Jerusalem and the elections of the State of Palestine 2021: Political paper

Author: Dr. Walid Salem

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With the issuance of Decree-Law No. 1 of 2021 amending Decree-Law No. 1 of 2007 on Palestinian elections on behalf of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and its publication in the Palestinian Chronicle magazine on the thirteenth of January, and the subsequent issuance of a presidential decree setting the dates for successive elections on On the fifteenth of the same month, the issue of the Palestinian elections, which were held for the last time fifteen years ago, will have been resolved. Despite the sufferings that permeated this period of delay, especially the issue of division and the accompanying harmful manifestations at all levels, what raises optimism this year is that the elections that were decided to be held during it are elections for the presidency of the State of Palestine and its Legislative Council (parliament) this time and not just elections for the transitional period As was the case with the elections held previously, and these elections also include the State of Palestine and the Palestinian National Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization in one process, albeit sequentially.

This policy paper discusses several options on how to hold Palestinian elections in Jerusalem with all the problems associated with that. The first is the option of holding them within the framework of what was stipulated in the Oslo II elections protocol that was signed at the end of September 1995, which stipulated arrangements for the elections of a transitional period to be held. In coordination with Israel, which is an option that may not be possible to obtain Israel’s approval, especially since the 2021 elections are held for a state and not to extend the transitional period, as Israel and its forthcoming government after the elections in late March may not often accept holding these elections that come under the title “elections for a state.” Palestine, "which it does not recognize and requires that its establishment result from a negotiated agreement in Jerusalem first, and resorting again to European pressure and the pressure of the new US Biden administration on Israel regarding it may not bear fruit, especially since the US administration may agree with Israel that the elections will not be State elections and seek to put pressure on the Palestinian side to make them elections an extension of the period of self-rule until agreement is reached on a state with Israel as a result of a negotiated agreement. This means that we may have to prepare for elections that will take the form of confrontation with the occupation, especially in Jerusalem. Accordingly, the paper recommends the option of holding elections for Parliament, the presidency of the state, and a Palestinian National Council that will be held in stages and within the framework of the struggle with the occupation in order to disengage from it and achieve an additional step on the path to national liberation. The Israeli Municipality of Jerusalem, and the impact of these arrangements on the Palestinian elections as a whole. In the context of the paper, all these options will be discussed, as well as all issues related to holding elections in Jerusalem, nomination, election, electoral propaganda, polling stations, local and international monitoring of the elections, and other related issues.

With regard to the elections of the Palestinian Palestinian National Council, they were held until 1996 on the basis that the factions in the Palestine Liberation Organization elect their representatives in the council, in addition to the elected representatives of the Palestinian people’s federations and communities. Council members are representatives of Palestinian factions, unions and communities. Since the elections of the first Legislative Council of the Palestinian National Authority, it has been approved to add the elected members of the Legislative Council to the National Council, as representatives of occupied Palestine in 1967.

Jerusalem and occupied Palestine in 1967 were represented before that date in the National Council through its refugees and displaced persons, but they were represented for the first time directly in the National Council after the legislative elections in 1996. This has been raised throughout the life of the Palestinian National Council since it was established in Jerusalem on May 1, 1964. Several ideas for electing the Palestinian National Council from among the Palestinian people in the homeland and diaspora. These ideas were repeated in the Palestinian reconciliation agreements that took place after the division in 2007 as a result of Hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip that year. In this paper, they will be addressed. How to hold these elections in Jerusalem.

With regard to the legislative and presidential elections, they have been held twice so far, the first in 1996 and included presidential and legislative elections according to the electoral district formula, where Palestine was divided into sixteen electoral districts at that time, while the second was held as presidential elections in 2005, and legislative elections in 2006, according to the formula 50% for constituencies and 50% for proportional representation. Jerusalem was included in both cases, and in those elections the number of members of the Legislative Council was increased from 88 to 132, of whom 20 percent are women. The 2021 elections will be held according to the formula of full proportional representation and in two phases, starting with the legislative elections, to be followed by the presidential elections and the elections for the Council Palestinian National.

The paper proposes that there be a halt to the exclusion of Jerusalem from the Palestinian local elections when they are held, as they have been held since the nineteenth century. Jerusalem municipal elections were held for the first time in 1863, and the mayor at that time was the well-known Jerusalemite thinker Youssef Dia al-Khalidi, and these elections took place during the era of The British mandate and during the period of Jordanian rule and then the Israeli occupation after 1967 since 1972, and it continued on an almost regular basis after the formation of the Palestinian National Authority in 1994 for all the northern and southern governorates, but it did not include Jerusalem after the formation of the authority.

Returning to Jerusalem, there was a municipality called the Jerusalem Municipality. Elections for this municipality were held for the last time in 1963, under the supervision of the Jordanian government. After 1967, the Israeli occupation dissolved the Jerusalem Municipality days after its occupation of the city in June of that year. And he “unified” East Jerusalem with West Jerusalem and subjected both administratively and services to the Israeli Municipality of West Jerusalem (Halabi 2007). He headed the secretariat and continued to do so until 2019, when he passed away. One of the activities of the Jerusalem Municipality in Amman was to represent the city in federations of Arab and international capitals and cities. The Municipality also concluded 59 twinning agreements for Jerusalem with international cities after the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority, as reported by the Popular National Congress (Younes Al-Amouri from the Popular National Congress).

President Yasser Arafat reconstituted the Jerusalem Municipality by presidential decree in 1999, then it was appointed again in 2012 by President Mahmoud Abbas, and the question today is about how to elect it, as stipulated in the decisions of the National Council session, and the two sessions of the Central Council that were held all in 2018 2018, which stipulated the need to reconfigure the Jerusalem Municipality according to the best democratic and representative formula.

So, legislative and presidential elections were held in Jerusalem after the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority, while no local elections were held there, nor were elections held for the Palestinian National Council.

The legislative and presidential elections and Jerusalem

The Jerusalem governorate, according to the Palestinian division, includes fifty localities, 21 of which are located in what was called Jerusalem 1 by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, and it represents that part of the Jerusalem governorate located within the apartheid wall under the full control of the Zionist colonial settlement regime and its authority Al-Askariyyah, and the sites of Quds 1 according to the classification approved by the Central Bureau of Statistics are: Kafr Aqab, Beit Hanina, Shuafat, Shuafat Camp, the Old City, Bab Al-Sahira, Sheikh Jarrah, Wadi Al-Jouz, Al-Sawanah, Al-Thawri, Silwan, Ras Al-Amud, Al-Tur, Al-Isawiya, Al-Shayyah, Beit Safafa, Umm Tuba, Sur Baher, Sharafat, Al-Sawahra Al-Gharbia, and Jabal Al-Mukaber (Central Statistics Organization, 2017). These communities are inhabited by 926 &

39,442 live in Jerusalem Governorate as a whole (Central Bureau of Statistics, 2019, p. 27).

39;, special arrangements for the Palestinian elections in Jerusalem 1, and these arrangements included that a number of citizens of Jerusalem 1 vote in five post offices in the city, according to the capacity of those offices, while the remaining Jerusalemites of Jerusalem 1, who are the majority, vote in Palestinian polling centers located outside Jerusalem 1 (Palestinian-Israeli Interim Agreement: Election Supplement, pg. 39 of the Central Elections Commission 1996).

34,39 people, or 42.47% (Central Elections Commission, 1996, pg. 42), and of these, 5,327 people voted in five post offices inside the city (Central Elections Committee page) in ordinary envelopes that did not bear any Palestinian slogans or symbols, as if they were voting Foreigners residing outside their country and sent to that country. In the 2005 presidential elections, 299 & 39 28 people were registered for elections in Jerusalem (Central Elections Committee: webpage, and Shikaki 2007 p. 283), which are lower numbers than in 1996, despite the increase in the population from 1996 to 2005. Finally, in the legislative elections of 2006, 41,006 people voted (Central Elections Committee: webpage) out of a total of 48,340 people who registered for these elections (Al-Shikaqi, 2007, p. 303). Those who were not registered in Jerusalem were also allowed to vote, which raised the number of voters to 66,599. person. 6,300 Palestinian Jerusalemites voted in six post offices inside the city, after the Sur Baher post office was added to the previous five post offices, which are the offices of Salah El-Din Street, Shuafat, Beit Hanina, Bab Al-Khalil, and Al-Tur. The Central Elections Commission has provided centers to obtain electoral cards in Al-Fatah Al-Fatah, Al-Nizamiyya, and Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq schools, which are located inside Jerusalem 1 (the Central Elections Committee website). The occupation forces committed several violations during the elections, including closing the offices of the Central Elections Committee in Jerusalem. Candidates were prevented from entering the city to conduct electoral campaigns, and other violations mentioned on the Central Elections Commission page.

These data indicate a low voter turnout in the Jerusalem governorate for the Palestinian elections, which did not exceed 42.47% in 1996, while the percentage in the West Bank and Gaza reached 69.63% ( Central Elections Committee, 1996), noting that the above number of voters is due to their total number in the Jerusalem governorate as a whole, i.e. Jerusalem 1 and Jerusalem 2 together.

In the midst of preparing for the 2021 Palestinian elections, questions are being raised again about the possibility of holding them in Jerusalem 1 as legislative, presidential and national council elections, and the ways to achieve that, as well as ways to increase Jerusalemites in them. This is what this paper tries to shed light on, starting with an analysis of the Palestinian strategy proposed so far regarding How to hold elections in Jerusalem, followed by proposed options, and finally mechanisms and ideas for action.

Palestinian elections in Jerusalem in 2021

In late 2019, Hamas and all Palestinian factions agreed to hold the Palestinian legislative elections according to full proportional representation, with the presidential elections to follow months later. At that time, the issue of holding elections in Jerusalem remained as an issue that was still obstructing the issuance of the presidential decree to hold these elections.

To resolve this knot, the Palestinian National Authority took two steps at the end of 2019. The first step was to send a letter to the Israeli government through Minister Hussein Al-Sheikh to agree to hold Palestinian elections in Jerusalem in accordance with the aforementioned Oslo II arrangements, and in December 2019 the government was informed The Israeli side, the Palestinian side, is refusing to respond to the Palestinian request at this stage. This Israeli response called for the Palestinian side to move to the second step, which was the request of European governments and the United Nations to put pressure on Israel in order to force it to agree to holding elections in Jerusalem. The Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney and the United Nations delegate to the peace process Nicholas spoke with the Israelis in this regard. Mladenov, and both of them did not find a listening ear with the Israeli government. On January 9, 2020, Dr. Saeb Erekat, Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, met with the ambassadors of the European Union countries accredited to Palestine and reiterated the request that their governments put pressure on Israel to hold the Palestinian elections in East Jerusalem, and this meeting coincided with a statement by Mr. Azzam Al-Ahmad A member of the Central Committee of the Fatah movement, in which he indicated that the president will hold a meeting of all factions to discuss the results in the event that Israel refuses to hold elections in Jerusalem. Finding a solution by circumventing the right of Jerusalemites to vote in their city. Finally, Mr. Al-Ahmad raised the possibility of moving to elections for a comprehensive state parliament for Jerusalem instead of legislative council elections for a transitional period, provided that this takes place within the framework of defiance with the occupation and clash with it.

European attempts remained ongoing in the period before the emergence of the Corona pandemic crisis in March 2020, as a continuation of Coveney's efforts mentioned above. In this context, Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh asked Norway on January 16, 2020 to pressure Israel to hold elections, as was requested by French President Emmanuel Macron to raise the issue with Netanyahu during his meeting with him in Jerusalem on January 22, 2020. On the same day, Arab ambassadors raised the issue to their European counterparts at the Arab-European coordination meeting held in Brussels, noting that a number of European countries were still It needs to be persuaded at that time before moving with Israel, as these countries require the issuance of a presidential decree on the elections first, and before talking with Israel on this issue (Al-Azaar, January 2020). After the Israeli government refused to give its response, it seemed as if the matter of holding the Palestinian elections had been frozen. And after the March 2, 2020 elections in Israel, the Corona pandemic crisis erupted in Palestine and Israel, which reinforced the aforementioned freeze. At that time, it seemed that the reliance on Israeli approval to hold elections in Jerusalem within the restrictions of the Oslo aforementioned had ended, as the Israeli government that was formed after the March 2020 elections did not accept holding these elections also in what it considers the unified capital of Israel. On the contrary, it was seeking to annex the Jordan Valley and the colonial settlements in The West Bank, with the support of the administration of US President Donald Trump at the time, in addition to Jerusalem, which was previously annexed to Israel.

So, two Palestinian steps have been taken so far in 2019 and 2020: the first is a direct request from Israel to accept the holding of presidential and legislative elections in Jerusalem, to which Israel has refused to respond, and the second step is to ask the Europeans and the United Nations to pressure Israel to agree. Which did not acquiesce in Israel. Later, the third step was proposed by Mr. Azzam Al-Ahmad, which is elections for the head of state and parliament of the State of Palestine within the framework of challenging the occupation and opening a battle with it. The importance of this step comes at a time when the election decree was issued by President Mahmoud Abbas on the fourteenth of January 2021, after he The President received an official letter from the head of the political bureau of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, stating that the movement accepts the holding of legislative, presidential and Palestinian National Council elections sequentially and in accordance with the full proportional representation formula. The decree provided for legislative elections to be held on the twenty-second of May, the presidential elections on the thirty-first of July, and for the National Assembly on the thirty-first of August 2021, provided that the elections this time are elections for the State of Palestine and not elections for a transitional period, as was the case in the previous elections, as stated. In the text of the decree-law issued by the President before the election decree and published by the Palestinian Chronicle magazine on the thirteenth of January.

How can such an election be? What are its steps? What options might be available within it? And what is the best option among them?

Options for holding Palestinian elections in Jerusalem

The statement of Mr. Azzam Al-Ahmad from last year above indicates that the State of Palestine has washed its hands of the possibility of the Israeli government agreeing to hold elections in Jerusalem, and accordingly the presidential decree of 2021 regarding the elections came to determine their holding for a Palestinian state, which was what Mr. Al-Ahmad. Nevertheless, the current political movement indicates the possibility of going once again to the Biden administration and the European Union to negotiate with Israel about holding elections in Jerusalem, and this will entail two possibilities: The first is that Israel again distances itself from providing any approval under the pretext that this is not possible while it is going through a stage of preparation. For new elections that will take place in late March, and the second possibility is that the Europeans and Americans return to Palestine holding an Israeli condition that the elections to be held are not for the State of Palestine but for extending the period of self-rule, and in the end the Europeans and the new Biden administration in Washington may succeed in obtaining Israeli approval from the government The Israeli elections that may be formed after the Israeli elections (if they are formed in light of the ongoing internal tensions in Israel) to hold the Palestinian elections as state elections in Jerusalem on the basis that the Palestinians may call them state elections, which are not in reality, and this approval will often be excluded, as it may come late As for the timetable for the Palestinian elections, since the formation of the new Israeli government after the March 23 elections there will need several weeks, which will be followed by other weeks of internal deliberation and negotiation with the Americans before an Israeli decision is taken. Will such a situation result in Palestine postponing the legislative elections scheduled for May 22, in connection with the Israeli timetable? this is the question .

On the other hand, the Biden administration may succeed in obtaining Israeli approval for elections to extend the autonomy period according to the Oslo formula, which was not a fair formula for the Jerusalemites of Jerusalem 1, as the vast majority of them were forced to vote outside the borders of Jerusalem 1, and in this second case it will be Palestine to decide between three options:

First: Conducting elections according to full proportional representation, including candidates from Jerusalem in the proportional representation lists running in the elections, but with abandoning the presence of polling centers inside Jerusalem and conducting electoral campaigns in the city, which may result in reducing the turnout for voting by Jerusalemites.

Second: Or to decide to open mobile polling stations in the city and conduct electoral campaigns in the city and other requirements for the elections in the context of a planned confrontation with the occupation (see below).

Third: Or take the easiest decision, but the most detrimental to the internal well-being of Palestinian society, which is to freeze the elections again under the pretext of Israel's refusal to hold them in Jerusalem.

In this context, Dr. Hanna Nasser, head of the Central Elections Committee, stated in his press conference on the sixteenth of January that the committee has alternative options for holding elections in Jerusalem in case the occupation refuses to hold them there. It is expected here that Dr. Nasser means firstly exempting Jerusalemites from pre-registration for the elections, as stated on the Central Elections Committee’s web page, which is a double-edged sword, as it may result in many Jerusalemites’ reluctance to vote if large campaigns are not carried out by the factions and candidates among them to convince them to vote, as well as convince them of what will happen. About God in these elections of the results and positive effects on them. Without that, the voter turnout of Jerusalemites, especially from Quds 1, will remain low, as was the case in the previous elections, and perhaps even lower. Dr. Nasser also means holding electronic electoral campaign meetings, and electronic voting for Jerusalemites, especially in the circumstances of the spread of the Corona virus that helps in that, but that will also not be sufficient as will be shown below, just as it would be wrong to place the burden of managing the electoral process in Jerusalem on the shoulders of the Central Elections Committee Only, since the issue of the elections in Jerusalem is a political issue par excellence and requires more than solutions and technical interventions that require roles for the Palestine Liberation Organization and the factions in resolving and dealing with it.

Returning to the three Palestinian options, the option of postponing the Palestinian elections this time does not seem likely, for the following reasons:

First: Palestine's lack of confidence that the direction of the movement in Israel will give approval for holding elections in Jerusalem according to Palestinian requirements. Israel did not do that, and it is fully confident that all American administrations, Republicans and Democrats, consider all of Jerusalem as the unified capital of Israel, and that the Biden administration will not relocate the American embassy again from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, and that this administration, along with Europe, will suffice with statements of condemnation for the expansion of Jerusalem to the Dead Sea in the east. , and even the outskirts of the city of Hebron in the south, and until the middle of the road towards Nablus in the north, as well as the continued incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Judaization of the city center of Jerusalem surrounding the Old City and its vicinity, such as the extensive Judaization operations taking place in Silwan and other Israeli practices aimed at liquidating the place, territory, space, and the Palestinian scene in the city and dispelling And the fragmentation of the Palestinian society in it and the distortion of the national identity, especially for the Jerusalemite youth sector.

Second: Palestine's need to restore weight to the Palestinian cause after it was marginalized by some Arab regimes that moved to ally with Israel. It is sacred to the three monotheistic religions and is not an exclusive right of Muslims, which in turn led to the legitimization of the Zionist incursions and by extremist evangelical groups in America and the world to the Noble Sanctuary.

Third: Palestine's need to unify the Palestinian house in order to improve the Palestinian ability to present its positions and press for their realization by speaking with one voice with the new American administration and the world, investing in the framework of that positive and supportive atmosphere emerging in early 2021 such as Gulf reconciliation and openness Egyptian on Qatar and Turkey.

The option of postponement remains less likely as long as the above three factors remain present, but the possibilities of postponement may increase in the event of the occurrence of two variables:

The first variable is related to the emergence of differences between Fatah and Hamas regarding the details of the elections procedures, such as the joint list of Fatah and Hamas with or without the rest of the factions, or the failure to agree on the details of what was called the incomplete list, which requires that each faction run in the legislative elections with a list of less than 132 members. They are the number of members of the Legislative Council in order to leave vacant seats for other factions, as well as the disagreement over what will follow the legislative elections, such as the method of forming the government, sharing governance in the West Bank and Gaza, the presidential elections and the mechanisms for electing the National Council. This also means the possibility of holding legislative elections and postponing the presidential and National Assembly elections, both or one of them.

As for the second variable, it is related to the occurrence of intense American-European pressure, with the participation of some Arabs, to prevent elections for a Palestinian state and to postpone such elections until after an agreement with Israel on that state, its borders, and the scope of its sovereignty. Some strive that in the framework of such a change, only legislative council elections may take place, taking into account as they see that the presidential decree for elections called for the elections of the presidency of a state, but in return it did not call for the election of a state parliament, but instead called for the elections of a legislative council that repeats the previous councils, forgetting with A previous stage of self-rule (Asfour, 2021). If this analysis is correct, and it is what needs jurisprudence about it, then the aforementioned pressures may result in holding elections for the Legislative Council only, and postponing the remaining elections to a later stage.

In addition to these two variables, the Israeli factor that may obstruct the holding of any elections that Israel may not approve of should be taken into consideration, by raiding and closing polling stations, setting up barriers to prevent access to them, and arresting candidates, and so on. These procedures may include Jerusalem as well as other areas of the West Bank, and may take on a more severe character when holding elections for the Palestinian presidency of the State of Palestine, which is not recognized by Israel, than in the case of elections for the Legislative Council within the framework of the transitional period and agreements with Israel.

It is concluded from the foregoing that the chances of holding legislative elections are higher than others, based on the existence of a certain degree of internal agreement on them and the potential Arab and international support for them. The National Council may be more complex because it is related to the nature of the PLO program and the proportions of representation within it.

Concerning Jerusalem, the holding of legislative elections will apparently include a mixture between integrating Jerusalemite candidates into the relative electoral lists, and electronic operations that include holding electronic meetings by the Central Elections Committee to educate Jerusalemite voters, and organizing electronic voting from them. As for the factions, parties and candidates, the electoral campaign will be carried out by electronic means, and it will not be devoid of the issue of posting propaganda banners inside the city and holding some electoral meetings in the city. As for the biggest issue, it will be to prevent the presence of any ballot boxes inside the city. Is electronic voting enough to compensate for that? . It will also prevent local and international oversight of the elections inside the city, and the media will be prohibited from covering the progress of the electoral process in it. What to do about these obstacles?

Suggested mechanisms for holding elections for the state's parliament and president, and for the Palestinian National Council

Some believe that the inclusion of Jerusalemites by a certain percentage in the proportional representation lists is sufficient to solve the problem of Jerusalem in the Palestinian elections. According to this simplified point of view, Jerusalemites are represented whether they vote in the elections or not. In the best case, these Jerusalemites call for meetings on the Zoom system for electoral propaganda, and those who cannot vote electronically can be invited to come to polling stations to be held in state-controlled Jerusalem 2. Palestine, that is, to vote outside their city.

This opinion leads to candidates from Jerusalem being included in the electoral lists, and it does not solve the problem of Jerusalemites as a whole in the electoral process. In view of this proposition, it must be said that the elections should be held within the framework of a broader national participatory process to rebuild the ties that have been severed between Jerusalem and Palestine, i.e. returning Jerusalem to Palestine, and returning Palestine to it, not only at the level of slogans and plans, but also at the level of implementing plans and launching general Palestinian initiatives. Towards Jerusalem, and another launch from Jerusalem towards Palestine, that is, the process should be integrated and reciprocal. This process, in turn, leads to the launch of another, parallel disengagement from the occupation, in the city on the path of liberation, in light of the fact that it is also a city of Arab, Islamic, and global importance religiously and historically.

Any disengagement from the occupation in Jerusalem must take into account the coordination of Palestinian, Arab and international efforts together in this regard. In other words, the matter requires holding elections in Jerusalem in a Palestinian participatory manner, and with the Arab and Islamic worlds and the world, accompanied by a distribution of roles... How is that?

The beginning lies in strengthening the relationship between the various sectors and groups of the Jerusalemite community in preparing for and implementing the elections in the city by opening the widest organized and sequential dialogue about the elections in Jerusalem, in which they participate together on an equal footing and without excluding any of the Palestinian official and unofficial bodies related to Jerusalem: He stands at the forefront of the official bodies, including the Central Elections Committee, then the Jerusalem Department of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Higher Presidential Committee of Jerusalem, the Ministry of Jerusalem Affairs, the Jerusalem Governorate, the National People’s Congress for Jerusalem, the Islamic Christian Organization for the Support of Jerusalem, the Jerusalem Municipality, and the Jerusalem Endowment Council. And informal ones, such as civil society organizations, committees, and bodies operating in the local communities of Jerusalem, such as local committees, reform committees, zakat committees, the National and Civil Action Authority in Jerusalem, political parties and factions in the city, national, religious, and clan symbols of the city, imams of mosques, Christian church leaders, active groups in cyberspace, and media workers Read, visual and audio.

The agenda of this dialogue will focus on election issues in Jerusalem, including:

Provide perceptions about the number of candidates from Jerusalem in each list, and about the criteria for selecting these candidates and how the Jerusalemite community chooses them.

Agree on and create systems for electoral propaganda and mechanisms for raising awareness of the right to vote in the city and recruiting them to.

Finding a creative formula for voting in polling stations located within the city.

According to the method of local oversight of elections in the city, and communicating with international bodies and United Nations bodies present in the city and in solidarity to create systems for international monitoring and protection of polling centers in the city.

This lively dialogue will generate creative ideas and preparations, as well as dynamics and mechanisms that may result, for example, in ideas about how to hold elections within each of the 21 local communities of Jerusalem 1 one by one, and other ideas that are implemented with the participation of the Jerusalemite community.

Popular interactions about the elections in Jerusalem may be accompanied by other interactions with relevant parties. This is a dialogue that can take place with Jordan and with Islamic and Christian endowments in the city to determine what they can do to support holding elections in Jerusalem. This is a dialogue with Arab Knesset members and with Palestinians from within, who live by the thousands in Jerusalem, are also thinking about what their role might be. This is in addition to other dialogues with the representations of the countries of the world, Europe and the United Nations in Jerusalem, and so on.

In the framework of this process, perhaps electronic voting should be excluded as a main method, and perhaps it should be restricted to those who are proficient in working with technology. If it is used alone, it will be a method of escaping from confrontation with the occupation instead of working to restore the close ties between Jerusalem and the rest of the country, as previously mentioned. This is while the elections must take place in Jerusalem under the supervision of the Central Elections Committee in order to unify the elections of Jerusalem with the rest of Palestine, but this will require creative formulas that need development, as well as canceling the voter registry in the case of Jerusalem as the Central Elections Committee has decided, thankfully, and it is sufficient for the citizen to prove his identity through Identity card or driver's license, as is the case in Israeli elections that do not adopt the electoral register.

There was an idea put forward by the National Committee for Monitoring Elections in 2006 proposing that elections be held in schools and not in post offices. This formula may have been appropriate for 2006, but today it may no longer be appropriate, especially in light of the Israeli attack on the education sector in Jerusalem and its tendency to close it. This is similar to previous ideas put forward to hold elections in Jerusalem inside Al-Aqsa and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and this is perhaps no longer an option in light of the frenzied Israeli attack on the holy places in Jerusalem. The possible alternative might be based on holding the 21 Jerusalemite communities responsible for carrying out the elections, including schools, mosques, institutions and clubs, as required by the situation of each of these communities.

There remains a point related to Jerusalemites, refugees and displaced persons abroad, in the elections of the National Council, which will require the participation of refugees and displaced persons from Palestine, including Jerusalem abroad, and this will result in the need to find a special system for this through direct elections wherever possible and through formulas for the representation of sectors and groups and their bodies elected from them Where direct election is not possible, in consultation with the Arab countries hosting refugees and displaced Palestinians.

Concluding remarks and recommendations

In light of the factional consensus that has been nominated until the moment of finalizing this paper, we have come to know that the elections for the Legislative Council will take place either with a joint list between Fatah and Hamas and perhaps with the rest of the factions, or with separate incomplete lists for each faction so that everyone is represented in the Legislative Council. The justification given for this approach says that the dangers that the Palestinian cause has reached have reached an unprecedented situation that requires all Palestinians to take responsibility and decision-making. Instead, we are still waiting for consensuses that will take place (or fail) regarding the elections for the presidency and the National Council, which may result from the meetings. upcoming factions.

It follows from what has been agreed upon so far that the chances of some independents who aspire to form their own lists to run in the elections have shrunk dramatically in the face of the factional monopoly of the electoral political space. In this context, the question also arises about the extent of renewal that the elections will witness, especially with regard to the representation of the youth sector. However, one of the positive things contained in the presidential decree regarding the elections was the increase in the percentage of women’s representation on electoral lists from 20 to 26 percent.

With regard to Jerusalem, the study concludes that the issue of Jerusalem in the elections must be viewed from outside the narrow perspective, which believes that the inclusion of Jerusalemites in the proportional lists is sufficient to solve this issue. The study also concludes that the issues of Jerusalem are political par excellence, so technical solutions such as Conducting electoral propaganda using cyberspace, or electronic voting. Instead, what is required is to initiate a national process that bridges the gap between Jerusalemites and the political leadership, a gap that resulted in a decrease in the percentage of Jerusalemites in the previous Palestinian elections as a result of their feeling that the Oslo Accords had neglected them. The upcoming elections may be an entry point for establishing a participatory mechanism with the various sectors and groups of Jerusalemite society for dialogue with them on all election issues, starting with determining the percentage of Jerusalemites in the lists, methods of electoral propaganda, methods of voting and monitoring elections within the city, and ways of including Jerusalem in the first upcoming Palestinian municipal elections.

Based on the foregoing, the following recommendations can be summarized:

1- The Palestinian elections are held in Jerusalem in a decentralized manner in the local communities of Jerusalem, where voting takes place for the relative lists running in the legislative elections at the national level as a whole in these communities in clubs, mosques and institutions.

2- From today, the Central Elections Committee is responsible for preparing for the elections in Jerusalem, by holding meetings with representatives of Jerusalemite local communities, factions, civil society organizations, Islamic and Christian endowments, international institutions, United Nations institutions in Jerusalem, internal Palestinians residing in Jerusalem, and Arab members of the Knesset. About these meetings:

A- Preparing the detailed election system in Jerusalem and the method of conducting and managing it.

B- Formation of civil and international oversight committees for the elections in Jerusalem.

C- Examine opportunities for some international and UN institutions (from the United Nations) to host ballot boxes for the Palestinian elections in Jerusalem.

A dialogue is also taking place according to the principle of equality between all the official bodies concerned with Jerusalem and between groups and sectors of Jerusalemite society to discuss these two issues and other points as discussed in the above text.

3- The PLO and the State of Palestine are carrying out a campaign with the Arab and Islamic countries, with Europe and the United Nations, and with the help of Jordan, the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, to prepare the majority of the world to accept and support the Palestinian steps in Jerusalem and its elections towards disengagement from the occupation in the city, this is in addition to an explanation and clarification Why do the Palestinian Jerusalemites boycott the municipal elections of the occupation, which aims, among other occupational steps, to integrate East Jerusalem into Israel, which is not well understood internationally, as was evident during the recent Israeli municipal elections, when European parties sought to encourage the Palestinian Jerusalemites to participate in these elections.

4- Making arrangements with the Arab countries hosting the displaced and Palestinian refugees abroad, and determining the percentage of membership of representatives of refugees and displaced persons in the National Council, as well as, later, the percentage of refugees and displaced persons of Jerusalem in the Jerusalem Municipality, which includes the displaced and refugees of the city.

5- In the event that it is not possible to hold Palestinian elections in Jerusalem according to the previous formula, a backup alternative is adopted according to the existing National Council elections method, with some minor modifications, in that the Jerusalemite factions, groups, and communities elect their representatives, and a general council for Jerusalem is established that selects members for the National Council. And for the Parliament of Palestine, as it secretes a secretariat for Jerusalem at the same time.

References and footnotes

- Al-Azaar, Muhammad Khaled. 13/1/2020 “The Europeans and the Palestinian Elections Decree,” Al-Quds Newspaper, p.11.

- Shikaki, Khalil and Harb, Jihad. 2007. The second Palestinian elections: (presidential, legislative, and local government) 2005-2006. Ramallah: The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.

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