The contrast between the two sides of the Palestinian cause, domestic and global, has never been as sharp as it is today:
On the one hand, current global support and sympathy for the Palestinian cause are unprecedented, and this is not exclusively a consequence of the very dark days Israel is undergoing. Added to this factor is a more important process that began earlier: the movement against occupation and the settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories is expanding in the West, and across the world, and resentment of Israel’s disregard for international law and its dictates is growing.
Critics of the Jewish state are no longer limited to university students and marginal political parties in the West, nor abhorrent and reprehensible military regimes and police-states across the globe. We can now also find critics in the mainstream parties of democratic countries as well. In turn, the end of traditional media’s stranglehold and the rising influence of social media, have also pushed things in this direction. Moreover, this tendency has been reinforced by a change in cultural mood, as sympathies shift from the strong to the weak, and from the victor to the vanquished...
Thus, Palestinian rights have become an item on the broad humanitarian agenda, as well as becoming among the demands for global justice and equality, though it has also become an item on the list of populist demands that are opposed - with and without justifiable cause - to the West.
On the other hand, the added value that is this support for the Palestinian cause is turning into support for an unrealized utopia, one that there might not be room for on earth or in reality. It is like a gift that has no one to receive it, or pouring water into a sieve.
This hurts a lot, but the abundance and complexity of its sources mean that alleviating this pain takes more than expressing it. Indeed, an ongoing intra-Palestinian civil war that flares up only to die out, then dies out only to flare up again, is being fought on several fronts and locations at varying degrees of intensity. The fact is that ensuring a ceasefire or averting new clashes, rather than seeking a common strategy or any other ambitious objective, has become the actual goal.
The El Alamein talks among the Palestinian factions came to nothing more than “continuing the dialogue,” for which a committee would be formed. This might be the thousandth such committee formed after the thousand previous attempts to “end the division” that never ends.
In contrast to this paralysis, belligerent activity and dynamics climaxed in the Ain el-Hilweh camp in South Lebanon, with Fatah on one side, and “Ansar Allah” and other Islamic organizations with close ties to the Lebanese Hezbollah on the other. In addition to the victims and the mass displacement of camp residents already suffering from terrible living conditions that can only engender despondency, the clashes brought questions of unregulated Palestinian armaments and the camps’ security lying outside the Lebanese state’s jurisdiction back to the fore. As usual, memories of the civil war found a spark to rekindle them in these events, though they are always hypervigilant in Lebanon.
And Jenin itself, as well as other regions and cities in the West Bank, were deeply hit by the tensions between the Palestinian Authority and the militants backed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. In fact, many observers warn that the likelihood of an implosion is very high and that it could happen at any moment. As for the “resisting” Gaza Strip, it witnessed mass demonstrations making targeted demands for basic practical improvements to living conditions, which are weighing heavily on an already deeply oppressed population thanks to the Hamas government’s good work.
On top of these schisms crowned by the 16-year-long rupture between the West Bank and Gaza, the aging leaders of the two “states” are totally estranged from the growing youth population and its concerns. Not to mention a hallmark of Palestinian national action, the susceptibility of its demands and causes to proliferate and diverge according to Palestinians’ multiple regions and countries of residence, to say nothing about their divergent allegiances.
It is clear that these problems, which are of course very complex, will not be resolved by the triumphalist tone that Tehran and its Palestinian and Lebanese loyalists are pushing, tirelessly exalting the “immense achievements” of the resistance and navigating storms with paper boats. More than this, this tone adds to these contradictions and presents another indication of their gravity. This is manifested in linking what is left of the Palestinian cause, through this or that faction, to the policies of Tehran and its allies, bearing in mind that this linkage exacerbates the disputes existing present among the Palestinians. This state of affairs is also reflected in embroiling them in issues that are not theirs and certainly do not serve any of their interests.
It is no exaggeration to stipulate that these factors, especially Iran’s involvement, could harm the global coalition built around supporting Palestine and the Palestinians.
As a result, and as is the case with all parallel tracks, we find ourselves faced with two lines that will never intersect: one will go on espousing its utopian discourse that pleases the heart, and the second will continue to commit acts of violence, perpetuate civil strife, and espouse its noisy triumphalist rhetoric that bleeds the mind.
