C. Uday Bhaskar

Opinion | Kudos to China for helping open the door to Palestinian unity

The Beijing Declaration reflects China’s aim to project itself as a credible power and peace enabler in West Asia

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C. Uday Bhaskar

Published: 5:30am, 29 Jul 2024

China enabled a potentially major diplomatic breakthrough in the historically tangled and now bloodied Palestinian issue on Tuesday with the consensus reached in the Beijing Declaration. The agreement lays the foundation for reconciliation among 14 rival Palestinian factions. The fact that China brought together the two most dominant groups and bitter rivals – Fatah and Hamas – to the same table is a feather in the cap for Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

One uses the word “potentially”, for West Asian politics and the deeply embedded hostilities and discord that criss-cross the region are a minefield for peacemakers and conflict resolution professionals. Palestine is arguably by far the most difficult and intractable issue in the regional framework.

The core of the Beijing Declaration is a reiteration by all the Palestinian factions to realise national unity under an umbrella, wherein the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) would be acknowledged as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. This decision among the factions is an acknowledgement of the PLO’s primacy in Palestinian politics, and a signal to Hamas.

Further, the declaration reiterated the commitment to establishing an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as the capital, based on relevant UN resolutions and ensuring the integrity of Palestinian territory including the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza.

Currently this declaration is an agreement in principle limited to Palestine’s domestic politics – vulnerable to the shifting sands of the desert. But it is to be cautiously welcomed. Will it pave the way for elections and a national government that can deal with the war and bloodshed that engulfs Palestine, or future reconstruction efforts? These are questions only the Palestinian people and their principal benefactors can answer.

Donning the role of a catalyst for Palestinian factional consensus has been a significant achievement for Beijing. “The key to the Palestinian reconciliation process is to bolster confidence, keep to the right direction, and make incremental progress,” said Wang Yi.