مؤسسة الشرق الأوسط للنشر العلمي
عادةً ما يتم الرد في غضون خمس دقائق
This empirical research study seeks to identify the impact of the Palestinian political division on the Palestinian foreign policy and the path of the Palestinian liberation diplomacy. The study also aims to identify the most significant risks that the Palestinian political division poses to the Palestinian foreign policy, which is the cornerstone in building international and global political relations in support of the Palestinian cause, as well as identifying the most important pillars of foreign policy to achieve the Palestinian national project and the relationship of the demise of the effects of the political division on these pillars. It was found by the current study that the domestic political division has given birth to the emergence of two antagonist authorities that dominate the political landscape in the Palestinian territories, i.e., the West Bank including East Jerusalem Ruled by the PLO, and the Gaza Strip ruled by Hamas government. The division between the two political entities has led to the paralysis of domestic political process and hence a weakness and impotence in the Palestinian foreign policy and the path of the Palestinian liberation diplomacy. Furthermore, the findings of the study reported that the vast political division has also contributed to the decline in popularity of the Palestinian regime’s authorities among the Palestinian people, which resulted in causing additional internal unrest, especially as these authorities continue showing their helplessness in front of this division and their capability to manage this division properly. In conclusion, the findings of the current research paper confirmed that the Palestinian political system has failed to encounter the divergence of its binary political entities’ attitudes, ideologies, interests, and partisan identities away from the center towards a political division. The Palestinian political system has also failed to achieve a consensus, a unity, popular disgruntlement, and a political alliance among them. Such political fissures driven by the stifling political competition, political polarization, political divergence, and factionalism among the two antagonist authorities that dominate the political landscape in the Palestinian territories, limit their chances for achieving a domestic political rapprochement. This led to vulnerable political authority’s structure that is plagued with instability. Consequently, this underperformed the Palestinian’s foreign policy which became vulnerable as it rests on shaky foundations. As a result, the fragility, instability, incoherence, and weakness of the Palestinian foreign policy led to reducing its capacity to gain international support for the Palestinian Cause, decreasing the number of the Palestinian regime’s allies at the international level, lowering the level of assistance used to be offered by some countries to the Palestinians which relates to protecting their independence and sovereignty, reducing the resources of the international financial support, changing the diplomatic posture of the international community in dealing with the power struggle among the Palestinian competing elites and the dominant political entities, limiting the efficiency of the Palestinian regime’s foreign diplomacy in the international arena, disrupting its relations, solidarity, and cooperation with the neighboring countries and other developing countries, distorting the image and the international standing of the Palestinian cause in the eyes of the international community, which affected the credibility of the Palestinian resistive movements in pursuit of liberation and accordingly the credibility of the Palestinian’s foreign policy commitments, which led to a state of a loss of confidence and trust in their intents from the perspectives of the Arab and Western world