Critical Policy Brief, Number 2/2025

The demand for a comprehensive "reform" of the Palestinian Authority (PA) has been a central and recurring theme in every major diplomatic statement issued since the October 7, 2023, attack. The question of reforming the PA, a low international priority since the Second Intifada, has been thrust to the very heart of all discussions about the "day after" the Gaza war. A sudden, broad consensus has emerged among key actors—the United States, the European Union, and major Arab states—that the PA in its pre-war form is corrupt, ineffective, and lacks the legitimacy to govern Gaza.

The primary motivation for these demands is the international community's desperate search for a viable, non-Hamas entity to assume control of the Gaza Strip. Having invested billions in the PA, Western powers are unwilling to admit the failure of their state-building project. Yet, they are equally unwilling to challenge the hardline Israeli government that is determined to prevent the PA's return. A "reformed" PA has thus become the convenient fiction, a diplomatic construct designed to avoid confronting the harsh political realities on the ground.

This narrative, however, obscures a deeper truth. Long before the international community rediscovered the language of reform, the Palestinian public and its civil society had been demanding fundamental changes to a political system they viewed as illegitimate and unaccountable. While the PA leadership has consistently ignored these domestic demands, it has shown a remarkable willingness to concede to those made by the US and its allies.

Why is the international community raising the reform banner now, and why has the PA president been so quick to comply? More importantly, are the reforms being demanded consistent with those sought by the Palestinian people? This policy Brief addresses these questions, arguing that the current international reform agenda fundamentally misunderstands the crisis of Palestinian governance and that prioritizing genuine, Palestinian-led democratic renewal is the only viable path forward.

1. The Road to Reform: From Internal Aspiration to International Prerequisite

The international demand for PA reform is not a new phenomenon, but its character has been completely transformed. Its roots can be traced to the Second Intifada, when a 2002 reform effort, backed by popular Palestinian demand for accountability, led to the creation of the prime minister's office to weaken Yasser Arafat's presidency which until then refused parliamentary oversight. The key difference, however, lies in the driver: while those early efforts were animated by a Palestinian desire for better governance, the post-2023 push has been overwhelmingly defined by external actors.

Following the Gaza war, the U.S. consistently framed the creation of a "revitalized and reformed Palestinian Authority" as the sole pathway for its return to Gaza and for any future political settlement. This position was quickly endorsed by Western allies, with the G7 meeting in April 2024 linking "indispensable reforms" to the PA’s ability to govern a unified West Bank and Gaza as part of a viable two-state solution.

Facing immense pressure and political isolation, PA President Mahmoud Abbas signaled his acquiescence. In a pivotal letter to French President Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in June 2025, Abbas condemned Hamas, endorsed its disarmament, and pledged to hold elections within a year. This capitulation set the stage for a series of international declarations that codified the external reform agenda. The New York Declaration of July 2025 and the Co-Chairs' Statement from the International Conference in September 2025 both welcomed Abbas's commitments, specifically praising reforms already underway, including the abrogation of the prisoners' payment system and curriculum revisions under EU supervision.

By November 2025, this dynamic had devolved into a spectacle of compliance. During a visit to Paris, Abbas affirmed his commitment to excluding from future elections any factions not aligned with the PLO's political platform, effectively barring Hamas. In a move reminiscent of the colonial era, he and Macron even announced a joint committee to draft a future Palestinian constitution. These theatrical gestures demonstrated the extent to which a weakened PA was willing to go to ensure its own survival.

This international consensus was cemented in UN Security Council Resolution 2803 (November 2025). The resolution explicitly stated that a "credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination" was conditional upon the PA "faithfully" completing its reform program, as defined by external frameworks like the Trump Peace Plan. Thus, by the end of 2025, the concept of reform had been completely transformed: what began as a Palestinian demand for democratic accountability had become an externally managed litmus test for Palestinian national aspirations. Freedom was no longer an inalienable right but a privilege to be earned by meeting American and European conditions.

2. Three Agendas for Reform: Competing Visions for the PA

The push to reform the PA has intensified, but the term "reform" itself has become a contested space, representing three distinct and often conflicting agendas: the security-first framework demanded by the United States and Israel, the governance-focused model preferred by European and Arab states, and the legitimacy-driven aspirations of the Palestinian public.

The first agenda, driven primarily by the United States and Israel, is fundamentally a security-oriented project aimed at transforming the PA into a more effective counter-terrorism partner. This framework prioritizes the creation of a "revitalized" PA that can prevent Gaza from ever again becoming a platform for attacks. Its core demands are highly controversial among Palestinians and include halting all payments to the families of prisoners and martyrs, which it frames as ending "incitement"; revising the school curriculum to remove anti-Israel content; and demanding the PA adopt an exclusionary stance toward Hamas. In essence, it envisions a PA that aligns its security and foreign policy with Israeli and U.S. interests.

The second agenda, championed by the European Union and key Arab states like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, overlaps with the American model but places a stronger emphasis on good governance and institutional capacity. As the primary funders of the PA and future reconstruction, these actors demand a technocratic government of independent experts, robust anti-corruption measures, and fiscal transparency. While they support security reform, their motivation is to build a credible, functioning, and "viable" Palestinian state that can be a stable partner in a future two-state solution. Their demands for a strong prime minister and financial accountability coincide with some Palestinian desires, but their agenda is ultimately a top-down, state-building project designed to create a predictable and responsible governing entity.

The third and most fundamental agenda is that of the Palestinian public and civil society. This vision is driven not by security or technocracy but by the urgent need for political legitimacy and national unity. As extensive polling shows, the overwhelming public priority is the reunification of the Palestinian territories and reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas and the holding of free and inclusive presidential and legislative elections. Palestinians demand the restoration of the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary, and the creation of accountable institutions, beginning with an empowered parliament that can hold the executive branch in check. For the Palestinian public, reform is not about creating a more efficient security subcontractor for the occupation or a more transparent recipient of foreign aid; it is about rebuilding a fractured national movement and restoring a political system that represents the will of the people. This vision often stands in direct opposition to the exclusionary and security-focused demands of the international community.

3. Palestinian Perspectives: A Consensus on Internal Priorities

A series of interviews with five prominent Palestinian figures reveals a powerful consensus on the nature of reform, highlighting the deep chasm between externally imposed dictates and genuine internal needs. The speakers—George Giacaman, a political science professor and public intellectual at Muwatin and Birzeit University; Khalil Shaheen, a veteran political analyst and director of research at Masarat; Shawan Jabarin, a leading human rights defender and director of Al-Haq; Ammar Dweik, director of the Independent Commission for Human Rights; and Qaddura Fares, a former minister and the former head of the Palestinian Prisoners' Society—unanimously agree that meaningful reform must be driven by Palestinian priorities, not foreign agendas they view as designed to manage the conflict rather than resolve it.

There is a unified rejection of key external demands, which are seen as Israeli-led initiatives adopted by the international community to undermine the Palestinian national project. The call to halt payments to prisoners and martyrs is uniformly condemned as an attempt to criminalize the national struggle. The demand to revise the educational curriculum is viewed as a direct assault on Palestinian identity and historical narrative. The external pressure to appoint a vice president is dismissed as blatant interference aimed at engineering a controlled succession rather than fostering democratic legitimacy. All interviewees stress that acquiescing to these foreign dictates without a clear and irreversible political horizon toward statehood would only weaken the PA and deepen internal divisions.

In stark contrast, the interviewees identify a clear and urgent internal reform agenda, with one demand standing as the cornerstone for all others: the holding of free and fair general elections. Described as "90% of the reform process" by Qaddura Fares, elections are seen as the only mechanism to restore popular legitimacy, reactivate oversight institutions like the parliament, and create the political will necessary to tackle other critical issues. Fighting corruption, described by Shawan Jabarin as a "pervasive system starting from the top," and ensuring the independence of the judiciary are considered vital goals, but most interviewees believe they are impossible to achieve without the accountability that only an elected legislature can provide.

Furthermore, the idea of imposing political conditions on parties participating in future elections—such as demanding they accept prior agreements like Oslo—is categorically rejected. The speakers argue that such preconditions are undemocratic, illegal under Palestinian Basic Law, and designed to exclude opposition, thereby entrenching authoritarianism. As Qaddura Fares asserts, "Any Palestinian decision must be cooked in the Palestinian, not the Israeli, kitchen." In essence, the interviews reveal a powerful consensus: genuine reform begins with elections. The current international "reform" agenda is seen not as a pathway to an independent state, but as a tool to reshape the Palestinian polity into a more compliant entity, perpetuating the status quo of occupation under a guise of technocratic improvement.

4. Conclusion: Is "Reforming" a Hollow PA Meaningless?

The international community is demanding reform from a Palestinian polity that has been systematically de-institutionalized. Following Hamas's takeover of Gaza in 2007 and President Abbas's subsequent consolidation of power, the PA and the PLO have been gutted of any meaningful institutional base. The Palestinian Legislative Council has been defunct for nearly two decades, the judiciary has been subordinated to the executive, and power is concentrated almost entirely in the hands of the president. The external actors making these demands are fully aware of this institutional void; in fact, it appears to be the very reason they expect automatic compliance from a leadership that cannot fall back on public or institutional support. For its own survival, the current Palestinian leadership finds it impossible to resist the encroachment of international powers.

The events of October 7 and its aftermath have only accelerated this loss of Palestinian political agency. Hamas’s gamble destroyed its own capacity to govern, while the PA’s paralysis has robbed all Palestinians of the ability to make their own decisions. The ensuing vacuum has invited regional powers to re-enter as custodians, marking a "re-Arabization" of the conflict unseen for decades. Just as the PLO did in 1993, the current leadership is willing to make deep concessions to ensure its own survival.

In this context, the calls for a "restructured, transparent, technocratically-led authority" to take charge of Gaza appear disconnected from reality. A new social contract is indeed needed, but it cannot be imposed on an empty shell. A PA devoid of institutional structures and public trust is not reformable; it is a captive of a leader who has spent a decade centralizing power. Without the legitimacy that can only be conferred by the people, none of these externally mandated reforms can be truly institutionalized. The unavoidable conclusion is that the PA must regain its institutional structure and legitimacy before it can be meaningfully reformed. This makes the holding of elections not just one priority among many, but the absolute prerequisite for any viable path forward.

Ultimately, the international focus on PA reform serves as a convenient diversion, allowing diplomats and politicians to avoid confronting the elephant in the room: Israeli policies aimed at annexing Palestinian territories and preventing the creation of a Palestinian state. Linking the future of Gaza or the revival of a political process to the "reform" of a hollowed-out PA is a political fiction. The PA will resume control over Gaza only when Israel is either compelled by the international community or decides it is in its own strategic interest. Until then, the international agenda will remain committed to a make-believe issue, ensuring that the cycle of conflict continues unabated.