The legislative body of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) is set to discuss suspending the recognition of Israel, in addition to several other critical issues of Palestinian politics.

For the first time in nine years, the Palestinian National Council (PNC) is scheduled to convene in Ramallah on Monday, in a meeting that has Palestinians split between supporters and opponents of the gathering.

Critics of President Mahmoud Abbas have rejected the PNC meeting as a shrewd political manoeuvre, while others see it as a potential turning point in Palestinian politics.

The PNC is expected to vote in a new 18-member Executive Committee of the PLO, the governing body of the organisation, and discuss transforming the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the occupied West Bank, into a state with its own institutions and monetary system.

Dominant Palestinian faction, Fatah decided to push ahead with convening the PNC, despite the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) boycotting the meeting.

Hamas is not invited to the council meeting, even as the topic of Palestinian reconciliation is high on the PNC agenda.

"This meeting is vital to continue the Palestinian efforts to end divisions and fragmentation between Palestinian factions," said Wasel Abu Yousef, a current observer-member of the PLO Executive Committee, and head of one of the smaller Palestinian factions, the Palestine Liberation Front.

"[The PNC will] elect new executive bodies that will push forward, in support of Palestinian national rights," Yousef added.

PLO's Executive Committee member Saeb Erekat told Al Jazeera that "this meeting is a turning point for the Palestinians in this critical junction."

Explaining why the PNC needed to convene after being dormant for years, Erekat told Lebanese media that "successive Israeli governments were never interested in two states - Israel and Palestine living side by side".

"Rather, what they wanted all along was one state - Israel - with two systems; an apartheid state," Erekat told Beirut-based Al Mayadeed TV.

Mohammad Shtayyeh, a member of Fatah's Central Committee, told Al Jazeera that "the reason behind electing a new PLO Executive Committee is to ensure the legal framework and continuity of representation of the Palestinian people."

The PNC's agenda will also discuss the United State's positions on Israel - especially the US' recognition of Jerusalem as Israeli capital - and ways to deal with the measures.

"No Palestinian will accept dealing with the United States so long as it insists on its positions on Jerusalem and being against the rights of Palestinian refugees to return home," Erekat said.

Palestinians have consistently demanded that the Arab eastern side of the holy city be recognised as their future capital.

Israel occupied the east side of Jerusalem during the 1967 war, along with the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and Sinai Peninsula. In 1980, Israel annexed East Jerusalem, in contravention of international laws regarding land occupied during wars.

The PNC meeting will also discuss calls to suspend PLO recognition of Israel, cut all ties and agreements with it, and discuss resistance to the Israeli occupation of Palestine in peaceful means.

In addition, the PNC will discuss is the transformation of the Palestinian Authority from an authority based on the Oslo agreements to a formal state in the occupied territories.

It is also expected to discuss Palestinian reconciliation efforts to end the division between Fatah and Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip.

Critics, however, argue that Abbas' insistence to convene the PNC is motivated by ensuring his legacy and preserving the interests of his Fatah faction.

They fear that once Abbas, 82, guarantees the formation of a loyalist PNC and PLO executive body, he would then work to guarantee the continuity of his vision after he leaves the scene.

Maher Obeid, a senior Hamas official, told Al Jazeera that Abbas did not want Hamas to participate unless it surrenders to its conditions and gives up its armed resistance to Israeli occupation.

"Abbas wants to exact revenge on Hamas for his own personal reasons," Obeid said.

Hamas issued a statement rejecting the "convening of the Council under the bayonets of the occupation".

After declining the invite, the PFLP, one of the main factions of the PLO, said that the PNC should only be convening to unite the Palestinian factions.

Palestinian activist Wael Malalha, who lives in Amman, said the upcoming PNC session in Ramallah is aimed at imposing Abbas' views on the future of the Palestinian national movement.

"Abbas has one specific vision and one agenda; self-preservation," he said. "The US, Israel and their Arab allies are mounting great pressure on the Palestinians to accept the so-called 'deal of the century'," said Malalha.

"Abbas wants to accept this deal and wants the PNC and the Executive Committee to give him the political cover to accept it," he added.

According to regional press reports, the "deal of the century" is a purported agreement between the US, Israel and Arab allies Jordan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt, to end the two-state solution and divide or share sovereignty over the Palestinian population in the occupied territories between Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

Several Palestinian organisations and independent figures have called on Abbas and Fatah to cancel this meeting because it would cement Palestinian divisions and fragmentation.

Is the PNC still relevant?

First convened in Jerusalem in 1964, the PNC now counts 723 members. After the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1967, the PNC came to be considered as the de facto Palestinian parliament, with many of its members living in exile.

The idea for it was to represent Palestinians around the world, their political parties, and their trade and professional syndicates.

The last ordinary session of the PNC was held in Gaza in 1996, when Yasser Arafat was the chairman of the PLO and recently appointed president of the Palestinian Authority.

In that session, the parts of the PLO Charter that denied Israel's right to exist were nullified.

In 2009, Abbas convened an extraordinary session of the PNC in Ramallah.

According to the Palestinian national charter, the PNC is the highest Palestinian governing body, and its members are supposed to be elected to represent Palestinian communities from around the world in the countries where voting for PNC membership is possible.

However, after signing the Oslo peace agreement between the PLO and Israel in 1993, which resulted in the formation of a local Palestinian Authority and Legislative Council, the PLO and PNC were left on the margins. </s> The legislative body of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) is set to discuss suspending the recognition of Israel, in addition to several other critical issues of Palestinian politics.

For the first time in nine years, the Palestinian National Council (PNC) is scheduled to convene in Ramallah on Monday, in a meeting that has Palestinians split between supporters and opponents of the gathering.

Critics of President Mahmoud Abbas have rejected the PNC meeting as a shrewd political manoeuvre, while others see it as a potential turning point in Palestinian politics.

The PNC is expected to vote in a new 18-member Executive Committee of the PLO, the governing body of the organisation, and discuss transforming the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the occupied West Bank, into a state with its own institutions and monetary system.

Dominant Palestinian faction, Fatah decided to push ahead with convening the PNC, despite the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) boycotting the meeting.

Hamas is not invited to the council meeting, even as the topic of Palestinian reconciliation is high on the PNC agenda.

"This meeting is vital to continue the Palestinian efforts to end divisions and fragmentation between Palestinian factions," said Wasel Abu Yousef, a current observer-member of the PLO Executive Committee, and head of one of the smaller Palestinian factions, the Palestine Liberation Front.

"[The PNC will] elect new executive bodies that will push forward, in support of Palestinian national rights," Yousef added.

PLO's Executive Committee member Saeb Erekat told Al Jazeera that "this meeting is a turning point for the Palestinians in this critical junction."

Explaining why the PNC needed to convene after being dormant for years, Erekat told Lebanese media that "successive Israeli governments were never interested in two states - Israel and Palestine living side by side".

"Rather, what they wanted all along was one state - Israel - with two systems; an apartheid state," Erekat told Beirut-based Al Mayadeed TV.

PNC agenda

Mohammad Shtayyeh, a member of Fatah's Central Committee, told Al Jazeera that "the reason behind electing a new PLO Executive Committee is to ensure the legal framework and continuity of representation of the Palestinian people."

The PNC's agenda will also discuss the United State's positions on Israel - especially the US' recognition of Jerusalem as Israeli capital - and ways to deal with the measures.

"No Palestinian will accept dealing with the United States so long as it insists on its positions on Jerusalem and being against the rights of Palestinian refugees to return home," Erekat said.

Palestinians have consistently demanded that the Arab eastern side of the holy city be recognised as their future capital.

Israel occupied the east side of Jerusalem during the 1967 war, along with the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and Sinai Peninsula. In 1980, Israel annexed East Jerusalem, in contravention of international laws regarding land occupied during wars.

The PNC meeting will also discuss calls to suspend PLO recognition of Israel, cut all ties and agreements with it, and discuss resistance to the Israeli occupation of Palestine in peaceful means.

In addition, the PNC will discuss is the transformation of the Palestinian Authority from an authority based on the Oslo agreements to a formal state in the occupied territories.

It is also expected to discuss Palestinian reconciliation efforts to end the division between Fatah and Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip.

Abbas power play?

Critics, however, argue that Abbas' insistence to convene the PNC is motivated by ensuring his legacy and preserving the interests of his Fatah faction.

They fear that once Abbas, 82, guarantees the formation of a loyalist PNC and PLO executive body, he would then work to guarantee the continuity of his vision after he leaves the scene.

Maher Obeid, a senior Hamas official, told Al Jazeera that Abbas did not want Hamas to participate unless it surrenders to its conditions and gives up its armed resistance to Israeli occupation.

"Abbas wants to exact revenge on Hamas for his own personal reasons," Obeid said.

Hamas issued a statement rejecting the "convening of the Council under the bayonets of the occupation".

After declining the invite, the PFLP, one of the main factions of the PLO, said that the PNC should only be convening to unite the Palestinian factions.

Palestinian activist Wael Malalha, who lives in Amman, said the upcoming PNC session in Ramallah is aimed at imposing Abbas' views on the future of the Palestinian national movement.

"Abbas has one specific vision and one agenda; self-preservation," he said. "The US, Israel and their Arab allies are mounting great pressure on the Palestinians to accept the so-called 'deal of the century'," said Malalha.

"Abbas wants to accept this deal and wants the PNC and the Executive Committee to give him the political cover to accept it," he added.

According to regional press reports, the "deal of the century" is a purported agreement between the US, Israel and Arab allies Jordan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt, to end the two-state solution and divide or share sovereignty over the Palestinian population in the occupied territories between Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

Several Palestinian organisations and independent figures have called on Abbas and Fatah to cancel this meeting because it would cement Palestinian divisions and fragmentation.

Is the PNC still relevant?

First convened in Jerusalem in 1964, the PNC now counts 723 members. After the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1967, the PNC came to be considered as the de facto Palestinian parliament, with many of its members living in exile.

The idea for it was to represent Palestinians around the world, their political parties, and their trade and professional syndicates.

The last ordinary session of the PNC was held in Gaza in 1996, when Yasser Arafat was the chairman of the PLO and recently appointed president of the Palestinian Authority.

In that session, the parts of the PLO Charter that denied Israel's right to exist were nullified.

In 2009, Abbas convened an extraordinary session of the PNC in Ramallah.

According to the Palestinian national charter, the PNC is the highest Palestinian governing body, and its members are supposed to be elected to represent Palestinian communities from around the world in the countries where voting for PNC membership is possible.

However, after signing the Oslo peace agreement between the PLO and Israel in 1993, which resulted in the formation of a local Palestinian Authority and Legislative Council, the PLO and PNC were left on the margins.

Follow Ali Younes on Twitter @Ali_reports </s> GAZA - More than 100 members of the 700-seat Palestinian National Council (PNC) want to delay a rare session of the Palestinians' top decision-making body, saying on Sunday they were concerned some factions would be shut out.



The PNC is due to convene in the city of Ramallah on April 30 to discuss US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, a policy change that has outraged the Palestinians.





In a letter obtained by Reuters to PNC speaker Saleem al-Zanoun, 109 legislators, including independents and delegates from Hamas and the mainstream Fatah faction, urged the session's postponement.They said that going ahead with the meeting, with only narrow factional representation due to Israeli travel restrictions on delegates from Hamas-controlled Gaza and outside the Palestinian territories, would deepen internal divisions."In order to spare our Palestinian cause imminent dangers and out of our eagerness to achieve unity and end splits and division, we urge you to delay the PNC session," said the letter.There was no immediate word from Zanoun whether he would agree to the request, which followed word from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine on Thursday that it would boycott the session because it wanted more factions to attend.In Ramallah, Mohammad Sbeih, the PNC's secretary, declined to comment directly on the letter but told Reuters there will no delays.Signatories of the letter said additional time should be given for the implementation of a reconciliation deal that Fatah and Hamas, an Islamist group that advocates Israel's destruction, signed in October.The agreement has faltered over differences on power-sharing in the Gaza Strip, territory that Hamas seized from Fatah forces in 2007.The PNC last met in extraordinary session in 2009 to replace several members of the PLO's Executive Committee. It last held a regular session in 1996.Political analysts in Gaza said a PNC meeting without wide factional representation would weaken the legitimacy of any decisions it may take. </s> GAZA (Reuters) - Political rivals accused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday of pushing ahead with a rare and disputed national decision-making meeting to tighten his grip on power and sideline them.

Abbas has billed Monday’s convening of the Palestinian National Council (PNC), a 700-member assembly within the umbrella Palestinian Liberation Organisation, as a chance to forge a united front against Israel and the United States.

But the event in Ramallah, the Palestinian hub in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has revived old feuds between Abbas’s Fatah party and rivals from Islamist and other factions, many of whose members cannot attend due to Israeli restrictions.

Last week, 109 PNC members urged Abbas to postpone the meeting to allow greater participation. The call went unheeded, and on Sunday, censure of the president became more pointed.

“The PNC meeting that will be held in Ramallah is not legitimate, is factional, and does not represent all of the Palestinians,” Mushir Al-Masri, a lawmaker with the Islamist group Hamas, told reporters at a meeting of PNC critics in Gaza.

The Gaza Strip, under de facto Hamas control since 2007, has been a focus of Palestinian infighting. Though Hamas formally resubmitted to Abbas’s authority last year, their reconciliation has been held up by disputes over power-sharing.

“We stress the need to regain Palestinian unity and end the policy of exclusion and unilateralism by the leadership of the Palestinian Authority and its hijacking of Palestinian institutions,” said Masri.

Khader Habib of Islamic Jihad, a Hamas political ally, accused Abbas of “holding the PNC meeting to stress his exclusion of all those who oppose him”.

“The president is keen for the conference to bring about only decisions that suit his own project,” Habib told Reuters.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad oppose Abbas’ strategy of peace talks with Israel. However, diplomacy has been on hold since 2014 and many Palestinians’ views have hardened over U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition late last year of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

The PNC last met in extraordinary session in 2009 to replace several members of the PLO’s Executive Committee. It last held a regular session in 1996.

Political analysts in Gaza said a PNC meeting without wide factional representation would weaken the legitimacy of any decisions it may take.

Earlier on Sunday dozens of masked youths gathered on the Palestinian side of the Gaza Strip’s main crossing with Israel, threatening to block any PNC official from leaving for the West Bank to attend Monday’s session. </s> GAZA, April 29 (Reuters) - Political rivals accused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday of pushing ahead with a rare and disputed national decision-making meeting to tighten his grip on power and sideline them.

Abbas has billed Monday's convening of the Palestinian National Council (PNC), a 700-member assembly within the umbrella Palestinian Liberation Organisation, as a chance to forge a united front against Israel and the United States.

But the event in Ramallah, the Palestinian hub in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has revived old feuds between Abbas's Fatah party and rivals from Islamist and other factions, many of whose members cannot attend due to Israeli restrictions.

Last week, 109 PNC members urged Abbas to postpone the meeting to allow greater participation. The call went unheeded, and on Sunday, censure of the president became more pointed.

"The PNC meeting that will be held in Ramallah is not legitimate, is factional, and does not represent all of the Palestinians," Mushir Al-Masri, a lawmaker with the Islamist group Hamas, told reporters at a meeting of PNC critics in Gaza.

The Gaza Strip, under de facto Hamas control since 2007, has been a focus of Palestinian infighting. Though Hamas formally resubmitted to Abbas's authority last year, their reconciliation has been held up by disputes over power-sharing.

"We stress the need to regain Palestinian unity and end the policy of exclusion and unilateralism by the leadership of the Palestinian Authority and its hijacking of Palestinian institutions," said Masri.

Khader Habib of Islamic Jihad, a Hamas political ally, accused Abbas of "holding the PNC meeting to stress his exclusion of all those who oppose him".

"The president is keen for the conference to bring about only decisions that suit his own project," Habib told Reuters.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad oppose Abbas' strategy of peace talks with Israel. However, diplomacy has been on hold since 2014 and many Palestinians' views have hardened over U.S. President Donald Trump's recognition late last year of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

The PNC last met in extraordinary session in 2009 to replace several members of the PLO´s Executive Committee. It last held a regular session in 1996.

Political analysts in Gaza said a PNC meeting without wide factional representation would weaken the legitimacy of any decisions it may take.

Earlier on Sunday dozens of masked youths gathered on the Palestinian side of the Gaza Strip's main crossing with Israel, threatening to block any PNC official from leaving for the West Bank to attend Monday's session. (Editing by Mark Heinrich) </s> Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah has resigned, just days after Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas announced plans to form a new government.

In a statement today, PA spokesperson Yusuf Al-Mahmoud said that “the prime minister and his ministers welcome [Fatah, the Palestinian faction which dominates the PA]’s decision to form a new government,” adding that:

Hamdallah confirmed the statement in a tweet, writing that:

Hamdallah’s resignation came following a request by Abbas this weekend after the latter announced that a new Palestinian government would be formed. Commentators have seen this as a bid by Fatah to strengthen its grip over the PA in the wake of declining popular support and challenges from other Palestinian factions, namely Hamas – which governs the besieged Gaza Strip.

Though Hamdallah is affiliated with Fatah, he does not hold an official position in the organization. Some Fatah leaders have been disappointed with his performance as prime minister, leading them to seek a “friendlier” alternative, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Although it not yet clear who will head the new government, some names have already been floated, including Minister of the Palestinian Economic Council Mohammed Shtayyeh; Secretary of the PLO’s Executive Committee Saeb Erekat; and Member of Fatah’s Executive Committee Azzam Al-Ahmed.

Abbas’ new government will be comprised only of members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) – a symbolic umbrella organization made up of a number of Palestinian factions. However, since Hamas and Islamic Jihad are not part of the PLO, they will not be included in the new government.

The move has been interpreted as a deliberate bid to exclude Hamas – which won the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections in 2006 – from the government. Hamas has slammed Abbas’ plans, with the movement’s spokesman Fawzi Barhoum saying:

Other Palestinian factions have refused to take part in forming the new government, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP).

Fatah and Hamas have been engaged in a bitter feud since the latter’s victory in the PLC elections. When Fatah refused to cede control of the government, a war broke out between Hamas and Fatah in the Gaza Strip. Hamas emerged victoriously and has governed the besieged enclave since 2007.

The current PA government has been in place since mid-2014 and was meant to act as a “national unity government” following a reconciliation deal between Fatah and Hamas. However, the deal quickly broke down in the wake of Israel’s 2014 war on Gaza. Since then, Abbas has rebuffed any engagement with Hamas, imposing sanctions on the Strip, refusing to hold elections and dissolving the PLC. </s> GAZA: Political rivals accused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday of pushing ahead with a rare and disputed national decision-making meeting to tighten his grip on power and sideline them.

Abbas has billed Monday's convening of the Palestinian National Council (PNC), a 700-member assembly within the umbrella Palestinian Liberation Organisation, as a chance to forge a united front against Israel and the United States.

But the event in Ramallah, the Palestinian hub in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has revived old feuds between Abbas's Fatah party and rivals from Islamist and other factions, many of whose members cannot attend due to Israeli restrictions.

Last week, 109 PNC members urged Abbas to postpone the meeting to allow greater participation. The call went unheeded, and on Sunday, censure of the president became more pointed.

"The PNC meeting that will be held in Ramallah is not legitimate, is factional, and does not represent all of the Palestinians," Mushir Al-Masri, a lawmaker with the Islamist group Hamas, told reporters at a meeting of PNC critics in Gaza.

The Gaza Strip, under de facto Hamas control since 2007, has been a focus of Palestinian infighting. Though Hamas formally resubmitted to Abbas's authority last year, their reconciliation has been held up by disputes over power-sharing.

"We stress the need to regain Palestinian unity and end the policy of exclusion and unilateralism by the leadership of the Palestinian Authority and its hijacking of Palestinian institutions," said Masri.

Khader Habib of Islamic Jihad, a Hamas political ally, accused Abbas of "holding the PNC meeting to stress his exclusion of all those who oppose him".

"The president is keen for the conference to bring about only decisions that suit his own project," Habib told Reuters.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad oppose Abbas' strategy of peace talks with Israel. However, diplomacy has been on hold since 2014 and many Palestinians' views have hardened over U.S. President Donald Trump's recognition late last year of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

The PNC last met in extraordinary session in 2009 to replace several members of the PLO’s Executive Committee. It last held a regular session in 1996.

Political analysts in Gaza said a PNC meeting without wide factional representation would weaken the legitimacy of any decisions it may take.

Earlier on Sunday dozens of masked youths gathered on the Palestinian side of the Gaza Strip's main crossing with Israel, threatening to block any PNC official from leaving for the West Bank to attend Monday's session. </s> An agreement between rival groups Fatah and Hamas to form a unity government amounts to a major shift in Palestinian politics. As part of the deal, brokered by Russia, Palestinian institutions are to be expanded to include Hamas and another fundamentalist organisation, Islamic Jihad, both of which will join the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the Palestine National Council. The PLO has been the preserve of secular factions since its founding in 1964.

The December UN resolution calling for a halt to Israeli settlements and declaring them illegal, and the election of unpredictable Donald Trump to the US presidency, has given urgency to the quest for unity.

A newly elected council – to contain Palestinians from the diaspora as well as from the occupied territories – will select the PLO’s executive committee, the top Palestinian body. A deal has been on the Palestinian agenda since Hamas won the Palestinian legislative election in 2006, but Fatah and Hamas have repeatedly failed to agree on the package.

Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007, leaving the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in control only of the West Bank.

Due to divisions within Fatah, the national council has not met since 1996. To achieve the agreement with Hamas, Fatah also had to end infighting over who should succeed octogenarian president Mahmoud Abbas. Former Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan has renounced his challenge and pledged to back intifada leader Marwan Barghout, who is imprisoned in Israel.

Moscow’s mediation has boosted Russia’s role in the Middle East ahead of talks on reinforcing the December 30th ceasefire between the Syrian government and insurgent factions, which are set to open in the Kazakh capital, Astana, on Monday.

Palestinian leaders need to close ranks at a time when their people are facing unprecedented challenges. The Palestinian cause, which once solidified the Arab front against Israel, has been marginalised since the Arab Spring in 2011, followed by the eruption of warfare in Syria, Libya and Yemen and the harsh clampdown on political activity in Egypt.

Israeli settlements and closed military areas have continued to occupy land that Palestinians demand for their state, while the international community has called, ineffectually, for implementation of a “two-state” solution involving the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Both Hamas and the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, based in Ramallah, have lost the support of their constituencies. Since Mr Abbas has been unable to secure a Palestinian state by peaceful means, Palestinian youths have begun attacking Israelis with knives and vehicles, igniting a sporadic “lone wolf” or “knife intifada” uprising in October 2015.

Hamas has failed to deliver food, fuel, security and clean governance to the coastal Gaza Strip. Gazans have recently demonstrated against Hamas over electricity being rationed to four hours a day due to lack of fuel for the power plant.

Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are squeezed by Israeli “restrictions on the movement of people and goods; systematic destruction of the productive base; losses of land, water and natural resources”, the UN Conference on Trade and Development reported last September. “Occupation imposed a heavy cost on the economy of the occupied Palestinian territory, which might otherwise reach twice its current size.” </s> A paralysed and indecisive Palestinian leadership, faced with mounting pressure from the Americans and Israelis, is undermining key national goals, analysts say.

They say the decisions taken by the Palestinian National Council (PNC) during its meeting in Ramallah last week show that Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, lacks the will to respond to American and Israeli efforts to thwart Palestinian statehood.

While in session, the PNC took several decisions including the redefinition of relations with Israel as one of "conflict".

It dismissed the PLO-Israel interim agreements signed in Washington and Cairo in the 1990s as "expired", and rejected the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

In the past, Abbas, 82, has repeatedly insisted that the path to achieving statehood for the Palestinians lies only through peace negotiations with Israel, not armed struggle.

On the face of it, the PNC decisions indicate a departure from the negotiations path, the analysts say.

However, in reality, the Palestinian leadership is too weak and fragmented to either withdraw from existing agreements with Israel or end the policy of treating peace negotiations as a strategic choice.

Mohamad Dalbah, a Washington-based Palestinian analyst, says the crisis confronting Palestinians today is rooted in the "catastrophic" Oslo agreement that Abbas and the late Yasser Arafat signed with Israel.

Oslo was a "strategic mistake" for the Palestinians, he told Al Jazeera, because it never stipulated the establishment of a Palestinian state and left open-ended the core issues of the status of Jerusalem and the right Palestinian refugees displaced by Israel in 1948.

In 1993 the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed the Oslo agreement with Israel and established an interim Palestinian Authority.

The Oslo Accords stipulated that within five years of the signing of the agreement - that is, in 1999 - both parties should enter into negotiations for the final-settlement status, including the issues of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.

Twenty-five years later, Palestinians and Israelis have yet to start any final settlement negotiations.

Jamal Zahalka, a Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset, told Al Jazeera the decisions of the PNC are "meaningless" as long as the PA continues security coordination with Israel, which is the most important objective for Israel.

Zahalka said the current Palestinian condition, defined by a weak local government, is in the best interest of Israel but not the Palestinians because it is conducive to neither peace nor resistance.

By maintaining internal security in Palestinian areas on behalf of Israel, the PA reduces Israel's military burden of maintaining its military occupation.

However, Abdallah Abueid, a Palestinian legal expert, says the international position of the Palestinians in light of the PNC decisions is "legally solid".

This is because Israel has repeatedly violated the agreements, refuses to withdraw from the occupied territories and is unwilling to conclude final-status negotiations with the Palestinians, says Abueid, who teaches International law at Bethlehem University.

That being said, "Palestinians are in a very precarious position today and are unable to move forward or even go backward if they wanted to".

Zahalka, the Knesset member, says Palestinian leaders should now take a strategic decision to reinvigorate popular and peaceful resistance to the Israeli occupation.

"Only then would Israel find itself compelled to end its illegal occupation," he told Al Jazeera.

During its session in Ramallah, the PNC also re-elected Abbas president of the State of Palestine and chairman of the PLO.

It further elected 15 members of the executive committee out of 18 representing different Palestinian factions most of whom are Abbas loyalists.

Neither the PNC nor any governing body formally discussed the issue of a successor for the octogenarian Abbas, who is reportedly suffering from multiple ailments.

According to sources familiar with internal deliberations on the succession issue, Abbas supports the separation of the powers of the PLO, the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, and the chairman of Fatah.

Abbas is in favour of having a different person to lead each body, the sources told Al Jazeera.
The Palestinian National Council, the legislative arm of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, convenes for the first time in nine years in Ramallah. The agenda includes voting in a new eighteen-member PLO Executive Committee, transforming the Palestinian Authority into a state with its own institutions and monetary system, and cessation of ties with Israel. Gazan rivals Hamas are not invited.