Amid the chaos and war of the past five months, Palestinian constitutional issues have hardly been at the forefront of anybody’s mind. That is a problem: neglecting the structure of Palestinian institutions over the past thirty years has deeply aggravated—and continues to deeply aggravate—Palestine’s political crisis. Domestic leaders and international actors (including the United States) have worked to bend and even break institutions and rules according to the needs of the moment. That behavior has robbed these institutions and rules of credibility and meaning.
This seems like a very odd time to talk about a constitution for Palestine. But better times to have done so are in the past or in an ideal future that may not come to pass.
The uncertainties of Palestinian politics currently make a permanent constitution inadvisable, but an interim constitution—a device used with varying success in some other societies—may be salutary in its domestic effects and helpful internationally as well.
The Perils of Procrastination
The Palestinian national movement emerged over the last century in the form of institutions and structures including the factions, the Palestinian National Council, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the Palestinian (National) Authority (PNA), and the State of Palestine. None of these was able to work easily or even effectively, and all were hamstrung by internal and especially external obstacles. But collectively they still produced leaders who spoke for Palestinians internationally and officials for Palestinian publics to address.
The process to form accepted institutions and structures was precarious and unfinished, so no enduring constitution was ever written. That led to a situation in which the relationship among various authorities and institutions was unclear, personalized, and ad hoc. After the Oslo Accords were signed beginning in 1993, the PLO tended to take a back seat in Palestinian politics, allowing the newly created Palestinian Authority to oversee many older and some newer institutions in the West Bank and Gaza and take over many PLO roles.
Now, Palestine faces not merely overlap, confusion, and personalization within governing structures but also a national crisis. All these structures are threatened to varying degrees, and the Palestinian national movement is confronting one of its most critical turning points. This is a moment of tremendous uncertainty and enormous threat.
If constitutional law seems out of place at first glance, many factors associated with Palestinian governance are deeply relevant to American officials who speak of a “revitalized” Palestinian Authority, to Israeli officials who cast about for an alternative, and most of all to Palestinians themselves who see their governing structures unable to respond to unprecedented levels of force directed against them.
The problem is that much discussion is still focused on the short term, instrumental, and personal. It is designed to sideline some leaders, scramble for alternatives, and secure small-scale and immediate objectives. Such approaches are precisely the problem. For three decades, short-term politics has almost always edged aside the development of institutional frameworks, with an unmistakable emphasis on individual leadership over institutional strength.
Many of those who perpetrated—wittingly or unwittingly—the undermining of Palestinian national institutions are now the victims of their own work. A quarter century ago, a concerted effort by various Palestinian actors, sometimes supported but more often overlooked by international actors, focused much of its attention on a constitutional document for Palestinian politics. That effort culminated in the Basic Law for the PNA. The law was drafted largely in the 1990s and imposed (and almost immediately amended) by a fleeting reform coalition of Palestinian and international actors on then Palestinian president Yasser Arafat, who argued that Palestine's tenuous and tentative condition made procedural constraints on leadership premature. Arafat was able to resist with the support of key actors who agreed that revolutionary leadership was still needed and that placing sharp constitutional limitations was not appropriate until a real state was built.
The reform coalition frayed and then burst apart when Palestine’s most democratic elections—ironically those the Basic Law had just been amended to support—gave Hamas a parliamentary majority in 2006. After a year of internal wrangling and external pressure, Arafat’s successor as Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, effectively suspended critical parts of the document in the fissure of 2007 that sundered ties between the West Bank and Gaza.
In such an atmosphere, the Basic Law may have been asked to do too much. Especially since the 2007 split, it has gradually been hollowed as various actors followed their favorite provisions but ignored inconvenient ones. It has become a shredded document, and its tatters have been used opportunistically by various actors in ways that often comply with specific provisions but undercut the document’s underlying purpose of constructing strong and competent state-like institutions on a democratic basis and laying the infrastructure for statehood. International actors have been even more opportunistic than domestic ones in this regard, choosing particular individuals or approaches to back and leaving their favored candidates to find some kind of legal mechanism to justify their stepping forward.
The Basic Law: An Exemplary Interim Document That Broke Under Extraordinary Pressure
The text of the Basic Law owes its ultimate origins to a very different process, one that was first designed for full statehood rather than interim autonomy. But the drafting and purpose of the document changed with the creation of the PNA—a shift that explains some of the document’s gaps.
The Palestinian National Congress met in Algiers in 1988, issuing its Declaration of Independence and authorizing preparations for Palestinian statehood. Those included appointing a committee to draft a constitution for statehood; that committee proceeded slowly but did draft some proposals. The year 1994 saw the creation of the PNA. (The word “national” was inserted in the body’s name only by its Palestinian supporters who wished to emphasize its role in preparing for statehood. Others refer to it as the Palestinian Authority.) From the perspective of the sponsors of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, it was the Oslo Accords that provided the PNA’s basis; those accords had nothing to say about statehood but did allow for some legislative activity by the new body. For Palestinians, the PNA was a body authorized by the PLO, the overall authority for the Palestinian people—a distinction that seemed meaningless at the time but that proved far more significant later. Indeed, with the PNA’s current weakness, the fiscal stranglehold placed on it by Israel, its inability to govern Gaza and much of the West Bank, and its expulsion from Jerusalem, many Palestinians have floated the idea of revitalizing Palestinian institutions by focusing on the PLO instead of the PNA.
In 1996, the PNA had progressed to the point that Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza elected a president (Arafat) and an assembly called the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) to guide it over the interim period, which according to Israeli-Palestinian agreements in 1993 and 1994 was not to last beyond May 1999. Conscious of the fact that it had no real basis for its operations and authority, the PLC decided to draft the Basic Law as a constitutional document for the PNA—over Arafat’s strenuous objections—and used the drafts of the PLO-authorized effort as its starting point. The Oslo Accords had mentioned a basic law for the council (in Article III of a 1995 agreement). For Arafat, this was not to be a proto-constitution; he may have expected something more like internal procedures for the PLC rather than a governing document for the PNA. But the PLC quickly separated those tasks, adopting Standing Orders for itself and drafting the Basic Law for the entire PNA between 1996 and 1997. Arafat bypassed the efforts until 2002 when, besieged by Israel (which held him responsible for the violence of the intifada) and pressured by Western government, he agreed to approve the document as part of a comprehensive “reform” program. The following year, the same domestic-international confluence of interests compelled him to accept amendments to the Basic Law that created the position of prime minister, thus moving the PNA to adopt what specialists call a semipresidential system.
The Basic Law was an exemplary document in many respects, in part because it was the product of an extended and unusually public drafting process. With many hands—parliamentarians most directly but also legal specialists, politicians, and international officials—involved in its authorship, it reflected the considerations and demands of a variety of social and political actors. But because it was explicitly a transitional document—one that was not adopted until three years after the transitional period was supposed to be over in 1999—it was full of gaps and omissions. For instance, the Basic Law as initially written did not specify the length of terms or even for second PLC elections, since the PLC that drafted and approved it anticipated that the body would disappear and hand over its affairs to a state of Palestine.
The gaps that it left as well as the tensions it failed to resolve were thus less the product of sloppy drafting than they were of a short time horizon; the document had no formal expiration date, and it was designed to help make itself unnecessary. If the Basic Law had contributed to a process culminating in a Palestinian state, then the document would be replaced by a new constitution for a state of Palestine. Indeed, a quiet effort drafting such a document has been underway since 1999, established by the PLO when Oslo’s provisional period had been due to end.
Unclear Authority
One tension was on display from the very beginning of the document: if the PNA was a creature of the PLO, but PNA leaders were elected by residents of the West Bank and Gaza, where did authority lie? In a sense, the Basic Law answered this question with modesty. Its preamble mentioned not only its provisional nature and the goal of statehood but also referred to the 1988 Declaration of Independence, the PLO, and the Palestinian National Council (PNC).
But the reality could be complicated, as there was some overlap among structures. Arafat served as president of the PNA and as chair of the PLO’s Executive Committee; PLC members served as members of the PNC, the body overseeing the PLO; and the Fatah movement held most of the key positions in both the PLO and PNC. But PLO bodies worked in a cumbersome manner and were not really designed for oversight; they also began to decay in effectiveness as PLO officials relocated to Ramallah and key offices were attached to the PNA presidency.
There were strong possible motivations for the overlap, especially in leadership positions. While the PNA was seen as the kernel of a state, it was not clear it was evolving in that direction or how sustainable it would be over the long term. And the Oslo Accords limited the PNA’s international interactions, restricting it to receiving aid and formally making the PLO the interlocutor for all remaining diplomacy. Some Palestinians felt that it was premature to divide authorities for a national movement still trying to build a state.
Arafat’s critics suspected that he was using his dual position to bypass any constraints on his authority, putting on his PLO hat when avoiding the PLC and acting as PNA president to vitiate PLO oversight. His successor, Mahmoud Abbas, provoked similar suspicions and began preferring the tile “president of the State of Palestine” after the United Nations recognized Palestine as an “observer non-member state” in 2012. Since the Basic Law was only a PNA document, its provisions offered no guidance, nor could they constrain those who claimed to be acting in their PLO or “state of Palestine” capacity rather than their PNA capacity. Periodic calls to separate the PNA and PLO leadership have been heard for decades but never implemented, partly blocked by the officials who would lose their dual role but also sharply resisted by some who feared that already weak institutions would be further undercut by a divided leadership or that the PLO’s international status required that it be maintained in robust form.
Confusing International Status
That leads to a second tension in the document involving the PNA’s international status. To some extent, the confusion was due to the different diplomatic stances of various parties, particularly over whom they would negotiate with or accept as representatives of Palestinians. It was also, to some extent, a product of the insistence of Palestinian leaders that they were preparing for statehood, while Israel and the United States insisted that the Oslo Accords (and thus the provisions for the PNA) contained no whiff of any such commitment. So, a Palestinian diplomat might be variously representing the PNA, the PLO, or the State of Palestine according to the specific issue or interlocutor involved.
This was not just a matter of protocol. It also made the status of international agreements ambiguous, especially after Abbas began ratifying them to solidify the international position of the State of Palestine. His 2014 accension to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, for example, left the matter for Palestinian courts to disentangle.
No Enforcement Structures
This suggests a third tension in the Basic Law: its carefully drafted provisions on a range of subjects were not buttressed with strong enforcement structures, adjudicative bodies, nor traditions of constitutional interpretation. Elaborate structures and provisions seemed not to be necessary for an interim document. There was a provision for a constitutional court, but it did not seem like an urgent matter, so it took years to bring that body into being. When it was founded, it came to be seen as a political actor supportive of the Palestinian leadership rather than a body standing outside of constitutional disputes.
Amendments to the Basic Law in 2003 and 2005 filled some gaps that had emerged, chiefly on presidential powers. Some clashes had taken place between the president and the parliament when the former ignored legislation passed by the latter or dawdled before presenting ministers for the latter’s approval.
But the amendments introduced new tensions. When the position of prime minister was introduced in 2003, the PNA shifted to a semipresidential system. (Semipresidentialism combines a popularly elected head of state with a prime minister and cabinet accountable to an elected legislature. Executive authority is split between these two heads.) That step was a compromise of sorts between international actors (chiefly Israel and the United States) seeking to sideline Arafat and domestic reformers anxious to increase democratic oversight of the PNA (and who had originated the proposal for a prime ministerial position years earlier). Clashes among the parliament, prime minister, and president were thus packed into the PNA’s constitutional framework, even though all were dominated by the same political movement, Fatah. And then, in January 2006, Hamas won control of the parliament.
Well-established constitutional systems can have troubles with transitions and “cohabitation,” which in semipresidential systems occurs when the president and the parliament are controlled by opposing parties. But the PNA stumbled through a year and a half of crises, mediations, reconciliations, and ad hoc arrangements until tensions exploded in violent conflict in June 2007.
The Crisis of 2007
The Basic Law was simply not built to withstand the intense pressures it came under. Its flaws were nobody’s fault, but the way they were exploited was everybody’s fault. The Basic Law had few or vague answers to the questions posed by Palestine’s constitutional crisis, and Palestinian and international actors managed to find ways to blatantly violate the few clear provisions the law had.
For instance, Hamas leaders seized power in Gaza, and Abbas claimed authority clearly denied him in the Basic Law by seizing power in the West Bank. (While the president was authorized to—and did—dismiss the cabinet, no new ministers could serve until approved by the PLC nor could the PLC be dissolved or hindered, even during a state of emergency. The provisions of the Basic Law, drafted to constrain Arafat’s authority, were operating in an unanticipated context that verged on civil war and broke under that strain.)
International actors who had pressed to have the security services placed under the legal command of the minister of interior insisted that the law be ignored when Hamas headed that ministry. These actors also gave material support to forces not under Hamas’s command, helping to fuel civil war. Israeli officials never had much interest in Palestinian constitutional structures but had already abandoned the provisions of the bilateral agreements on revenue transmission and interim withdrawals that were critical parts of the interim arrangements for Palestinian leaders.
In the historical memory of various actors, all others are to blame for the crisis of 2007: Hamas blames Fatah; Fatah blames Hamas; both blame Israel; Hamas blames the United States; the United States blames Hamas; Israel blames the United States and Hamas; and so on. All are correct. The elements of the coalition that had produced the Basic Law, reformed it, and pressed for elections turned on their creation—or rather they grabbed the parts that pleased them.
The result was not only the splitting of the PNA in two but also the end of a functioning parliament. That left the presidency in uncontested control of the West Bank, the Hamas cabinet ruling Gaza (with a rump parliamentary blessing its actions), and a series of ineffectual attempts at reconciliation blocked by domestic politics and international opposition. Elements of the Basic Law survived but not in any way that rendered political authority in the West Bank and Gaza accountable to Palestinians.
The real victims were Palestinians themselves, who found themselves ruled by leaders who were not only unaccountable but also void of any strategy for realizing national goals in the face of intensifying occupation, burgeoning settlements, and Israeli military and security actions that constricted all aspects of Palestinian daily life. There was a more abstract victim as well: any kind of political or diplomatic process that relied on authoritative Palestinian decisions. The institutional weaknesses offer no path to any better future.
What Now?
Can a revived or new constitution begin to reassemble Palestine as a viable political actor? The circumstances in 2024 seem infinitely more difficult than the 2007 crisis. A state of Palestine has already been declared, but most efforts have focused on international recognition. Is there any way the long road to reconstructing Palestinian politics can be facilitated by placing Palestinian national efforts on a constitutional path?
Rushing a full constitution for statehood would be pressing too much too soon and risk replaying the experience of the Basic Law, in which a document collapsed under unanticipated pressures. Nor can a constitution alone strengthen Palestinian institutions; elections, sooner rather than later, are a necessary element in grounding those institutions in a clear social base and mending some of the deep divisions in Palestinian society and politics. Indeed, the failure to hold elections earlier was a clear missed opportunity. It was promising, however, that Hamas and Fatah agreed on a call for elections (with a promised for reconciliation) in 2021.
While elections are necessary, they are not sufficient. First, the constitutional framework for elections needs to be clear. Second, with numerous obstacles to elections, a clear institutional framework needs to be laid that does not depend on them immediately. The current division between the West Bank and a decimated Gaza serves Palestinians poorly, but it seems to be in line with Israeli policy and with an overall condition of what scholars call “nested sovereignty,” in which the two Palestinian entities exercise varying levels of internal autonomy within a situation. As a statement from the Israeli prime minister succinctly explained, “Israel must retain security control over Gaza to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel, a requirement that contradicts the demand for Palestinian sovereignty.”
So, a revived constitutional document or skeletal set of constitutional principles that works to overcome this division and weakness might be an attractive step for Palestinians—and for those who wish to strengthen Palestinian institutions and reform governance. The task may seem quixotic, but it is not impossible. It would require a reorientation by key actors—or rather a realization that their proclaimed goals have been undermined by their past cavalier attitudes toward constitutional and institutional development. But what should such a document say and do?
What Kind of Constitution Is Appropriate for Palestine’s Uncertain State?
The approach implicit in the idea of a basic law for the PNA was that Palestine needed a constitutional process as much as a constitutional text, one that was grounded in Palestinian politics and could give clear guidance and provide accountability for an interim stage. The Basic Law as a step for the interim phase and a later and fuller constitution for statehood were linked—the first was supposed to help the latter emerge. But they were distinct; the Basic Law could not govern the PLO or the eventual State of Palestine, but it could establish a constitutional tradition and foster the emergence of structures and processes that could ensure that a viable and democratic state emerged. Such hopes for the Basic Law reached their height two decades ago.
The idea of a new interim constitution has thus been floated as a way to follow a similar path. It is also suggested because any effort that is based on democratic mechanisms seems unlikely in the current environment. Indeed, how a constitution can be drafted and then adopted is a more difficult question than what it should say. It is a question that cannot be answered persuasively now if a permanent constitution is intended. An interim constitution—one that constrains authoritarian impulses, establishes healthy traditions, is grounded in Palestinian society, and seems responsive to its needs—might serve Palestine much better than a fuller and purportedly permanent document designed for a state that has not yet fully emerged.
The principles that should guide such a document are clear. An interim constitution should be flexible enough to respond to a rapidly changing political environment anchored in the full diversity of Palestinian society and give primacy to Palestinian politics. Furthermore, it must allow those it governs to manage their differences while enabling their leaders to make clear decisions. It should be based on the need to develop stronger institutions rather than being tailored to the short-term needs of particular individuals.
These principles may seem almost unassailable, but they are regularly assailed implicitly. This is especially the case at the international level: lip service to the idea of building Palestinian institutions, reforming them, or reinvigorating them to a “two state solution” that would seem to necessitate serious commitment to institutional development is undermined. International talk has always been extremely episodic (generally prompted by a specific crisis) and completely personalized (designed to support a specific figure or foster a short-term approach). Underlying this unfavorable international context is a set of debates that is divorced from the domestic Palestinian one. Palestinian constitutional development poses difficult questions but not impossible ones. The problem is that the answers of critical actors do not match up.
Difficult Constitutional Questions; Incompatible Answers
Palestinian constitutional debates encounter four particularly thorny issues, and the answers that are developed domestically pull those debates in a very different direction than much of the international discussion. The major issues to be addressed—and the basic presumptions of the purpose of the project—are quite distinct.
First, the deep divisions in Palestinian politics (between Gaza and the West Bank, between Fatah and Hamas, and among Palestinian communities in the diaspora) opens constitution writing in the current environment to criticism that it is partisan and can entrench the schism in fundamental legal and institutional arrangements. So, any final document would likely need a level of national reconciliation that has been elusive for seventeen years. Of course, such reconciliation cannot mean agreement on every issue, but it does necessitate an agreement on ways to manage profound differences in political ideologies, religion, and national goals. When efforts at reconciliation have been pursued, they have either remained at a platitudinous level or failed quickly when it came to implementation. Palestine faces the same chicken-and-egg problem of many divided societies: how to write a constitution that can manage differences without having constitutional tools to deal with those differences.
Second, a particularly profound problem is what to do with Hamas. The prevailing answer among some key actors (including Israel, the United States, and some European countries) is that Hamas is not a legitimate political actor and should not be part of the Palestinian political process. However, the common public position enunciated in domestic Palestinian positions is the precise opposite: one often hears Palestinians, even the movement’s harsh critics, say that Hamas is part of the fabric of Palestinian society. To adopt a constitution designed to exclude Hamas would run directly counter to a public consensus. (The issue of inclusion of Hamas in the drafting process itself has been less controversial but perhaps only because the actual drafting has been undertaken by those with technical expertise, and public involvement has generally been episodic.) But a document that allowed Hamas to enter into the political system would not only spark international opposition; it would also be viewed warily by key Palestinian actors. For Fatah, memory of Hamas’s 2006 electoral drubbing as well as periodic waves of popularity for Hamas makes a constitution seem risky. For Hamas, being constrained by constitutional structures and procedures has sometimes seemed like a price worth paying, but at other times (including at present), Hamas leaders seem to sense larger opportunities in front of them.
Third, what will the relationship between f Palestine and Israel look like? Sometimes there are abstract discussions about how to define borders and citizenship, but such abstract discussions quickly become very concrete when the parties remember that Israel has a profound ability to impose its preferred answers to such questions. A constitution could be an authoritative expression of how Palestinians envision that relationship—and it could be fraught for that reason, especially in the absence of any peace agreement.
Fourth, Palestinians have a quandary about how a constitution should be ratified—or, more abstractly, where the “constituent power” lies. Does it need a popular referendum, and if so, how can one be held? If only residents of the West Bank and Gaza are included, then would a constitution address the rights of refugees? And if the constitution is for all Palestinians, then what provisions should (or can) be made for diaspora Palestinians (whether stateless or citizens of Israel, Jordan, or other countries)? Or would ratification by PLO bodies or the PNC be a suitable substitute?
Finally, and most complex, what is the relationship between the State of Palestine and the PLO? Such questions seem purely academic to outsiders, many of whom even use the terms interchangeably. But the legal and political ramifications of how they are related are quite significant, both domestically and internationally. The drafters of the Basic Law knew this, but they were powerless to offer answers since they were based in the PNA and thought it premature (since the PNA was not yet a state and was not intended to replace the PLO). But, again, procrastination had a price since the ambiguities have only grown thornier. PLO leaders (who often double as PNA leaders) now claim domestically—and are often recognized internationally—as representing the State of Palestine. The proclaimed state does not merely “represent” Palestinians (as the PLO was designed to do) but is also an embodiment of Palestinian sovereignty. While the State of Palestine exists on paper, there is a clear trend toward international recognition; that is an important achievement for the current generation of Palestinian leaders. But the State of Palestine has not replaced the PLO, which, however much its structures have diminished, remains the primary representative body for Palestinians globally and continues to signify their collective identity and aspirations. The PLO’s historical role as the voice of the Palestinians (many without citizenship and many with citizenship of other states) at some point will have to be reconciled with the State of Palestine’s international recognition (even though that state does not yet have the ability to define citizenship).
The PNA’s transitional nature and limited jurisdiction in the West Bank and Gaza adds to this complexity. It was barred initially from any diplomacy except related to international assistance, a compromise negotiated in the 1990s to block statehood and allow funds to be supplied to Palestinians while bypassing the PLO. But matters have evolved since then, with the PNA creating a ministry of foreign affairs and its leaders presenting themselves as officials of the State of Palestine.
The State of Palestine has achieved nonmember observer status at the United Nations “without prejudice to the acquired rights, privileges and role of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the United Nations as the representative of the Palestinian people” in order to ensure that Palestinians not under direct PNA control are not deprived of any body to represent them. While this is already complicated, it is made more so by legislation and policy originating in the United States, which has deep impact on how Palestinian officials can operate. The United States classifies the PLO as a terrorist organization but conducts diplomacy with it sharply constrained by law. It ignores the State of Palestine and deals directly with the PNA but not as a state.
Trying to thread legal and diplomatic needles to satisfy Palestinian national aspirations and diverse international pressures would be difficult enough, but there are internal complications as well. Some are quite practical, especially with the suspension of much of the framework of the Basic Law. On succession, for instance, the PNA is subject to the PLO, so might the latter come in and devise a structure if the PNA procedures were unworkable or inconvenient? Other implications are more long term but are connected to some of the most critical questions for Palestinians as a national community. The PLO represents all Palestinians; the PNA claims authority to govern those in the West Bank and Gaza. The State of Palestine has the possibility of concretely defining and offering citizenship. Who would be eligible to become a citizen? Who would want it? And would awarding it to people who are not residents of Palestine encounter objections and countermeasures?
Answering Fateful Questions Provisionally
Some of these questions seem almost beyond constitutional reach. Indeed, the Basic Law sputtered and finally collapsed under pressures of some similar quandaries. Matters have only gotten worse—and institutions weaker—since that time. Any answers are likely to be politically controversial among Palestinians; many possible answers are likely to be considered anathemas by key international actors. And even given favorable circumstances, what Palestinians are likely to consider suitable answers are likely to evolve over time.
One idea sometimes floated to relieve some of the stress on a Palestinian constitution is to issue an interim one. Interim constitutions have been used in other settings with some success—South Africa most famously—but also with some negative regional connotations, such as the U.S.-imposed Transitional Administrative Law in Iraq.
In the Palestinian case, an interim constitution, perhaps drafted after an attempt to engage broader publics but blessed by the PNC, could provide the basis for the reconstruction of a national leadership that, however divided, could rebuild some national and state institutions and negotiate authoritatively on an international level. There would be two major benefits of such a document.
First, it would place Palestinians at the center of governance questions. Rather than responding to strong international pressures and debates among those who seem unfamiliar and even dismissive of Palestinian politics (or who understand political dynamics only as a matter of selecting acceptable leaders for short-term international needs), Palestinians could debate with each other—and make those debates audible for those who care to listen—how they wish to steer their own future.
Second, there would be a payoff internationally as well for those who understand that long-term stability in the region and a more just and peaceful future will require Palestinians to be dealt with as a national community rather than a dispersed subject population. Palestine could present itself as a set of authoritative institutions rather than a handful of acceptable and familiar names.
But the obstacles are tremendous. Two decades ago, a momentary coincidence of domestic and international pressures led to a burst of reform, with constitutional engineering a key part of that reform. The experiment was successful at first but buckled under pressure when its supporters abandoned it. In 2024, any effort to revive Palestinian institutions would need more than just a similar alignment: it would need a more sustained international commitment to working with, rather than against, Palestinian constitutionalism and democracy.