Palestine Analysis: Why Palestinian Divisions Overshadow the Peace Process

Trapped between the proverbial rock and a hard place, the Palestinian negotiating team’s most viable strategy would be to avoid peace negotiations with Israel in the short-term and immediately begin negotiating the devastating divisions that dominate Palestinian society. In recent times, it has been foreign mediators, such as Turkey, Libya, Qatar, Yemen, Egypt, and several others, and not the PLO who have attempted to arbitrate the divisions within Palestinian society. In the current climate, in which a unified Palestinian polity appears as the most important condition for restarting effective peace negotiations, the PLO would be well advised to reverse this trend, to take a more pronounced and aggressive role in mediating these internal conflicts, and to focus its attention on achieving the difficult, yet auspicious goal of a unified Palestinian constituency.

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