LAST month, large protests swept through major cities in the West Bank. In some places the demonstrations escalated into destruction of public property and a display of anarchy, while in others they were calm and collected. Peaceful or otherwise, the various demonstrations shared a common grievance: The economic policies of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, recently highlighted after price hikes on main consumer items such as fuel and flour.

These protests have called into question whether the Palestinian Authority (PA) is still able to lead the Palestinian people.

Clearly the PA has reached a point where in order to survive and be effective it must rethink the strategy it has used until now. It has been 19 years since the Oslo Accord, the 1993 agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) which laid out the terms for Palestinian self-government in the West Bank and Gaza, was signed; still, we, as Palestinians, do not have our own independent state. Perhaps it is time the PA considers abandoning these agreements and replacing them with an official policy of non-violent action against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

The recent protests in the West Bank are an opportunity for the PA to rebuild its crumbling credibility with the Palestinian people. This lack of credibility was on full display in Nablus and Hebron where protesters aggressively called for the resignation of President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad, and the dismantling of the PA completely, while in Ramallah non-violent marchers called for an overhaul of the Palestinian Authority’s economic and political policies.

I took part in a peaceful demonstration organized by the Palestine Youth Parliament in Ramallah. Our political message was a complex one. Members of the Youth Parliament did not blame solely the PA for the current economic problems, but also the Israeli Occupation. Demonstrators called for the cancellation of the Olso Accords and particularly the Paris Protocol, which set the terms for the current economic relationship between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Published as an annex to the Olso Accords, it gave Israel control of the Palestinians’ external trade as well as tax collection.

In my opinion the PA is not moribund. It can still make a difference. It should continue to pursue the state-building project that it began in 2006, but at the same time lead a non-violent resistance to the Occupation as official policy.

Up until today the non-violent movement in Palestine has been sporadic by nature — sometimes a top-down campaign, sometimes a grassroots swell. It is time for the PA to take up the non-violent struggle as an official means of putting pressure on Israel to agree to a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

— Common Ground News Service