Palestinians still hopeful as 2020 looms

GAZA, Middle East－The Palestinians bid farewell to 2019, frustrated yet hopeful that the coming new year will witness a breakthrough ending the internal Palestinian division that would strengthen their position vis-a-vis Israel.

Palestinians were seeking in the last quarter of 2019 to hold their general elections, the first in 13 years. However, they are still waiting for Israel's permission to hold them in East Jerusalem.

As peace talks with Israel have been stalled, Palestinians received a push when the International Criminal Court, or ICC, announced plans to open an investigation into allegations of war crimes in the Palestinian territories after a preliminary investigation that lasted more than four years.

Internal split

During 2019, the two Palestinian parties, the Islamic Hamas movement and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement, failed to end their division which began when Hamas violently seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007.

A series of Arab and Egypt-brokered understandings reached between the two rivals failed amid growing feuds between Hamas leaders and Abbas.

Failure to end the internal division has increased frustration and despair among the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, where no official face-to-face meetings were held except a meeting in Moscow on Feb 11, which included not only the two rivals but leaders of all Palestinian factions.

The Moscow meeting led to no result, except a photo opportunity.

A unity government headed by the independent academic Rami Hamdallah, formed under the reconciliation agreements reached in April 2014, resigned on Jan 29, and was succeeded by a new one headed by Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Ishtaye.

But the formation of a new government sparked outrage among Palestinian factions who said that this would deepen the internal division.

On Sept 23, eight Palestinian factions presented an initiative to achieve unity and end division, but it did not gain the attention of the Palestinian officials.

Presidential poll

On Sept 26, Abbas announced in a speech before the United Nations General Assembly in New York that he would call for legislative elections to be followed by presidential elections in the Palestinian territories.

He designated Hana Nasser, president of the Palestinian Central Elections Commission, to start contacts and dialogue with Hamas and other political powers in the Palestinian territories. On Nov 27, Hamas officially announced that it accepted holding the elections.

However, issuing a presidential decree that sets a date for holding the elections was stuck due to Israel's refusal to hold the elections in East Jerusalem.

Abbas' insistence on holding the Palestinian elections in East Jerusalem aimed to challenge US President Donald Trump, who announced in late 2017 that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.

No breakthrough

Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have remained stalled since 2014 following a nine-month US sponsorship that ended without any breakthrough due to deep differences on the settlements, Jerusalem and the borders of the Palestinian state.

On July 25, Abbas told a Palestinian leadership meeting held in Ramallah that he decided to stop sticking with the agreements signed with Israel in response to the mass destruction of Palestinian homes in southwest of Jerusalem.

During 2019, Palestinians complained about the increase in Israeli settlement activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. At the same time, 252 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during violent clashes with Israeli security forces.

Severed US ties

Political ties between Palestine and the United States remained severed since the latter declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel at the end of 2017 and moved the US embassy to the city in May 2018.

Palestinians also insisted on rejecting the US Middle East plan, better known as "Deal of the Century", and boycotted the forum hosted by the US in Bahrain in June to roll out the economic part of the deal.

Palestinian ties with the US further worsened after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced in November that Israeli settlements, built on the Palestinian lands, didn't violate international laws.

Xinhua