Peace with Israel and unity between rival Palestinian factions may seem like very different challenges, but both require some of the same difficult abilities: putting aside a history of conflict, accepting vastly different ideologies, and confronting reality as it is, rather than holding out for an idealized society.
The Fatah Democratic Reform faction appears to be trying to manage just that.
Dimitri Diliani, a former member of Fatah’s Revolutionary Council, spokesperson for the FDR faction, and president of the National Christian Coalition in the Holy Land, made his views clear to The Jerusalem Post earlier this week.
He described Israel as a “morally bankrupt” society, while arguing that the policies of “incapable” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have helped produce the disaster facing the Palestinian economy.
Though critical of Israel, Abbas, and those who use violence, which he said would only lead to a “failed society,” Diliani is among a group of politically active Palestinians arguing that Palestinians must learn to coexist with people they may profoundly disagree with, and do so peacefully, if they are to build a functioning society.
“Our faction looks at the State of Israel as a state that we need to make peace with in accordance with international law…. We don’t characterize its nature. It’s none of our business.
“And we demand, as victims of that state, that the state also mind its own business in terms of our composition, our views… and look at us as a people that you need to make peace with to continue your survival in this Middle East,” he told the Post.
That same pragmatic approach appears to inform the reform faction’s efforts to engage with Hamas.
The faction’s leader, Mohammad Dahlan, the first head of the PA’s Preventive Security Service, spent years battling Hamas and, according to an exclusive report by Vanity Fair, was involved in a Bush administration-backed plot to oust the group from Gaza in 2008. Dahlan was removed from his position in Khan Yunis, where he was born, following Hamas’s violent takeover of the Gaza Strip. After years of political confrontation, Dahlan also eventually left the West Bank amid allegations from officials within his own Fatah party.
Following a leaked recording in which Dahlan criticized Abbas and his sons, the PA brought a series of allegations against him, including that he had attempted to mount a coup against Abbas, been involved in the circumstances surrounding Yasser Arafat’s death, and embezzled approximately $16 million in public funds.
Dahlan has consistently denied the allegations.
Some analysts have argued that Abbas’s campaign against Dahlan was also linked to concerns that Dahlan was being positioned by the Bush administration as a potential deputy and successor.
The bad blood between Dahlan, Hamas, and the Fatah leadership was notably absent from a letter penned by the Dahlan obtained by the Post, and did not prevent him from meeting with Hamas leadership in Cairo earlier this month.
“The catastrophe that has struck Gaza, the dangers facing the West Bank and Jerusalem, and the collapse, weakness, and fragmentation that have affected our national institutions require us to undertake an honest and courageous reassessment – not to put the past on trial or settle scores, but to understand what happened, draw lessons from it, and prevent its repetition,” he wrote.
“Therefore, the most important question is no longer who was right and who was wrong. Rather: How do we protect our people and our cause, save our people in Gaza, and protect our people and our land in the West Bank and Jerusalem? What kind of political system do we want to establish for future generations?”
For Diliani, the explanation for Dahlan’s rapprochement with Hamas is simple: Hamas exists, will continue to exist, and it isn’t pragmatic to plan for a political future on an impossible premise.
“We believe that Hamas exists. Hamas was not eliminated by the genocide, and Hamas will not be eliminated by force. Hamas is there as a resistance to the occupation. So, as long as there is a military occupation, there will always be Hamas…. As long as there is one Palestinian out there, there will be a faction that will resist the military occupation,” he argued.
Palestinian politicians accept the reality that Hamas will continue to function, regardless of the fact that the US-backed agreement signed by both Hamas and Jerusalem demanded that the Iran-backed group “agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form.”
Diliani claimed that Hamas has “so far honored the Trump plan… [and] the law” – though the IDF has frequently accused Hamas of violating the agreement – and so would likely “adhere” to restrictions surrounding the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in November.
Husam Badran, a senior member of Hamas’s political bureau, confirmed on Al-Aqsa TV last month that the group plans to participate in the PLC elections. Prof. Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, told the Post at the time that it may do this by forming a new party, not under the name of Hamas, or by allying with Dahlan.
To participate in the elections, a party needs to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and be a Palestinian citizen with permanent residency in the Palestinian territories. Hamas does not recognize the PLO’s authority, partially because it rejects recognition of the Israeli state, and Dahlan is a resident of the United Arab Emirates, not the Palestinian territories, making the issue of their running all the more complicated.
Still, an alliance could give Hamas supporters a way to cast their votes, empowering the FDR fragment of Fatah, while allowing Hamas a say, protection, or control over the future of the Palestinian territories.
“Whether Hamas will have a role or not… the ideology is there,” Diliani said. “…To [claim] that the idea, the ideology, has disappeared would be ignorant, to say the least.”
PA presidential election could take place in 2027
BEYOND THE PLC election, which is only months away, a presidential election could finally take place in 2027.
The election has been postponed for the past 15 years, allowing Abbas to remain in office well beyond the end of his four-year term.
Palestinian polls have repeatedly shown his limited support, with the latest survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research finding that just 14% of Palestinians would vote for him if a presidential election were held today.
Convicted in absentia by a Palestinian court, Dahlan would currently be barred from running for president under Article 37 of Decree-Law No. 1 of 2007 on General Elections, and under Article 75 of the Palestinian constitution, which prohibits candidates who have been convicted by a competent court of a felony or a misdemeanor involving dishonor or breach of trust.
His eligibility could be restored if the conviction were overturned or otherwise removed by an appeals court, or if amnesty were granted as part of a national unity agreement.
With Abbas pushing hard to see his son take his place, Diliani said there was also motivation among the Palestinian voters to stop the same style of power transfer that allowed the Assad regime to control Syria.
“What took place in Syria between Hafez al-Assad and his son is a mutation, and in the Arab world, it will never happen again. No one has succeeded in doing that except Hafez al-Assad, and we know how that ended up,” he said.
“His [Abbas’s] son [Yasser Abbas] is not going to take his place. His son is unelectable, even within Fatah, let alone beyond it. Even within his father’s faction. Let’s remember that he was appointed to this position in a very choreographed, controlled environment, which would not be possible if any reconciliation within the movement took place.”
‘No authority acquires or is armed with weapons legitimately over the will of the people’
ON THE renewed push to unify the Palestinian factions, Dahlan wrote in his letter: “We may disagree with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or the leadership of the Palestinian Authority…” but “no authority acquires or is armed with weapons legitimately over the will of the people.”
Since Hamas violently ousted the PA from Gaza in 2007, tensions between Palestinian factions have periodically erupted into armed clashes. Most recently, in December 2024, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters clashed with PA security forces during a crackdown in Jenin. Hamas also called for Palestinians to mobilize against the PA’s security forces.
Hamas has agreed in principle to disarm under Trump’s plan, but the process has yet to begin, amid disagreements over which weapons, if any, it would be allowed to retain, and whether Israel must first withdraw fully from the Strip.
That vision of unity would also require the factions to determine how armed resistance fits into a broader national strategy, particularly given Hamas’s refusal to recognize Israel and its long-standing commitment to a single Palestinian state, while a significant portion of the FDR faction has publicly supported a two-state solution based on the 1967 lines.
The challenge for the reform faction is that pragmatism can only go so far. Recognizing Hamas as a political reality does not resolve the fundamental dispute over weapons, recognition of Israel, or the future political system in Gaza. Nor does support for a two-state solution necessarily make reconciliation with a faction that rejects Israel’s existence any easier.
Diliani said that the idea of armed resistance was growing less popular, though he insisted the Post make clear that he maintained “all forms of resistance are legal under international law in internationally recognized occupied territories. A siege is part of military occupation, and resisting it in any way, shape, or form is totally legitimate.”
Against any and all violence, Diliani said “even if armed resistance does achieve its goals, it would result in a failed society,” and on a practical level it doesn’t make sense to rely on armed resistance when Israel has a more capable military.
“If I’m going to have a competition with Mike Tyson, I’m not going to pick the boxing ring, even though he’s older than I am. Most definitely, he’s more fit, more skilled, and more powerful,” Diliani reasoned. “He would knock me out in a split second. I would take him on and compete with him in chess. We cannot stand up to Israel with violence.”
He suggested many in Hamas had come to that same realization.
Diliani’s argument about nonviolent resistance was accompanied by a far more sweeping condemnation of Israeli society. He claimed that polling showed a stark contrast between Palestinian support for civil resistance and Israeli attitudes in the Israel-Hamas War, describing Israeli society as “pretty much genocidal” and, in his words, a “genocidal death cult.”
Diliani argued that Israel is a perfect example of a society failed by violence, citing the issues of emigration and the Israeli economy as prime examples of that and a leading reason to focus the collective energy on improving education and healthcare.
As Dahlan wrote in his letter, “Our responsibility today is to open a different path: one that makes difference of opinion a right, not a threat; pluralism a source of strength, not a cause of division; elections a means of transferring power; institutions greater than individuals; and the homeland greater than everyone.
