A Call to Unify the Palestinian Leadership

Never has a unified Palestinian leadership been so critical. The ongoing genocide committed against the Palestinian people for their successful resistance of the occupation and onslaught and dispossession of Palestinians by settlers and Israeli soldiers in cities, villages and refugee camps in the occupied West Bank calls for immediate action. It is no longer possible to move forward without a unified leadership, both in this perilous phase and in the aftermath of the current onslaught. 

We are calling for the Palestine Liberation Organization to be rebuilt on a basis of unity that includes all political forces and civil, national, and economic organizations and institutions.

This task cannot be postponed. Israel and its allies are preparing to implement mass forced displacement and the establishment of security and administrative arrangements that guarantee Israeli security control of a Gaza Strip separated from the West Bank. Crucially, they are counting on Palestinian and Arab collaboration to achieve this goal. The absence of a unified Palestinian leadership results in contradictory strategies that cannot prevent the forced displacement of Palestinians, stands in the way of meeting reconstruction demands and delays providing relief for our suffering people.

The resurgence of the Palestine question as a central issue on the global and regional agenda has unlocked new horizons for realizing justice in Palestine, despite the heavy price that the barbaric occupation continues to extract from our people in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. These sacrifices cannot be squandered by the absence of a unified representation.

Extending the control of a single authority over the 1967-occupied territories requires a consensus government. Opposing Israel’s plans for the “day-after” requires the existence of a political reference for such a government. This means the urgent formation of a unified political reference within the framework of the PLO, envisioning how it can be rebuilt on democratic foundations, to include the Palestinian people in their entirety.

We call for the organization of a Palestinian national conference to bring together personalities and activists representing all segments of the Palestinian people to advance this demand.