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Palestinian National Council

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Not to be confused with the Palestinian Legislative Council, the legislative body of the Palestinian National Authority until 2006.
Palestinian National Council
المجلس الوطني الفلسطيني
Type
Type
Legislative body of the Palestine Liberation Organization
History
Founded1964; 60 years ago (1964)
Leadership
Chairman
Vice Chairpersons
Ali Faisal
Mousa Hadid
Secretary-General
Fahmi al-Za’arir
Structure
Seats
747
Meeting place
Ramallah
Website
www.palestinepnc.org Edit this at Wikidata

The Palestinian National Council (PNC; Arabic: المجلس الوطني الفلسطيني, romanized: Al-majlis Al-wataniu Al-filastiniu) is the legislative body - in Arabic, the Majlis - of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The PNC is intended to serve as the parliament that represents all Palestinians inside and outside the Palestinian territories, and all sectors of the worldwide Palestinian community, including political parties, popular organizations, resistance movements, and independent figures from all sectors of life.[1]

The Council met formally 20 times in the 27 years between 1964 and 1991. Since the Oslo Accords, the council met formally only twice: in 1996 and 2018.

The PNC is intended to be responsible for formulating the policies and programs for the PLO, and elects the PLO Executive Committee, which assumes leadership of the organization between its sessions. Resolutions are passed by a simple majority with a quorum of two-thirds. The PNC elects its own Chairman.[2]

Representation

Although Article 5 of the PLO Basic Law, adopted at the first PNC meeting in 1964, states that members should be chosen by "direct election... by the Palestinian people", such elections have never happened.[3] Since the PNC and PLO were created originally by the Arab League, the initial membership of the PNC was chosen by the Arab states, particularly Jordan and Egypt.[4] Even Palestinian factions were wary of direct elections, worrying about the ability for outside actors to influence such elections and thus undermine the emerging Palestinian resistance. On the other hand, the Palestinian factions were conscious of the value of having a Palestinian institution recognized by the Arab world.[5]

After the Six Day War in 1967, the PNC was reconstituted. From 1968 onwards, PNC membership was reallocated based on a quota system, allocating seats to Palestinian political parties and resistance groups based on the claimed size of their membership. This mechanism was used, and continues to be used, by Fatah to ensure its monopoly over the Executive Committee, the decision-making body of the PLO.[6]

Structure

The PNC serves as the legislative body of the PLO. While the PNC has a number of PLC members, it is not an organ of the Palestinian National Authority. Rather it is the equivalent of PA's PLC. According to its charter, the PNC must meet annually, and can hold special meetings if necessary. The PNC is responsible for formulating PLO's policies, and elects the PLO Executive Committee.[7]

Candidates for the PNC are nominated by a committee consisting of the PLO Executive Committee, the PNC chairman, and the commander in chief of the Palestine Liberation Army.[2] After nomination, PNC candidates are elected by a majority of the entire PNC membership.[2] However, due to the impossibility of holding elections, PNC elections have never been held and most members are appointed by the executive committee.[1]

The Palestinian Central Council (PCC) serves as the intermediary body between the PNC and the EC. The PCC is chaired by the PNC chairman, and has increasingly eclipsed the PNC as the main decision-making body of the PLO. In 2018, the PNC transferred its legislative powers to the PCC, including powers to elect the EC.[8]

Though not members of PLO, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad members were invited to the PNC as observers in 2018, although they refused.[7]

As of 2012 the main office of the PNC is in Amman and a branch office is located in Ramallah.[9]

Meetings

The first PNC, composed of 422 representatives, met in Jerusalem in May 1964 and adopted the Palestinian National Covenant (also called Palestinian National Charter). It also established the PLO as the political expression of the Palestinian people and elected Ahmad Al-Shuqeiry as the first chairman of the PLO Executive Committee. At the conference were representatives from Palestinian communities in Jordan, West Bank, the Gaza strip, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Iraq, Egypt, Qatar, Libya, and Algeria.

Subsequent sessions were held in Cairo (1965), Gaza (1966), Cairo (1968–1977), Damascus (1979–1981), Algiers (1983), Amman (1984), Algiers (1988), Gaza (1996 and 1998), Ramallah (2009).[10][11]

At the February 1969 meeting in Cairo, Yasser Arafat was appointed leader of the PLO. He continued to be PLO leader (sometimes called Chairman, sometimes President) until his death in 2004.

In a November 1988 meeting in Algiers, the PNC approved the Palestinian Declaration of Independence[12] by a vote of 253 in favour 46 against and 10 abstentions.

After the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, the PNC met in Gaza in April 1996 and voted 504 to 54 to void those parts of the Palestinian National Covenant that denied Israel's right to exist, but the charter itself has not been formally changed or re-drafted. One of its most prominent members, the Palestinian-American scholar and activist Edward Said, left the PNC because he believed that the Oslo Accords sold short the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in pre-1967 Israel and would not lead to a lasting peace.

In December 1998, the PNC met in Gaza at the insistence of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who called it a condition of the continuation of the peace process. In the presence of the US President Clinton, it reaffirmed again the annulling of the parts of the Covenant which denied Israel's right to exist, but it still did not formally change or re-draft the Covenant. Clinton gave a speech to the event appealing to the PNC not to allow their grievances against Israel to stifle Palestinian progress.[13]

In 1996, when the Council had to vote on the revision of the Palestinian National Charter, the total number of PNC members was increased from 400 to about 800. By 2009, some 700 from them had remained.[14] As of 2003, the PNC chairman was Salim Zanoun and the PNC had 669 members; 88 are from the first Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), 98 represent the Palestinian population living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and 483 represent the Palestinian diaspora.[2]

For the first time in 22 years, since its last full meeting in 1996, the 700 member PNC met on 30 April 2018 in Ramallah to discuss recent developments, but many groups did not attend, including Hamas (the leading Palestinian political party), Islamic Jihad and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The PNC also filled vacancies in the PLO Executive Committee with loyalists to Palestinian president Mahmood Abbas.[15][16]

The PNC have met formally 23 times since inception, in addition to three extraordinary meetings. The table below summarizes the meetings:[17]

Number Year Dates Outcome Place Chairman of the EC Chairman of the PNC
1 1964 28 May - 2 June Creation of the PNC, PLO and adoption of the Palestinian National Covenant Jerusalem Ahmad Shukeiri Ahmad Shukeiri
2 1965 31 May - 4 June Cairo
3 1966 20-24 May Gaza
Following the Six-Day War:
Transitional period 1967 From 25 December Yahya Hammuda Yahya Hammuda
4 1968 10-17 July Cairo Abdel Mohsin Al-Qattan
5 1969 1-4 February Election of Yasser Arafat Yasser Arafat Yahya Hammuda
6 1-6 September
7 1970 30 May - 4 June
Extraordinary 27-28 August Amman
8 1971 28 February - 5 March Cairo
9 7-13 July Khaled al-Fahoum
10 1972 6-12 April
11 1973 6-12 January
12 1974 1-9 June PLO's Ten Point Program
13 1977 12-22 March
14 1979 15-22 January Damascus
15 1981 11-19 April
16 1983 14-22 February Algiers
17 1984 22-29 November Amman Abd al-Hamid al-Sayih
18 1987 20-25 April Algiers
19 (extraordinary) 1988 12-15 November Palestinian Declaration of Independence
20 1991 23-28 September
Following the Oslo Accords:
21 1996 22-25 April Gaza Yasser Arafat Salim al-Za'nun
Election of Chairman 2004 11 November Election of Mahmoud Abbas Ramallah Mahmoud Abbas
22 (private meeting) 2009 26-27 August
23 2018 30 April - 4 May Transfer of powers to the PCC

See also

Bibliography

  • Becker, Jillian (1984). The PLO: The Rise and Fall of the Palestine Liberation Organization. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-59380-3. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
  • Sayigh, Yezid (1997). Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949-1993. Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0-19-829265-4. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
  • Badarin, Emile (2016). Palestinian Political Discourse: Between Exile and Occupation. Routledge Studies on the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-317-32600-7. Retrieved 2024-05-05.

References

  1. ^ a b PLO vs. PA Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine. Passia, September 2014
  2. ^ a b c d Palestine National Council. Gale Encyclopedia of the Mideast & N. Africa, 2004. Archived 28-06-2011
  3. ^ Badarin 2016, p. 45: "In addition to the quota system, the roots of power distribution go back to the initial formation of the PLO. The PLO Basic Law demands “direct election of the PNC by the Palestinian people” (Article 5), which has never been fulfilled, and at the same time it concentrates power inside the Executive Committee. The gist of the Basic Law gives prominence to the Executive Committee and diminishes other institutions."
  4. ^ Badarin 2016, p. 24: "Retrospectively, the details of the Palestinian representation (i.e., effective political institutions) were tailored to the size of the Arab regimes’ political reckonings at that time. Thus representatives were appointed based on their loyalty to the regimes in Jordan and Egypt in particular. Members of the PNC were chosen using an appointment mechanism at odds with the PLO Basic Law, which endorsed the principle of “direct election of the PNC members” (article 5). Although the PLO is meant to answer the question of representation, neither its initial Charter nor Basic Law (of 1964) gave it the right to represent the Palestinians. Instead, representative capacity and highest power were consigned to the Executive Committee (see articles 15 and 16/a of the Basic Law). Furthermore, the Executive Committee was molded according to the political divisions of Arab politics (mainly with respect to Jordan, Egypt, and Syria). The Arab League appointed Al-Shuqayri, and he appointed himself the chairman of the Executive Committee; he also appointed the other members."
  5. ^ Sayigh 1997, p. 101: "Fateh's immediate concerns in mid-1964 were political in any case. One was that general elections, if held, could grant 'legitimacy to representatives who might emerge on the political stage and implement decisions that are categorically rejected by the Palestinian people, [by] taking cover in [that] legitimacy'. The establishment of the PLO therefore threatened to abort the 'mass movement'. As Khalid al-Hasan later explained, 'we considered the PLO to be an Arab instrument and [its military wing] a part of the Arab armies. In view of our experiences with the Arabs and especially in 1936, and our deep lack of trust towards them . . . we feared that the PLO would kill or divert the awakening of our people'. Wazir added that the PLO had been created with the express purpose of pre-empting the revolutionary process among the Pales tinians. A subsequent Fateh memorandum also took task with the PLO for being 'the child of the [Arab] summit conference, which inherited its blood and flesh from the conference and so reflected its contradictions'. The Arab states had shied away from confronting Israeli plans to divert the Jordan River head waters, it argued, and so created the PLO as a means of distracting public attention. Yet Fateh was also aware, as Wazir later explained, that 'the PLO enjoyed Arab legitimacy, and this was important' ."
  6. ^ Salem Barahmeh, The Palestinians, the PLO, and Political Representation: the Search for Palestinian Self-Determination, June 2014
  7. ^ a b "Palestinian National Council (PNC)". European Council on Foreign Relations. 20 March 2018. Retrieved 11 October 2023.
  8. ^ "Palestinian Central Council (PCC)". European Council on Foreign Relations. 20 March 2018. Retrieved 11 October 2023.
  9. ^ "Palestine National Council - Main Office, Branch Offices". Archived from the original on June 6, 2013.
  10. ^ "The parliament of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) elected on Thursday six new members to its executive body". Archived from the original on 2014-11-29. Retrieved 2011-01-27.
  11. ^ "Palestinian affairs. - Free Online Library". www.thefreelibrary.com.
  12. ^ Dan Cohn-Sherbok, The Palestinian State: A Jewish Justification, Impress Books, 2012 p.105.
  13. ^ Ross, Dennis. Doomed to Succeed: The U.S.-Israel Relationship From Truman to Obama. New York: Farrar, Starus and Giroux, 2015. p. 287.
  14. ^ On the Experience of the Palestinian Liberation Organization Archived 2015-09-24 at the Wayback Machine. Middle East Monitor (MEMO), 20 October 2012
  15. ^ "Palestinian forum convenes after 22 years, beset by division". Reuters. April 30, 2018 – via www.reuters.com.
  16. ^ Fawcett, Harry. "Palestinian National Council meets for first time in 22 years". www.aljazeera.com.
  17. ^ PNC (2014-03-14). "دورات المجلس الوطني 1964 ـ 1996". المجلس الوطني الفلسطيني (in Arabic). Archived from the original on 2024-02-16. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
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