After the Genocide: How is Palestinian Legitimacy Shaped Outside the Will of the People?

The genocide that Gaza Strip was subjected to did not turn into a moment of political accountability or comprehensive national review. Instead, it was quickly exploited as an entry point to re-engineer the Palestinian political system from the outside. While Palestinians are still stuck under rubble, displacement, and the collapse of living conditions, the “post-war” phase is being managed with an international-security logic that does not see the Palestinian people as a source of legitimacy, but rather as a population that needs to be controlled and managed.

In this context, both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas operate within a converging logic, despite their contradictory rhetoric: seeking external legitimacy that ensures survival or return to the political scene, even at the expense of popular will and national unity. Thus, Palestinian legitimacy is being reshaped after the genocide not as an expression of people's choices, but as a political product whose conditions are determined by major powers.

The Palestinian Authority continues to reproduce a familiar model in the region, where legitimacy is derived from outside rather than from society. Today, the Authority operates within an international framework in which its role and function are being reshaped under American, European, and Arab supervision, and with implicit Israeli approval that sees its continued existence in its weak form as a guarantee for managing the conflict without a radical solution. In this context, the international community does not deal with the Authority as a representative of the Palestinian people's will, but rather as a “modifiable partner” in post-war arrangements.

As for what is called “reforms,” it cannot be understood as a neutral administrative or financial path, but rather as an integrated political project to functionally rehabilitate the Authority according to clear security requirements: maintaining security, preventing resistance, managing the population, and building institutions capable of implementation without objection. Despite accumulated concessions, the outside world does not seem satisfied, but rather pushes for more dependence, in a relationship closer to political blackmail than to any real reform process.

In contrast, Hamas operates within the same logic, albeit with different tools. After the genocide and widespread destruction, the movement seeks to reposition itself as an indispensable political actor, by attempting to gain external recognition that guarantees it a place in the upcoming political system. Despite its rhetoric rejecting international tutelage, its practical behavior indicates a clear pursuit of external legitimacy, in light of unprecedented international intervention in the details of governance, administration, and security.

Some statements by Hamas leaders, including those that appeared as a direct appeal to the American administration, reflect the extent of the transformation imposed by the genocide: from a discourse of defiance to a discourse of seeking a position within an equation being shaped outside Palestine. This transformation cannot be separated from the reality that Gaza's future has become hostage to international arrangements, not the will of its people.

In this sense, the Palestinian scene after the genocide appears to be entirely managed from outside the borders. The United States seeks to determine the shape of the next phase: who governs Gaza, how it will be rebuilt, and what type of authority receives the “green light.” Europe presents itself as a funder conditioned on “political discipline,” while Israel, despite being the perpetrator of the genocide, remains the most influential party, through its efforts to ensure that any future authority will operate within the limits of its security concept, and in a way that prevents the return of resistance in all its forms.

In this climate, legitimacy turns into a commodity managed in back channels: restoration of the Authority with new faces, or conditional integration of Hamas into the governing equation, as long as both parties adhere to what is required of them. As for the Palestinians — survivors of death, displacement, and destruction — they are the last to be asked about their future.

The most dangerous aspect is that these formulations not only exclude popular will but also redraw the boundaries of what is possible for Palestinians: an authority without sovereignty, factions with conditional legitimacy, and a political process stripped of its democratic and ethical content. Instead of the post-genocide phase being a moment to rebuild the Palestinian political system on foundations of participation and accountability, it turns into a moment where Palestinians' right to choose their leadership and shape their future is confiscated.

The genocide experienced by the Gaza Strip did not turn into a moment of actual accountability, neither internally nor internationally. The Palestinian distance between decision-making powers and national institutions remained clear, while responsibilities for what happened over the past two years were not acknowledged, and no party was held accountable for the accumulation of previous failures that weakened the Palestinian Authority and opened the door to international hegemony. Thus, the absence of accountability and acknowledgment of error became an essential condition for reproducing dependency, and any possible national project was transformed into mere management of Palestinian existence according to the criteria of external powers. In the end, Palestinian legitimacy remains governed by international approval, not by the will of the people, and the national project continues to decline in the face of accumulating failure and political blackmail.