The next day's question and the missing Palestinian answer

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Al Jazeera)

Everyone talks about the next day, and regional and international meetings are held to discuss options for this dilemma. While the question seems to be posed to everyone, attempts to answer it also seem serious at all levels, despite the difficulty of coming up with them in light of the complexity of the scene.

Bilateral American meetings took place with all regional actors regarding the Palestinian file. To study post-war options, all of which are discussions that assume a settled outcome of the war, which is a Gaza without Hamas. Although it is an assumption that is not based on the current situation and its predicament, it is illogical. Given Hamas's roots in the Palestinian public scene and popular consciousness, especially after October 7th.

However, ignoring the insistence on another day without enthusiasm also seems like a kind of disconnection from reality. Gaza is heading towards an unlivable place, open to everything except the natural continuation of life as it was before the “Al-Aqsa Flood” and the current terrible war.

As delusional as the goals of eliminating Hamas are as an idea, the issue of eliminating its capabilities and its organizational, military and even civilian structures, is not an unrealistic idea.

Unexposed perceptions

In light of this complexity, the Palestinian scene seems based on two wishes: The first, derives its dream from the legendary steadfastness of the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian resistance factions there, and that the next day will bring with it a complete victory over the occupation army.

The other seems to be based on opposite hopes, that it is possible to end the previous reality in Gaza, and return things to before 2007. What is striking between the two wishes is the loss of the national answer to the issue of the day after Gaza, which will call everyone to stand up to its responsibilities, and perhaps will redefine the national position of each party.

Palestinians, no serious national thinking has been put forward until this moment that goes beyond hopes and imaginations, and is more closely linked to developments that create a reality that accumulates before us every day as a huge mountain of burdens, responsibilities and problems whose solution conditions will not be met, even with the end of the war according to the best military scenarios for the resistance factions.

We are talking about destroyed infrastructure, entire neighborhoods that have been wiped out, and tens of thousands of homes that are nothing but hills of rubble. We are talking about a reconstruction project whose features we will not see without the formation of international and regional wills for it, and this is in comparison with the devastation that has continued to exist in more than one neighboring country for years, awaiting political breakthroughs.

The issues of the next day do not concern the future of Hamas alone, but rather the future of all of Gaza, the future of its people, and thus the future of the entire issue. Perceptions of the Palestinians of the next day seem off the table. The official Palestinian actor only appears in the seats of spectators and those waiting for a settlement, and is asked from time to time about his expected role.

Impotent diplomacy

Just a few days ago, the Palestinian Foreign Minister stated the need to provide safe humanitarian corridors for civilians in Rafah. A statement that seemed to come from a Scandinavian non-governmental organization, and not from the head of Palestinian diplomacy, which was absent while the whole world was preoccupied with what was happening in Gaza. Then a statement by President Abu Mazen about holding Hamas responsible for completing a deal to spare Rafah from an upcoming tragedy.

On the other hand, Hamas does not seem interested in meeting with Abu Mazen, who is bypassed by everyone, including his allies, and the United States, which spoke of a “renewed Palestinian authority,” and no renewal of the authority of which Abu Mazen remains its head.

Although transgression is the least that the performance of the authority and its institutions deserves over the past decade and a half of the siege of Gaza, the alternatives to this transgression are absent, and even if they are present, they push towards a deeper nihilism, from which everyone is trying to escape.

The Palestinian internal isolation seems immeasurable, and the least evidence of this is that the current war, with all its existential threats, has not yet provided a basis for détente.

Under these shadows, the displacement project is moving into more dangerous stages. The occupation threatens Rafah, where more than half of Gaza's population gathers, and the Palestinian Authority is demanding humanitarian corridors through it, while Egypt is preparing an area for the expected new camps, after it was hoped that the Arab neighbors would be prepared to defend their national borders without tents and concrete walls in the face of refugees.

Everyone is treating the Rafah operation as if it were an upcoming fait accompli, without making any significant effort to confront it, despite the changes in the international position regarding the continuation of the war of extermination against the Palestinians in Gaza. South Africa did it alone, as it did it alone before.

Palestinian diplomacy is powerless at the external level, but at least there must be some internal diplomacy that works for a Palestinian meeting that discusses the question of the next day in a responsible manner. Everyone's neck is on the occupation's knife, not just Hamas.

Netanyahu and his extreme right declared it explicitly against the existence of the Palestinian Authority, despite all the legacy of good intentions and free services in the West Bank.

Reform project

Israeli brutality leads its war against the existence of the Palestinians as a national group, and it does not matter who is at its head, whether they are collaborators or resisters. At a fateful moment such as the current war of extermination, we find a Palestinian rift that only indicates the depth of the national crisis for the Palestinians.

There is nothing on this land that deserves an agreement, and without it, it will not be possible to carry out the sacrifices and heroism undertaken in Gaza. The recent historical experience of the Palestinians indicates an inability to capitalize on the resistance momentum in the face of the occupation.

The reasons for this appear to be many, the most important and obvious of which is the divergence of internal paths in the Palestinian decision-making process. This in itself is an issue that deserves attention, as continuing to make sacrifices without comprehensive political paths to transform them into achievements at the national level is perpetuating the frustration that is always based on the question of feasibility.

There will be no need to remind of the misdeeds of a particular party, its history and its present. The agreement is not a gift given to one party over another. The agreement is a popular, political and national need. The internal agreement is perhaps the only political approach to mitigate the blow of the next day, regardless of the final results of the war.

The agreement is the only Palestinian answer to the next day's question. But agreement on what? This is just as essential as the agreement itself. An agreement to unify the national decision, or approach it from angles that make it national.

The entry of Hamas and Islamic Jihad into the PLO is a reasonable answer at this stage. It is an essential step in restoring this framework to its national role after forced absence and unfair and irresponsible monopoly.

This, of course, will not mean that the entry of Hamas and Islamic Jihad into the PLO will reform the organization, but it is necessary for the practical start of the reform project. What is most important at this stage is that the organization be restored to its people by including all its national and representative forces, and that the Palestinians go to the next day with a national framework to confront the post-war challenges, and invest in the sacrifices and global momentum for it.

Until now, despite Israeli brutality, there is an inability to say that the day after the war is a Palestinian day, unless the Palestinians refuse to do so.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.