The decentralization of Palestinian national discourse

Palestinian protesters take part in a protest to mark the Land Day in the West Bank town of Beit Jala near Bethlehem, March 30, 2017. Picture by Xinhua/SIPA USA/PA Images. All rights reserved.The past few years have proved vital to the Palestinian national
discourse. Beyond rigid theoretical themes and historical-ideological
frameworks, a mixture of contemporary political and economic
developments are aggressively shaping a more pragmatic bottom-up
national identity. These factors are giving rise to a narrative based
on decentralized identity preservation and localized nonviolent
resistance.

The 1993 Oslo Accords established the Palestinian Authority (PA)
which has dominated the national Palestinian discourse since. The
PA’s state building project promised Palestinians a national
statehood on the 1967  borders of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip,
and East Jerusalem. The PA has established government-like
institutions operating under the tight control of the Israeli
military in all major city centers in the West Bank and Gaza.
Furthermore, the World Bank and various other international
organizations declared the PA institutions ready for statehood by
2011. However, a dichotomy between the PA and the political and
economic realities on the ground has eclipsed its achievements. This
dichotomy is best characterised by institutionalized fragmentation
and Israel’s accelerating colonisation.

The Oslo Accords divided the West Bank into three administrative
divisions; Area A, B, and C. Areas A and B, which represent 39
percent of the West Bank, were to fall under the responsibility of
the PA at various levels of civil administration and internal
security. Area C, however, which represents 61 percent of the West
Bank, was to remain under full Israeli control until a final
settlement is reached. This area consists of more than 250 Israeli
settlements and outposts, most agricultural lands, all major roads in
the West Bank, and all Israeli Army declared strategic areas. For
ordinary Palestinians, the Oslo accords demarcated their lands and
institutionally confined their economic and social activities to a
portion of the West Bank for the first time since 1967.

Area C represents the cornerstone on which any viable Palestinian
state could operate. It contains the majority of agricultural lands
in the West Bank, natural resources, water, and borders to the
outside world. The World Bank and other international institutions
repeatedly reaffirmed that without the Palestinians’ ability to
develop and access Area C, the foundational economic resources for a
functioning Palestinian state simply do not exist. While the issue of
Area C may seem superficial, it dictates the everyday lives of
Palestinians. A few hundred meters away from the PA’s presidential
compound in Ramallah lies the Israeli unit for the coordination of
activities in the occupied territories (COGAT) in Beit El Settlement.
The COGAT is the de facto supreme authority in the West Bank. Since
all major roads and border crossing are in Area C, the Israeli
government controls most intercity economic activity and travel. The
PA is also contingent to this regime, all PA officials have to obtain
permits for intercity and international travel and operations from
the COGAT.

Theorising about realities on the ground in the West Bank often
leads to academic and policy works focused on the quasi-sovereign
nature of the PA. However, the effect of these practices is reflected
on the collective consciousness of Palestinians. Israeli settlement
activity is no longer a headline in newspapers, it is quantifiable
and protrudes on most of the hilltops across the West Bank. In 1990,
there were around 200,000 Israeli settlers living in the West Bank
and East Jerusalem, by 2015 this number has exceeded 650,000 living
in more than 250 settlements and outposts. Israel’s colonization of
the West Bank extends to economic and natural resources, too. For
example, an Israeli settler’s household in the West Bank consumes
on average 4.5 times more water than a Palestinian household.
Moreover, Israeli businesses have licenses to quarry stones from the
West Bank hills, and extract minerals from the Dead Sea area further
depleting Palestinian natural resources.

On the other side of the Palestinian equation lies the Gaza Strip
where decades of Israeli occupation, colonization, and blockade have
rendered it nearly unlivable. Gaza has faced a systematic
de-development campaign stripping it from its human, financial, and
physical capacity and capital. The costs associated with Gaza’s
blockade further compound the ‘fragmentation’ narrative in
contemporary discourse. The PA, Hamas, Egyptian, and Israeli
behaviors have incentivized the creation of an isolated reality in
Gaza. One that is economically inferior, socially embittered, and
institutionally distinct to what exists elsewhere in Palestine. 

In light of these policies of fragmentation and colonization, the
PA stands helpless. This has motivated the decentralization of the
national discourse from the PA (or other centralized political
factions) into localized acts of identity preservation. For instance,
recent events in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound reflect the rise of a
localized narrative that is not affiliated to institutionalised
political movements among Jerusalemites. Another example is the
evolution of a localized culture of nonviolent resistance across
several communities in the West Bank in face of land confiscation and
settler violence. Most notable are the communities of Kafr Qaddum,
Nabi Salih, Bil’in, and Susya; where their struggle for identity
preservation has been shaped by weekly nonviolent protests,
international solidarity campaigns, and a distinctive locally
evolving culture exemplified by art and poetry.

Recent developments on the ground in Palestine are creating a
localized Palestinian national discourse intrinsically constitutive
of the larger Palestinian national identity, but unique in its
political, social, and economic contexts. A national identity that is
based on preservation by addressing immediate threats in a
decentralized and locally customized narrative distinct from that of
the central political factions who traditionally dominate the
national discourse.