Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Mona N. Younis is an independent strategic planning and organizational development consultant who specializes in human rights. She has extensive experience in research, teaching, philanthropy and non-profit organizations. Mona co-founded the Fund for Global Human Rights (Washington, DC) and the Arab Human Rights Fund (Beirut, Lebanon). She has published on social movements, community development, philanthropy and human rights, and is the author of Liberation and Democratization: The South African and Palestinian National Movements (University of Minnesota Press, 2000).
From this author
As the Israeli regime continues its genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza, many have begun to weigh in on the future of Hamas and of Palestinian leadership more broadly once the bombardment ends. One of the dominant proposals is the revival of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), with Hamas as a member party.
But revival of the PLO requires more than bringing Hamas into the fold, as the Fatah-controlled PA has effectively whittled down the PLO to a barren institution. What then, beyond inclusion, is needed in order to resuscitate the viability of the PLO? In an effort to strengthen the generative thinking around these questions, Al-Shabaka revisits a collection of its past works that sought to confront this very topic.
The vital question of how to reconstitute and strengthen the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and renew the Palestinian national project has long been at the forefront of Palestinian concerns. However, it stalled due to the bitter divisions between the major political parties, Fatah and Hamas, after the legislative elections of 2006.
+