No Time to Lose A Blueprint for Reforming the Palestinian Authority

Key Findings:

The policy paper frames the October 7 Hamas attack and the ensuing Gaza war as a pivotal moment for Palestinian governance, highlighting the urgent need for a stable, capable, and credible Palestinian Authority (PA) to manage Gaza’s post-war landscape, stabilize the West Bank, and provide functional services while offering a legitimate alternative to Hamas.

The PA currently suffers from a severe crisis of legitimacy, characterized by declining domestic credibility, pervasive corruption, inefficient governance, and eroded international donor confidence. It is simultaneously constrained by Israeli policies that withhold revenues and limit operational capacity, internal resistance from leadership that favors maintaining entrenched power structures, and widespread public disillusionment with authoritarian rule. Comprehensive reform is essential not only to restore effective governance but also to advance Palestinian statehood, enhance Israeli security, and promote regional stability.

To avoid past failures of piecemeal technocratic reform, the policy paper advocates a dual-track approach: strengthening day-to-day governance and service delivery while simultaneously implementing deeper political reforms within the PA, PLO, and Fatah. This includes clarifying institutional roles, formalizing transitions of power, revitalizing Fatah’s internal governance, establishing electoral processes, and enhancing political pluralism.

Governance reforms should focus on ending executive overreach, increasing transparency and accountability, improving judicial independence, and decentralizing administrative authority to local governments. Security sector reforms are needed to restructure the top-heavy, loyalty-driven PA Security Forces, establish a unified chain of command, improve personnel allocation, enforce oversight mechanisms, and address operational constraints imposed by Israeli controls.

Economic and fiscal reforms aim to reduce dependence on outdated agreements like the 1994 Protocol on Economic Relations, strengthen tax collection, limit fiscal leakages, reform banking vulnerabilities, and create a more stable, self-reliant financial system, while advocating for Israeli policy adjustments to ease restrictions on trade, resources, and Palestinian mobility.

The paper further stresses the importance of coordinated international and regional support, particularly from the U.S., Europe, and Gulf states, to incentivize and sustain reforms. Recommendations include linking funding and technical assistance to verifiable reform benchmarks, promoting a needs-based welfare system instead of prisoner and “martyr” payments, publicizing PA reform successes to bolster legitimacy, and integrating the PA into regional economic and security frameworks. Israel is urged to facilitate reforms through reliable revenue transfers, reduced restrictions, and support for institutional strengthening.

PA reform should be a transformative, strategic process, anchored in a credible political horizon toward a two-state solution, aimed at creating a functional, accountable Palestinian leadership capable of governing effectively, delivering services, and offering a moderate alternative to Hamas while laying the groundwork for long-term Palestinian statehood.