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The cancellation of municipal elections in the West Bank marks another setback for democratic institutions. That's bad for Palestinians, and it's bad for peace.
Palestinian municipal elections were supposed to be held last week. Instead, they were canceled. A statement released by the Palestinian Authority claimed the cancellation was “in order to pave the way for a successful end to the siege on Gaza and for continued efforts at unity” between Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, and the government in the West Bank.
The cancellation of this election was an unjustified, unlawful, and unacceptable act. It damages democratic rights and makes a mockery of the interests of the Palestinian people.
But this is far more than an internal Palestinian issue. The only lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians will be based on a settlement negotiated between two democracies — this was the case in Europe, and it will be the case in the Middle East.
The Palestinian struggle for democracy has been long and painstaking. Against long odds, we succeeded in constructing a remarkable civil society in order to survive the oppression of the Israeli occupation and to fill the void left by the lack of a central government. We developed parallel nongovernmental health and educational systems, built 17 universities, and established thousands of local community organizations. We even developed grassroots, community-based rehabilitation programs for disabled citizens, which received worldwide recognition.
The Israeli government has long paid lip service to Palestinian democracy while simultaneously crushing initiatives that produced results it didn't like. In 1976, then Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres offered the illusion of local leadership by launching municipal elections, which were meant to dilute the authority of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
To Peres's great surprise, 90 percent of Palestinians voted for pro-PLO, pro-independence electoral lists. Within two years, the Israeli government — that self-proclaimed paragon of democracy — deported the election's victors and dismissed the councils.
With the creation of the Palestinian Authority in the 1990s, we hoped to have a true democracy. However, we were forced to endure wild swings between successful popular elections and efforts — both self-inflicted and foreign — to crush our fragile democratic institutions. Palestinians waited until 1996 to cast their votes in Palestine's first-ever parliamentary election for seats in the newly created Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). I still remember the smile of one woman, a septuagenarian named Fatema, when she told me, “This is the first time in my life I can vote.”
But that joy did not last. We had to wait 10 years, until 2006, to hold parliamentary elections again. Although these elections were praised by the world — former U.S. President Jimmy Carter termed them “honest, fair, and safe” — the results were never accepted by Israel or most Western governments because they did not like the outcome: Hamas emerged with a plurality of the seats.
Even when Palestinians managed to create a national unity government, which represented 96 percent of the Palestinian electorate, we were kept under siege and embargo. This fact contributed to the protracted conflict between Fatah and Hamas, which led to the internal division between the West Bank and Gaza in 2007. It also resulted in the cancellation of the PLC elections that were supposed to take place in January.
This is the context in which one must consider the Palestinian Authority's decision to cancel the West Bank municipal elections that were scheduled for July 17 — and the willing participation of the United States and European governments in the abrogation of the democratic process.
Most Palestinians accept the impossibility of holding presidential and parliamentary elections without first healing the division between the West Bank and Gaza. It is precisely because of this fact that all Palestinian political parties and civil society organizations, excluding Hamas, agreed on the vital importance of holding municipal elections on time. The only alternative would have been the appointment of new local councils by an executive authority, which itself is not approved by the PLC, thereby further depriving the people of the right to choose their representatives.
We saw local elections as a way of keeping the seeds of democratic principles and systems alive despite vicious internal disputes. Properly contested municipal elections would have been a means to remind each and every authority that they are accountable to the people. It was also intended to promote nonviolent means for resolving internal differences, by giving Palestinians an opportunity to express their interests through democratic means rather than the use of force.
Tags: Democracy, Gaza Conflict , Global Radical Islam , Human Rights , Israeli Politics , Palestinian Terror State , Settlements, Shariah Law , Terrorist Activities , UNRWA , US Politics