PLO Central Council to meet in absence of main factions

RAMALLAH, Palestine

The 29th meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)’s Central Council will convene Wednesday in Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority (PA)’s municipal capital, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to deliver an “important” address at the meeting, which -- notably -- will not be attended by four leading resistance factions.

Hamas, which has governed the blockaded Gaza Strip since 2007, along with Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), have all announced their intention to boycott Wednesday’s meeting.

A number of leading Palestinian political figures -- including some from Abbas’s own Fatah movement (which runs the PA) -- also plan to avoid the event.

One informed Palestinian source, insisting on anonymity, told Anadolu Agency that the Central Council meeting was aimed at dissolving the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) -- Palestine’s incapacitated legislative assembly -- and assuming its powers.

“The Central Council will discuss proposals for abolishing all institutions associated with the PA with a view to transitioning from [Palestinian] authority to [Palestinian] state,” the source said.

The source stressed that this did not necessarily mean dissolving the PA itself, but rather coupling PA institutions to the Fatah-run PLO instead.

“It would mean dissolving the PLC and transferring its [legislative] authority to the Central Council,” the source said.

The Oslo peace agreement, signed between Israel and the PLO in 1993, stipulated that the PA should serve as a “transitional authority” for a five-year period, after which a Palestinian state might be established.

This, however, has yet to materialize, due mainly to Israel’s opposition to the notion of an independent Palestine.

Khalil Shaheen, a Palestinian political analyst, believes that dissolving the PLC would be “dangerous” in light of the “ongoing rift between Hamas and Fatah”.

“Such a move would transfer the assembly’s legislative powers to the Fatah-dominated PLO Central Council, which would serve to further centralize power and decision-making,” Shaheen told Anadolu Agency.

“Subsuming PA institutions into the framework of the PLO would violate the latter’s mandate as the ‘sole representative of the Palestinian people inside and outside Palestine’,” he said.

“The status of the state [of Palestine] at the United Nations is held by the PLO, not by the PA,” he added.

Shaheen went on to warn that the PLC’s dissolution would “only serve to harm the image of the Palestinian cause around the world and in international forums”.