Revival of the PLO: Health

The process to reform the PLO as a genuinely representative body would be painstaking and difficult. However, assuming such a transition, many of the community-led efforts to address issues in health may be revitalized after years of co-optation by the rigid structures of the PA.

A collapse of the PA, and by default, the MoH, would leave a vacuum not just in direct health provision, but also in the presence of a central body to which external aid for health-related matters is directed.

A new popular Palestinian uprising would overwhelm an already suffering Palestinian health sector in the West Bank and Gaza. Furthermore, a new intifada would shift the Israeli and international community’s approach to Palestinians, restricting health providers’ capacities and access to desperately needed medical resources.

The sudden death of President Mahmoud Abbas would likely cause a crisis in Palestinian governance that would have significant impacts on the health sector. Likewise, any new elections that result in a change in leadership would cause political and social instability. However, this is less likely due to the PA’s continued refusal to hold presidential and legislative elections.

The four major components of the Palestinian health sector—the Palestinian Ministry of Health, UNRWA, NGOs, and the private sector — will continue to operate their often disparate services for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. However, even if the status quo persists, significant disruptive impacts to Palestinian health may occur, especially through the NGO sector.

The vacancy of the president’s office or the formation of a new legislative council would not have a significant impact on the status quo. This is because the Zionist settler-colonial project is larger than the spaces where these two institutions are relevant, namely, the West Bank and Gaza.

The escalation of popular confrontation with the Israeli regime and the outbreak of a new Palestinian intifada would increase the likelihood of the revival and reform of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), as the public would pressure the political factions to accomplish this task.

Efforts to restore the PLO would receive popular support, provided that Fatah does not insist on following the same political approach of demanding statehood within the 1967 borders, a territory that is continually shrinking due to Israeli annexation, expansion, and de-Palestinization.

The PLO could play an active role in combating the distortive and fragmentary rhetoric surrounding Palestinian history, geography, national identity, heritage, and struggle for liberation, and promote unifying counternarratives.

Those with the greatest chance of taking control of the PA and its institutions have risen through, and been vetted by, the internationally sponsored security infrastructure. Moreover, it has become clear that no one may assume leadership of Palestinian structures of power without gaining the approval of the leaders of the security sector and its interlocutors.