces with the common goal of national liberation. In the end, how did this organization come to be the focus of confrontations between different political players in search of legitimacy, culminating in the unprecedented fragmentation of an institutional landscape considerably altered by the war?
Interview with François Ceccaldi^*, researcher in political science at the Collège de France.

From 1949 onwards, the entire territory of Mandatory Palestine was fragmented. Part of it came under the control of the fledgling State of Israel, Gaza came under Egyptian administration, while the West Bank became part of Jordan. Founded in 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was intended to unite under a single political banner the Palestinian factions engaged in the struggle to liberate the territory. "Nevertheless, the PLO quickly became a structure dominated by Fatah, a political movement led by Yasser Arafat, gradually marginalizing the other factions," analyzes François Ceccaldi. The PLO operates on a pluralist model in which the factions within it define common objectives while retaining freedom of action to achieve them. However, the researcher points out that this flexible structure has facilitated Fatah's hegemony. "Yasser Arafat consolidated his power as early as 1969, thus locking in the PLO's power structures," he explains, "which led to the rise of internal opposition, particularly from left-wing Palestinian political forces." After several decades of fighting, Yasser Arafat signed agreements with Israel, which were contested by his opponents.

The turning point of the Oslo Accords

The Oslo Accords, signed in 1993, were a major turning point in Palestinian political history. Nevertheless, their implementation was widely criticized, particularly by the left-wing opposition and Islamists. "Yasser Arafat negotiated the agreements almost single-handedly, without consulting the PLO bodies or the factions, which gave rise to a feeling of betrayal among certain political players", says François Ceccaldi. One of the key points of the Oslo Accords was the creation of the Palestinian Authority, which was to gradually manage the territories then under Israeli control. However, implementation was severely hampered by the development of Israeli settlements, which in fact never ceased, regardless of the government in power. "As early as 1994, Israel began building new settlements, which went against the spirit of the agreements and called into question their viability", notes the researcher. 
Another fundamental element of the agreements was their unfinished nature. "The Oslo Accords were never a definitive solution, but a transitional framework that was to lead to subsequent negotiations on central issues such as Jerusalem, refugees and borders", he stresses. However, these negotiations, "if they were ever conducted with a view to reaching a final agreement", never came to fruition, leaving a precarious political situation. These contradictions have fueled fierce opposition to the Palestinian leadership and its policies, particularly from Islamist movements, but also from left-wing Palestinian factions, who have tried to develop a third political path, notably by seeking to revitalize the PLO's democratic mechanisms, without any real success.

A crisis of representation

Since the 2000s, Palestinian political life has been marked by a growing crisis of representation. François Ceccaldi emphasizes the effects of "Israel's colonial policy, denounced by numerous UN resolutions, which has fractured the Palestinian political field and enabled Israel to implement a policy of systematically disqualifying Palestinian political players". In this context, the political elites are failing to meet the expectations of the people. "There have been no elections since 2005, and Mahmoud Abbas, Yasser Arafat's successor, remains at the head of the Palestinian Authority despite the expiry of his mandate. This contributes to the isolation of the Palestinian Authority, which is no longer perceived as legitimate by a large part of the population." At the same time, Hamas, an Islamist political movement created in the late 1980s and which established itself as a major player in 2006 by winning the legislative elections, is increasingly embodying the opposition to Fatah. Despite this, "polls show a general loss of confidence in all Palestinian political forces. The Palestinian Authority is perceived as corrupt and ineffective. Its authoritarian governance and diplomatic isolation limit its room for manoeuvre. As for Hamas, although it embodies the resistance in the eyes of some Palestinians, it fails to offer a credible alternative," continues the researcher. The question of the future of the Palestinian national project therefore remains unresolved. The deadlock in the negotiation process, continued colonization, Israel's policy of forced displacement of Palestinians and the division between Fatah and Hamas are all preventing the emergence of a lasting political solution. "The Israelis have never stopped expanding the settlements, which precludes any viability of an independent Palestinian state. The international community, meanwhile, which has supported Israel's military response in Gaza since October 7, 2023, seems incapable of imposing an effective negotiating framework," he concludes. This accentuates the current crisis of representation and the persistent political impasse. "After the complete destruction of Gaza and the extension of the war to the West Bank, the plans proposed in February 2025, whether Donald Trump's plan or that of the Arab states, without the Palestinians themselvesbeing consulted, so to speak, are part of a colonial pattern of political and territorial dispossession". All these developments make it unlikely that the overhaul of governance structures needed to achieve lasting peace will take place.

*François Ceccaldi is a researcher with Prof. Henry Laurens' Contemporary History of the Arab World Chair and winner of the 2024Hugot Foundation of Collège de France Award for his research into the Palestinian political system.