The fractured Palestinian national movement received a small positive jolt recently when a left-wing Palestinian Liberation Organization leader smuggled a reconciliation letter from jail to the Palestinian president. Ahmad Saadat, the leader of the Palestine Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), called for a serious renewal of unity talks. The letter has sparked guarded hopes for movement on the stalled Palestinian unity talks. A high-level meeting is planned May 16 at the Ramallah presidential headquarters.

Laila Khaled, a member of the PFLP’s politburo who lives in exile in Amman, Jordan, told Al-Monitor that the time for talk is over and that serious decisions need to be made. “We need to stop talking and begin acting. If President [Mahmoud] Abbas agrees to work on a new strategy for standing up to the occupiers, we are on the right track,” she said.

Khaled, who was involved in Palestinian resistance action in the 1970s, realizes that time is of the essence if the new strategy is expected to counter Israeli right-wing efforts to annex parts of the occupied Palestinian territories. “We are seeing a strong response from the European Union, from members of the British Parliament and even from the US Congress; we need to rise up to the challenge because the annexation will end any remaining chance for peace.”

In his letter from jail, Saadat says, “I assure the president and our brothers in Fatah that the atmosphere within the leadership of the Front [PFLP] is ready for a positive serious interaction for bilateral dialogue that can lead to overcoming financial difficulties, which we see as small in comparison with the national challenges facing our people.”