Founding the United National Front: A Palestinian Imperative in This Critical Moment
By Jehan Helou
We must develop new tools and forms of struggle, and the first step is to unify the national rank within a unified national front.
This short article may seem like a kind of sophistry, or a speech out of step with the political moment, but it is, in reality, a call to all the constituents of the Palestinian people for discussion—or more precisely, a call for initiative and action. And I hope it is not too late.
In the history of mankind, there are wise sayings that have proven true across generations. One of them is the necessity of unity, or the unity among different factions that share a common goal in the face of a shared enemy. For the past thirty years, the Palestinian people have lacked a unified front, which the PLO once represented for many years—until the signing of the Oslo Accords, which were rejected by the vast majority of the Palestinian people.
Despite the fact that the PLO, in its current form, lacks both representational and popular legitimacy, the organizations and national forces continue to emphasize that it remains the legitimate and sole representative of the Palestinian people, and they still demand its reform. Yet, even as the genocidal war escalates, calls for unity and reform are still met by the influential leadership of the PLO with condescension, stubbornness, and outright rejection.
The important question we pose to those who advocate for reforming the PLO is: How can we unite those who seek to rebuild the PLO based on the founding convention and national principles, with those who view compromise and negotiations as the only path to unity—despite ongoing defeats?
There is no doubt that the effort to reform the PLO is necessary and must continue. But the main question is: Why isn’t this effort accompanied by a national initiative to establish a unified national front that supports our people’s perseverance and confronts the Oslo Accords, with all their consequences and the plans to liquidate the cause—which have been laid bare during the genocidal war the Zionist entity is waging against our people today?
We stress here that the unified national front was—and remains—an urgent national necessity. It is not necessarily an alternative to the PLO in representing the Palestinian people, but rather a unified struggle arm of it, just as the experience of a national front in Palestine proved in the mid-1970s.
This brings us to another important question: Where is the Palestinian national movement today? What is its current reality? We can say that the inclusive national movement, once represented by the PLO during its ascendancy, has failed as an effective framework. Since leaving Beirut in 1982, we have seen no self-criticism, no accountability, no evaluation, and no renewal.
Take, for example, the question: Why did the top military leadership not stand up to the Zionist invasion of Lebanon in 1982? They withdrew from the south in the early days of the invasion, facilitating the enemy’s arrival in Beirut.
We must acknowledge that the Lebanese and Palestinian fighters confronted the invasion with heroism and perseverance, supported admirably by the Lebanese and Palestinian people. But it was disheartening that the siege of Beirut ended in an agreement that forced the resistance to leave Lebanon, thus closing the door on a promising phase of struggle—despite its flaws and challenges.
The existence of a national front as a unifying framework strengthens perseverance, mobilizes national energies, coordinates protest and solidarity movements, and communicates our national reality to the world.
There is no room here to revisit all historical phases—despite their importance—but we must stop at the disastrous phase ushered in by the Oslo Accords, signed by the PLO despite their failure to recognize the basic rights of the Palestinian people, most notably the right of return and the right to self-determination.
These accords stripped the PLO of its national legitimacy, in addition to its representational legitimacy, due to broad popular opposition—not to mention the opposition of key organizations within the PLO itself.
Oslo is an ongoing tragedy: it facilitated the settlement of nearly a million colonists and the partitioning of the homeland, accompanied by all forms of oppression and human rights violations, and culminating in the current genocidal war in Gaza and the West Bank. Oslo granted Israel recognition without securing even minimal recognition of Palestinian national rights.
It allowed Israel to disregard its obligations as an occupying power under international law—including providing medical and educational services, protecting civilians, adhering to the Geneva Conventions, and avoiding demographic and geographic changes in the occupied territories.
A dramatic collapse came in 1998, when key articles of the Palestinian National Charter—those affirming our right to all of Palestine and to armed struggle—were removed in a farcical and illegitimate spectacle. This change deepened division and weakened the representational framework of the PLO, which once reflected the national aspirations of Palestinians worldwide.
Among the contradictions and chaos within the PLO leadership is that, to this day, there has been no official adoption of the changes made to the charter—changes rejected by the Palestinian people as illegitimate, serving only the enemy and its occupation program, strengthening its economy, and expanding Arab and international recognition of the Zionist entity.
The PLO leadership has continued to distance itself entirely from democratic principles and from the foundational articles of its own charter. It has suspended the role of the PLO’s representative institutions and canceled elections. It is no surprise, then, that the PLO’s organizational and institutional structure reflects these failures. It has become an empty shell—hollowed out for over thirty years—and no longer represents the Palestinian people in all their diversity and active forces.
The same can be said for the Palestinian Authority, which is far removed from the ideals of legitimate revolution or democracy. It has lost what little popular legitimacy it once held due to the failure of its declared program, its glaring ineffectiveness, and its complicity in the security coordination agenda.
Due to the entanglement of the PLO and the Authority, the Palestinian Authority—backed by the PLO—now behaves like an absolute dictatorship. It has dissolved the legislative and judicial councils and unilaterally makes laws and decisions.
What is strange is that this leadership cannot point to any national achievement that justifies its surrenderist stance, its continued security coordination, or its invention of internal enemies at a time of escalating genocide in Gaza and the West Bank.
It also stubbornly blocks any serious attempt at national unity, knowing full well that any such effort must begin with dismantling the Oslo framework—something Israel itself has never upheld.
The Reasons Hindering the Birth of a Unified National Front
We must face a bitter truth: over the years, the Authority has drawn its strength from Palestinian organizations and from economic and cultural elites. These organizations reinforced the Authority’s legitimacy through their ambiguous position on Oslo. They did not treat Oslo as a red line; instead, they participated in its institutions and accepted its reality.
Let us suppose that in the early phase, participation in the Authority and elections was a tactical choice, made in the hope of change. It is still strange that the Hamas movement participated in elections despite its declared opposition to the Oslo Accords.
The question remains: why did the call for national unity continue—despite intensifying settlement activity, increasing concessions by the Authority to the occupier, and growing distance from the people—without demanding a full withdrawal from Oslo and without clearly defining a shared political program for national unity, especially in recent years?
In contrast, the president of the Authority has clung to the Oslo Accords and to security coordination. More than that, he arrogantly calls on opposition groups to join the Authority’s program and to recognize Israel. The failure to uphold promises and to engage in serious negotiations to form a strategic program based on national principles—and to unify the forces as part of a liberation strategy—has rendered calls for unity and PLO reform little more than empty repetition.
The clear truth remains: the leadership of the Authority/PLO is the primary obstacle to collective national struggle.
The persistent question is this: despite all the conferences and meetings, why haven’t we been able to form a unified national front to lead the national struggle—one that truly speaks for the Palestinian people? A broad front that reinforces resilience, upholds the values of resistance, and stands against efforts to liquidate the Palestinian cause.
Such a front would not be based on one ideology or faction, but on the minimum common program shared by all forces, institutions, and segments of society. Crucial and decisive positions should be declared through a collective Palestinian voice—not from Hamas alone, or the Authority alone, or the Popular Front alone.
The Authority exists and cannot be abolished—not yet—but the people have the right to oppose programs and actions that harm the national interest. Opposition has existed since the Oslo declaration, but it has not been unified, and its voice has not been effectively heard.
The unified national front is not organizationally contradictory to the PLO—only politically. In the 1970s, there was an active national front in the West Bank and Gaza, including during the First Intifada. It issued statements that the people anticipated—declaring positions, actions, and strikes. The front must always exist alongside the PLO, even if the PLO is functioning effectively.
The absence of such a front today negatively impacts the national situation, leads to factional polarization, and encourages tribalism over values of struggle and national interest. A collective national front strengthens perseverance, mobilizes capabilities, coordinates action, and speaks to the world based on our actual reality.
The Representation Dilemma
The other dilemma is international representation. For this reason, some treat the PLO as a sacred institution untouchable in this phase of weak power dynamics. In the past, the PLO leadership lost historic opportunities to hold Israel accountable—such as with the Goldstone Report, or the ICJ ruling against the apartheid wall.
But today, the situation is shifting. With the genocide in Gaza, the erosion of illusions around a two-state solution, and the mounting aggressions, the PLO is regaining some role in international forums. It accepted calls to bring cases before the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. Yet, its monopolization of representation—backed by official Arab regimes—remains a dilemma. This will not last forever.
We will not lose faith in our people. The enemy and its allies cannot impose surrender. This is why founding a unified national front has become a pressing demand. We can start from the ground up—where initiatives already exist to build popular committees.
The Israeli genocide is escalating, reaching the refugee camps in the northern West Bank in monstrous ways, amid global silence. Meanwhile, Arab and even Palestinian responses are far below the level of the catastrophe.
We face a fascist, criminal, uncontrollable enemy bent on escalating genocide and pursuing its monstrous vision of a Greater Israel and total control over the Middle East.
The Palestinian people are facing genocide in all its forms, including ethnic cleansing. The most dangerous threat now is the imposition of false solutions—marketed as “national victories” that amount to surrender. A deformed Palestinian state is not victory. Will we resist this moment as we resisted the village leagues and all earlier schemes of ethnic cleansing and extermination?
Yes, we must develop new tools and forms of struggle—and the first step is to unify the national rank within a unified national front.
(This article was originally published in Al-Quds Al-Arabi on June 6)
– Jehan Helou was an activist in the Palestinian national struggle and women’s liberation movement. She was a member of the leadership of the General Union of Palestinian Women as well as the Palestinian National Council. Currently, she is president of the Palestinian section of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY). She contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
The views expressed in the article do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of The Palestine Chronicle.