In search of legitimacy: the Palestinian national movement 20 years after Oslo

Palestinians and Israelis have returned to negotiations. For the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah, the stakes are high. Public apathy towards negotiations, which many Palestinians see as a cover for continued occupation and settlement expansion, is but one of a long list of problems the leadership faces. Others include the failure of reconciliation talks, the Palestinian Authority’s fiscal crisis, a growing disconnect between the leadership and key Palestinian constituencies such as refugees and youth, and the ongoing realities of Israel’s occupation on the ground.

 

 

Mattia Toaldo joined the European Council on Foreign Relations as a visiting fellow in March 2013 and is now a policy fellow for the MENA programme. At ECFR he has been working on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and on European policy in the Middle East and North Africa.

 

In 2011-2013 he was a stipendiary fellow at the Institute for the Americas in London and a postdoctoral fellow for the British School in Rome and for the Society for Libyan studies where his work focused on Western reactions to the Arab uprisings. Mattia has researched and written on the Middle East Peace Process since 2004 and has recently published a biography of Benjamin Netanyahu for the Italian journal of geopolitics “Limes”. Since 2003, he has worked as a consultant both on foreign policy and domestic issues for several Italian policymakers. Mattia earned his Ph. D. in History of International Relations at Roma Tre University in 2008 and in 2012 he published with Routledge “The Origins of the US War on Terror”.