لحظة ادراك

 

The Calculations of the Corridors of Power and the Villages

The Luxury of Palestinian Elections in an Age of Struggling to Survive

Not every election is an expression of democracy, and not every ballot box is capable of producing legitimacy. There are moments in the history of peoples when the preoccupation with counting votes becomes a form of political luxury, when people are busy counting the days they have left to live, and when homelands are reduced to narrow spaces of survival—spaces that can no longer accommodate their people’s dreams, or even their steps toward their fields, schools, and homes.

In Palestine, where tragedies crowd every corner of the landscape, talk of elections seems akin to certain elites occupying themselves with rearranging the seats in a hall that has burned down, while those who once occupied it are still searching for a way out through the rubble.

In Gaza, the priority remains restoring the bare minimum conditions for life amid destruction, displacement, loss, and uncertainty. In Jerusalem, Palestinians fight a daily battle to remain in their city, facing measures that restrict their ability to make a living, establish stability, or reach places of worship. In the West Bank, meanwhile, moving from one area to another, reaching one’s land, and harvesting olives from one’s trees have become activities that may require security and livelihood calculations far more complicated than the simplest requirements of ordinary life.

Against this backdrop, some political figures emerge to lecture us about electoral lists, registration fees, the alliances needed to secure their success, and the sources of funding for their campaigns—as though Palestine had overcome its existential crises and all that remained was to choose who would manage its affairs.

What a paradox!

A people fighting to remain on their land, and elites competing over who will govern what remains.

Between the Corridors of Power and the Villages

In popular heritage, the saraya—the seats of authority and centers of decision-making—stand in contrast to the qaraya, the villages and the people who inhabit them, with their homes, fields, and livelihoods. Between the two, the distance has long widened whenever governing becomes an end in itself, and politics ceases to be a means of serving people and turns into a profession whose practitioners compete for its privileges.

And this is the Palestinian dilemma today: Are the political elites concerned with what the qaraya need, or with what the calculations of the saraya demand?

Is the priority to save a society exhausted by wars and divisions, or to register yet another electoral list? Is the priority to formulate a national program that halts the deterioration and restores unity in decision-making, or to search for sponsors capable of covering the costs of election campaigning? Does Palestine now need more familiar faces skilled in the art of reaching power, or men and women with the courage to acknowledge that this moment transcends factional calculations and interests?

The problem is not elections as an inalienable democratic right, nor the principle of the peaceful transfer of power, which Palestinians need now more than ever. The problem lies in the timing of elections, the conditions under which they are held, and their political environment—and in the possibility that they may become a merely formal exercise that reflects neither the reality of society nor the scale of the sacrifices it has made.

Elections held amid unequal opportunities, fragmented geography, declining freedoms, and the dominance of political money do not necessarily produce leadership capable of representing the people. Instead of serving as a gateway out of the crisis, they may become a means of recycling it under new names and familiar faces.

The Luxury of Ballot Boxes in an Age of Rubble

What meaning does a ballot box have in Gaza if voters do not know where they will sleep tomorrow? And what value does an electoral platform promising development have when people need someone to restore their homes, their livelihoods, and the most basic foundations of human dignity?

How can Palestinians in the West Bank be persuaded that their votes will change their reality when access to their land and movement between their towns remain subject to restrictions and procedures over which they have no control? And how can Jerusalemites be persuaded that elections will create a different future while pressure continues to mount against their very presence in their city?

These are not questions raised to oppose democracy, but to defend its true meaning.

Democracy is not an isolated election day disconnected from people’s lives, nor is it a piece of paper placed in a ballot box before citizens return to their old state of helplessness. It is a system of rights, freedoms, and accountability. Its first condition is that citizens must feel their votes are part of a genuine decision-making process, not merely a temporary mandate granted to a political class assembled through whatever means happen to prevail.

When this condition is absent, the ballot box becomes an attractive façade concealing a dysfunctional reality, and elections turn into an occasion for competing forces to vie for a legitimacy whose basic requirements they cannot guarantee.

Political Money... When Poverty Becomes an Additional Voter

Perhaps the most dangerous threat facing Palestinian elections is the possibility that economic need will become a gateway to shaping political will.

When political elites cannot finance their lists through transparent, publicly disclosed resources and begin searching for money in regional capitals, the question is no longer simply who pays for the campaign. It becomes a question of who will have the power to influence the political platform and national decisions once the results are announced.

Not every form of foreign funding necessarily constitutes interference, just as not every instance of political support is evidence of subordination. The danger begins, however, when external resources become a prerequisite for electoral survival, and candidates find themselves compelled to accommodate the priorities of their funders more than those of their constituents.

At that point, interests take precedence over principles, national platforms give way to calculations of patronage and funding, and poverty itself becomes an additional voter—even if it never enters a polling station.

A Palestinian who has lost a home and a livelihood, or who depends on aid to feed their children, must never have their need turned into an opportunity to win their vote through inducements or purchase their loyalty. Their dignity is not an item in an election budget, their suffering is not campaign material, and their future is not a political investment for those who possess money.

More dangerously, political money may open the doors of power to individuals whose financial resources bear little relation to their actual standing in society or their record of national service. Elections then cease to be a contest between programs and visions and become a race between funding sources and networks of influence.

Palestine has never had a greater need than it does today to protect its national decision-making from this equation.

Emergency Leadership Before Ballot Boxes

Perhaps Palestine today needs something beyond the usual electoral process: a national emergency leadership, a national emergency government, ministries operating with an emergency mindset, and political elites that treat this moment as a historic responsibility rather than an opportunity to settle scores.

Such leadership would derive its legitimacy not from slogans alone, but from its ability to protect society, unify decision-making, alleviate suffering, and establish an actionable national plan to confront the challenges at hand.

Such a government would measure its success not by the number of statements it issues or meetings it holds, but by what it can accomplish on the ground: supporting people’s resilience, rebuilding institutions, protecting rights, coordinating humanitarian efforts, confronting settlement expansion, and restoring unity to the Palestinian political system.

And such ministries would not operate according to factional quotas. Their portfolios would not be distributed as rewards for allies or compensation for losers, but entrusted to people with competence, integrity, and the ability to work under extraordinary circumstances.

As for the national elites, they are not required to abandon their differences. They are required to recognize that political disagreement does not give them the right to obstruct national priorities. Nor must they agree on everything; they must first agree on saving what can still be saved, and on the principle that Palestinian life, dignity, and national unity take precedence over factional interests and seats of power.

This does not mean suspending democracy indefinitely or granting any leadership an unlimited mandate in the name of an emergency. A state of emergency itself can become a pretext for monopolizing power if it is not subject to oversight, transparency, a defined time limit, and public accountability.

What is needed, then, is not to replace elections with extraordinary rule without safeguards, but to establish political and social conditions that make elections a genuine instrument of change rather than a ceremonial exercise in reproducing the crisis.

What Kind of Legitimacy Do We Want?

There is a vast difference between the legitimacy of the ballot box and the legitimacy of achievement, although in a healthy democracy the two complement rather than contradict each other.

Elections grant those in power a political mandate, but they do not shield them from accountability or exempt them from their duty to protect citizens. Likewise, achievements do not justify abolishing people’s right to choose, nor do they allow anyone to monopolize the definition of the national interest on their behalf.

In the Palestinian context, sustainable legitimacy cannot be established without addressing the division, unifying institutions, guaranteeing political freedoms, respecting pluralism, and creating an inclusive national framework that defines the relationship between the Palestinian Authority, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the factions, and society.

Elections cannot be merely a means of entrenching the existing balance of power, a test of the factions’ ability to mobilize their supporters, or an occasion to redistribute influence among centers of power.

Above all, they should constitute a new social contract between the people and their leadership, founded on the principle that authority is a duty, not spoils; that office is a responsibility, not a privilege; and that anyone seeking the people’s trust must answer a simple question: What will you do to change their lives?

Those who have no answer beyond slogans, who rely on foreign money, or who gamble on people’s exhaustion and forgetfulness have no right to treat the ballot box as a deed of ownership over the homeland.

Conclusion: The Villages Must Come Before the Corridors of Power

To all those competing for electoral lists and seats, pause for a moment.

Look at Gaza before counting its votes, at Jerusalem before speaking in its name, and at the West Bank before drawing your maps of influence across its land. Look at the children who have grown up to the sound of explosions, the families who have lost their homes, the farmer who fears he may not be able to reach his trees, the employee waiting for a salary, and the young person who sees nothing in politics anymore but changing faces and repeated promises.

These people are not the backdrop to your electoral spectacle. They are the very heart of the cause you claim to represent.

Palestine is neither a collection of corridors of power competing for the keys to government nor a collection of villages waiting for someone to grant them permission to live. Palestine is a people who have paid dearly in blood, security, and their future—and who have every right to expect their leadership to be worthy of those sacrifices.

Therefore, the question that should come before the registration of electoral lists is not: Who can raise the money? Nor is it: Who commands the broadest alliance? Or: Who can secure the greatest number of seats?

The question is this: Who has the ability to save society, restore unity, safeguard national decision-making, and rebuild trust between people and politics?

If elections cannot answer these questions, and if the conditions for integrity, freedom, and genuine competition are not in place, postponing them until those conditions can be established may be more responsible than rushing ahead.

Not every postponement is a defeat for democracy, just as not every election is a victory for it.

At a time when homes are collapsing, the land is closing in on its people, and Palestinians’ very ability to survive is being tested, the qaraya must come before the saraya, people before seats, and survival before calculations.

Palestine today needs less of an elite skilled in calculating the cost of reaching power and more of a leadership that knows how to restore people’s right to live—and then leave them free to choose, with dignity, who governs them.

Only then will the ballot box have meaning, politics have honor, and legitimacy have roots that the first storm cannot uproot.