Reference number: 69/2023
Date: July 30, 2023
Native language: Arabic
Press release
The International Commission (Hashd) publishes a research paper titled “The Impact of Political Division on the Public Rights and Freedoms of the Palestinian Citizen.”
The International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights (Hashd), study and Policy Department, published a research paper by researcher Muhammad Ali Khalifa titled “The Impact of Political Division on the Public Rights and Freedoms of the Palestinian Citizen.”
The research paper’s main goal is to clarify the extent of the Palestinian political division’s impact on the course of democracy in the occupied State of Palestine, as well as the seriousness of the division’s impact on public rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Palestinian Basic Law, including political, economic, social, and cultural rights, and to identify abuses and violations of these rights by the executive authorities.
The study stressed that the separation is a political fight for power between Fatah and Hamas, so it is based on party interest rather than national interest, and it has a significant negative effect in producing family conflicts amongst brothers, cousins, and relatives. It also harmed social interactions between friends, leading to increased expressions of social fabric disintegration and internal social fragmentation in Palestinian society.
And it pointed out that the division created two separate economic institutions, each with its mechanisms and policies, as both imposed their taxes on all basic and non-essential goods, in addition to the occupation’s taxes, burdening the citizen and causing damage to the Palestinian economy as a whole, as well as the spread of unemployment among graduates, workers, and most groups of Palestinian society, and leading to a large spread of poverty.
The division was used as a justification by political parties to commit more violations of public rights and freedoms in the Palestinian territories, according to the paper, noting that hundreds of orders by law were issued in the West Bank and laws in the Gaza Strip, the majority of which give the ruling authority more powers and impose restrictions on public rights and freedoms.
It demonstrated that the Palestinian people’s failure to exercise their right to vote, particularly in presidential and legislative elections, hindered the possibility of implementing international legitimacy decisions regarding the State of Palestine, because international legitimacy speaks of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as one unit, and also weakened the Palestinian people’s demand for human rights.
It advocated for the need to end the division and push for Palestinian reconciliation, beginning with the reform of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the accession of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements to it as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, as well as the holding of presidential and legislative elections, and the need to open a national dialogue that defines the form of the political system and deepens the principle of separation between the Palestinian people. The judicial and executive branches, need to work on developing a therapeutic and developmental program in which all official institutions and civil society institutions in all their forms, as well as societal elites, can participate, to address the imbalance that has struck social relations and the social fabric as a result of division.
The document demanded a halt to the issuance of decrees by legislation, as well as a halt to human rights violations in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the closure of the political detention file, and efforts to protect freedom of expression, opinion, and the press.
To view the full paper, click here:
