Strategic Assessment

The eroding credibility of the Palestinian Authority (PA) since the eruption of the current Israeli-Palestinian confrontation in September 2000 has hindered, if not countered, the institutionalization process of the PLO. The organization’s most impressive achievement has been the almost complete identification between international recognition of the legitimacy of the Palestinian people’s struggle for self-determination and international recognition of the right of the PA, as the organizational extension of the PLO, to lead the struggle. Ironically, since the start of the al-Aqsa Intifada, a breach has developed between the PA’s stature and the political objective upon which it was originally founded. That is, while the recognition of the Palestinian people’s right to national independence has remained as firm as it was on the eve of the uprising, and the need to promote this goal, as perceived in the regional and international arenas, has even heightened, the PA’s domestic and international stature has grown increasingly tenuous.