Agreement signed by Palestinian factions in China
The Beijing Declaration on Ending Division and Strengthening Palestinian National Unity (; ), commonly known as the Beijing Declaration, is an agreement signed on 23 July 2024 by 14 different Palestinian factions, including Fatah and Hamas, as part of the reconciliation process between the two factions in a conflict that started in the aftermath of the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections and included the 2007 Hamas takeover of Gaza.
Background.
Following the outbreak of the Israel–Hamas war in October 2023, the Israeli military advanced into the Gaza Strip. Over the course of the war, a United Nations agency and international organisations including Amnesty International have found that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. This crisis prompted the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and the Hamas leadership to try to reach a new agreement on a unity government with the goal of reaching a common plan of action for the eventual reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. Previous such agreements have never been fully implemented.
Fatah and Hamas are currently the two largest of the Palestinian factions. Founded in 1959, Fatah is the leading member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which is an umbrella organization consisting of several movements. It takes a moderate stance on the conflict with Israel, favoring a two-state solution where the Palestinian state would be built on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Hamas, on the other hand, is a Sunni Islamist movement founded in 1987, that advocates for one Palestinian state in the entire territory. However, in recent years Hamas has accepted a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza as a temporary solution to the conflict, supporting the pre-1967 borders in its 2017 charter.
Negotiations.
The government of the People's Republic of China offered the Palestinian factions its good offices to try to reach an agreement, and in July 2024, representatives of 14 Palestinian organizations met in Beijing, China. On July 23, they concluded a new agreement on unity government.
The most prominent highlight in the deal is a plan to form an interim national reconciliation government around the governance of Gaza after the war with Israel, as well as of the West Bank, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said. Wang further described the meeting as a "historic moment for the cause of Palestine’s liberation".
The negotiations were witnessed by envoys from Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Russia, and Turkey.
Agreement.
According to the declaration, the factions agreed to achieve "a comprehensive Palestinian national unity that includes all Palestinian factions under the PLO framework, and to commit to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital […] with the help of Egypt, Algeria, China and Russia". They stated that this would take the form of a temporary national unity government. They further "agreed to deploy all efforts to lift the Israeli blockade on Gaza and ensure the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid into the enclave".
The declaration also stressed the Palestinian people's right to resist the Israeli occupation in accordance with international law and the United Nations charter and to thwart any attempts to displace Palestinians from their land.
Analysis.
Role of China.
In hosting the conference, analysts including Foreign Policy reporter Amy Mackinnon saw China as seeking to position itself as a rival mediator to the United States in the Middle East. Similarly, Palestinian China expert Razan Shawamreh said China aimed "to gain consent and acknowledgment among regional countries regarding its rising status as a responsible country with a superior moral role compared to the US". RUSI associate fellow Sari Arho Havrén stated China "positioned itself as a peacemaker and a viable alternative to the US".
Analyst Dominika Urhová described the Beijing Declaration as a continuation of earlier Chinese attempts to play a prominent diplomatic role in the area, citing the five-point peace plan which China proposed at the United Nations Security Council in November 2023. However, she also observed that China is engaging more directly with the Palestinian groups than before, instead of remaining "careful not to alienate Israel".
Hani al-Masri, director of the Palestinian Centre for Policy Research and Strategic Studies (Masarat), suggested that Mahmoud Abbas - by engaging in a China-led agreement - "wants to show the Americans and also the Arabs that ‘I have other choices’". Masri linked this to the looming prospect of Donald Trump's reelection as well as a recent Israeli bill that rejected Palestinian statehood. According to him, Fatah hopes to use the agreement as leverage "in case it is denied leadership of post-war Gaza". Masri was also more sceptical about the perceived shift in Chinese policy towards a more pro-Palestinian stance, stating that China has not made any steps to "punish Israel, with whom it has special relations" within the UN or other international organisations.
Significance of the agreement.
A number of Palestinian observers, including PNC member Hamadeh Faraneh and national affairs advisor for the Palestinian Authority Omar Al-Ghoul, acknowledged both the positives and the ambiguities of the agreement. Faraneh was especially critical about the prospect of unity as "Fatah monopolizes both the authority in Ramallah and the leadership of the PLO, and Hamas monopolizes Gaza". However, researcher Jehad Harb argued that the most surprising aspect of the declaration was the shift in Hamas's political thought, as it committed for the first time in an unambiguous way "to the establishment of a Palestinian state according to UN resolutions".
Some Western and international analysts of Palestinian politics dismissed the agreement as the latest in a series of symbolic documents, with no timetable of practical steps to be implemented so long as Hamas refused to dismantle its separate armed wing outside of official Palestinian control.
Jack Khoury of Haaretz cited a senior Fatah official as saying "the joint statement was mainly intended to show respect to the Chinese hosts, as in similar past conventions in Moscow and Algeria, and therefore it does not have much practical significance."
This scepticism was shared by Omar Karmi of The Electronic Intifada. Karmi criticized the declaration's "vagueness", its focus on a "technocratic" unity government, and the lack of a timeline for implementation. On the other hand, he also saw a limited potential for progress in the growing Chinese role as it could "offset Washington’s outsized influence over diplomacy on Palestine".
Palestinian journalist and author Ramzy Baroud reacted more positively to the declaration. In 2023, after an earlier visit by Abbas to Beijing, Baroud had been sceptical: "Palestinians need China, as they need other powerful players in the Global South, but it is not mediation that they desperately require. Mediations do not end military occupations or dismantle apartheid regimes." By contrast, he claimed that the 2024 Beijing Declaration "has allowed China to engage with all groups on an equal footing, without appearing to side with one group against the other". Baroud also stated that China was gradually ending its earlier "balancing act" between its diplomatic leading role and its economic interests (including those in Israel). According to him, since the war in Gaza started, the Chinese discourse had become "mostly committed to the rights of the Palestinian people".
Menachem Klein, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, said that the Beijing agreement is based on the 2012 Cairo agreement and the 2022 Algerian agreement but, "unlike its predecessors, contains political principles". Klein also stressed that the Chinese agreement, however, shows that "it is impossible to separate Hamas from the PA in Ramallah, and that key figures in Hamas are eventually embarking on the political path championed by Fatah and the PLO", explaining that "this is an opportunity to change the current miserable situation that must not be missed".
References.
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