Publication
Omar Shaban Ismail · Al-Shabaka · 2020
Omar Shaban's contribution to an Al-Shabaka roundtable on Trump's "Deal of the Century" (2020). He analyzes the plan through political economy and balance-of-power lenses, arguing that economic incentives cannot substitute for national rights, and that Gaza's provisions amounted to a conditional surrender offer rather than a serious peace proposal.
Omar Shaban's contribution to an Al-Shabaka roundtable on Trump's "Deal of the Century" (2020). He analyzes the plan through political economy and…
Many residents of the Gaza Strip have expressed their rejection of the Trump administration’s “deal” despite their belief that it would have a lesser impact on Gaza than the West Bank and Jerusalem. Indeed, Palestinians in the enclave have led popular mobilization efforts rejecting the deal, with numerous mass demonstrations that brought together protestors from all walks of life confirming their condemnation of the plan.
Palestinian political officials have also rejected the deal unequivocally, including President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas, and all political and armed groups in Gaza. Such rebuffs have remained limited to press statements and political speeches. The Palestinian Authority (PA) also addressed several international Arab and Islamic actors to affirm the Palestinian rejection of the deal.
Some actors, such as former chief of Hamas’s Political Bureau Khaled Meshaal, have called on the PA to take bolder steps, including withdrawal from the Oslo Accords, dissolution of the PA, and enforcement of the numerous decisions taken by the PLO’s Executive Committee and the National Council to sever ties with and end obligations toward Israel, especially in regard to security coordination. Even before the deal was unveiled, others denounced the positions of some Arab regimes and politicians who called on the Palestinians to wait and think the plan through before rejecting it.
On the other hand, some from Gaza have declared on social media that the deal could provide better solutions for the Gaza Strip in lieu of the now 14-year painful reality of blockade, poverty, unemployment, multiple wars, and hopelessness. The hardship brought by the siege and the ramifications of the division between the PA and Hamas have pushed people to consider such an unjust deal potentially less harsh than their bleak reality.
Further, despite a shared rejection of the plan, both PA and Hamas officials accused the other of being subtly complicit in “passing” the deal or failing to take serious steps to thwart it. These actions marred the chance for Palestinian consensus. The Palestinian public had previously been somewhat optimistic regarding the consensus of otherwise divided Palestinian parties when they all rejected the deal and boycotted the Bahrain economic conference in June 2019. Nevertheless, this rejection did not translate into practical steps for unification.
The Palestinian division emboldened the US, which assumed that the political regime’s fragmentation had weakened the support of Arab and Islamic actors. Despite recognizing the division’s catastrophic effects, the PA and Hamas have failed to take serious steps to resolve it. Although Abbas stated that he will send a PLO delegation to the Gaza Strip for unity talks, the statement was made in January and has yet to materialize.
The Trump deal necessitates the development of a Palestinian strategy that ensures an inclusive and effective unified national position and a plan of action that is neither weak nor extreme. In fact, the prejudiced deal could have been a blessing in disguise had the Palestinians treated it as motivation to achieve internal reconciliation. Instead, the drivers of the division are stronger than the drivers of the rejection. This is another chance that the entire Palestinian political regime is squandering.
Topic: Palestinian Politics — Deal of the Century · Regional & International Politics — Text © Al-Shabaka — archived here with attribution to the source. — Original source