Beyond the Rubble: Salam Fayyad’s Sobering Diagnosis of Palestine’s Political Future 

Based on his address at Duke University, former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad presented a sobering diagnosis, arguing that Palestine’s future is critically hampered by a deep-seated systemic failure in governance and sovereignty that long predates the current war in Gaza.

He identified the 2007 political schism with Hamas and a chronic lack of governmental accountability as having eroded the PA’s legitimacy and citizen investment in statehood, while also dismissing near-term reconstruction in Gaza as a “mirage” unless it occurs alongside a fundamental shift in political reality and Israeli control.

Fayyad advocated for persistent, nonviolent resistance as a means to preserve dignity and challenge the status quo, expressed skepticism toward international diplomatic efforts like the Trump administration’s plan for failing to address core issues, and concluded that a profound crisis of leadership within the Palestinian political class remains a central, unaddressed obstacle to any viable future.

Beyond the Rubble: Salam Fayyad’s Sobering Diagnosis of Palestine’s Political Future 

The conversation about Palestine is often dominated by the immediate: the shock of violence, the urgency of ceasefire, the scale of destruction. But in a recent address at Duke University, Salam Fayyad, the former Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority (PA), pulled the focus back to a more profound, and arguably more difficult, problem—the deep-seated political decay that predates the latest rubble and renders true recovery nearly impossible. 

Fayyad’s talk, moderated by Professor Peter Feaver, was not a rallying cry but a sober audit. It was a dissection of a body politic suffering from long-term failure, where the current war in Gaza is not an isolated catastrophe but a symptom of a systemic collapse in governance and sovereignty. His analysis offers a bleak yet necessary roadmap for understanding why, even if the guns fall silent, the path to a viable Palestinian future remains shrouded in doubt. 

The Ghost of a State: How Governance Preempted Sovereignty 

Fayyad, an economist by training who served as PM from 2007 to 2013, is uniquely positioned to deliver this critique. Once hailed in the West as a beacon of pragmatic, institution-building leadership, he now speaks with the disillusioned clarity of a former insider. He pinpointed the 2007 schism with Hamas, which left the PA governing parts of the West Bank while Hamas controlled Gaza, as the moment the dream of a unified Palestinian governance structure shattered. 

But his critique went deeper than factional division. He identified a rot of “inadequate governmental accountability” that reinforces “elements of bad governance throughout.” This is a crucial insight. For decades, the international community has treated statehood as a prize to be won at the negotiating table. Fayyad argues that the internal machinery of a state—its transparency, its accountability to its people, its competence—must be built concurrently, not after a political settlement. The PA, hobbled by division and a lack of real power, never developed this machinery. Consequently, its legitimacy eroded, and citizens became “less invested” in the very idea of a state that seemed incapable of serving them. 

This connects directly to the original sin of the Oslo Accords. While they kindled the hope of autonomy in the 1990s, Fayyad asserted they “ultimately failed to fully transfer power.” The PA was left as an administrative body, managing the day-to-day affairs of a population under ultimate Israeli military control, without the true sovereignty—over borders, security, airspace, water—that defines a nation. This created a “state-like” entity that was doomed to fail, fostering dependency and resentment rather than civic pride and collective purpose. 

The Reconstruction Mirage: Rebuilding Under the Shadow of Occupation 

One of the most powerful and disheartening aspects of Fayyad’s analysis was his dismissal of near-term reconstruction in Gaza. With an estimated 90% of homes damaged or destroyed, the instinct is to talk of marshaling billions and launching a Marshall Plan. Fayyad calls this a mirage. 

“I just don’t see how you can begin a serious reconstruction rehabilitation effort in Gaza under conditions that exist today,” he stated, noting the process is “under the full control of the Israeli occupational regime.” This is the core of the dilemma. Reconstruction is not merely a technical or financial challenge; it is an intensely political one. To rebuild Gaza without a fundamental shift in the political reality—specifically, an end to the blockade and Israeli security vetoes over materials and personnel—is to rebuild a prison. It would be constructing infrastructure on a foundation of profound powerlessness, ensuring that the next cycle of conflict could reduce it all to dust once more. 

His vision for returning Palestinians to “as much of their normal life as we possibly can” is therefore not just about bricks and mortar. It is about restoring agency. True welfare, in this context, means the ability to plan for a future, to own a home without fearing its imminent destruction, and to move freely within one’s own land. Current proposals for reconstruction, however well-intentioned, that do not address this fundamental power imbalance are merely placing a bandage on a festering wound. 

The Discipline of Daily Resistance: Redefining the Struggle 

In a conflict often framed by violent militancy or passive victimhood, Fayyad offered a nuanced third way: the power of persistent, nonviolent resistance. He defined this not as a symbolic gesture, but as the daily act of “looking at that reality and not wanting to accept it.” 

This is a profound reframing. It moves the struggle from the military sphere, where the power imbalance is overwhelming, to the civic and political sphere. It is the resilience of maintaining one’s identity, of building institutions, of steadfastly refusing to acquiesce to a permanent state of subjugation. For Fayyad, this form of resistance is “extremely effective” because its goal is to “make conditions possible for people to persevere.” It is about survival with dignity, and the slow, grinding work of making the occupation morally and politically untenable through sheer, unwavering presence. 

This philosophy stands in stark contrast to the approaches of both the entrenched PA leadership and Hamas. It suggests that Palestinian power is not necessarily born from rockets or from hollowed-out ministries, but from the collective, organized will of a people to build and persist. 

The Flawed Framework: Why International Diplomacy Continues to Fail 

Fayyad’s skepticism extended to the latest international diplomatic effort—a UN Security Council vote on the Trump administration’s “Comprehensive Plan.” While acknowledging its importance, he dismissed it as a remedy, highlighting the fundamental weaknesses of a ceasefire that has not truly stopped the war and has failed to ensure adequate aid. 

His critique here is a masterclass in seeing beyond the headlines. He argued that negotiation should “never be about principles or narratives,” which are non-negotiable for both sides, but about “arrangements and assurances.” This is a call for a different kind of diplomacy—one that is less focused on grand, symbolic peace signings and more on the granular, unglamorous work of building functional, secure, and equitable systems for coexistence. 

The recent wave of recognition for Palestinian statehood by numerous countries, he implied, is meaningless if it is not tied to a concrete commitment to the 1967 borders. It is a diplomatic victory that changes little on the ground for Palestinians living under occupation. What is needed, he contends, is a “serious diplomatic battle” fought not for symbolic wins, but for tangible rights and territory. 

The Leadership Vacuum: The Unspoken Crisis 

Perhaps Fayyad’s most damning conclusion was his assessment of leadership. “What we really need is changing the aspects of how leadership is exercised, and there we are failing visibly,” he stated. This is a challenge directed not only at Israel and the international community but inward, at the Palestinian political class itself. 

The failure to provide accountable, unified, and strategic leadership has been catastrophic. It has allowed internal divisions to fester, eroded public trust, and left the Palestinian people without a coherent, credible vehicle for their national aspirations. Until this vacuum is filled by a leadership that prioritizes nation-building over factional interests and accountability over autocracy, even the most favorable external political arrangements will struggle to take root. 

Salam Fayyad’s talk was a somber reminder that peace is more than the absence of war, and a state is more than a flag and a government building. It is a functioning, accountable system that earns the allegiance of its people. The tragedy of Palestine is that the physical destruction in Gaza is mirrored by a political destruction that has been decades in the making. Rebuilding the former will be futile without a courageous, clear-eyed commitment to rebuilding the latter.