If you were to sit with a Palestinian Authority official, whether a low-ranking employee in its ministries, its soldiers and officers, its so-called top brass of officials, or members of the government... you would find absolute consensus. They are all disgruntled with the PA and critical of its performance. This climate makes it easier for Israel to manipulate things in its favor. Israel is fundamentally opposed to the very existence of the Authority, not critical of its performance. This climate also serves to justify calls (whether well-intentioned or malicious) for “reform” to be a prerequisite for political engagement with the PA.
This broad discontent with the Authority, which is reaching alarming levels within the PA and beyond, has emerged as Israel’s efforts to liquidate Palestinians’ rights peak. Coupled with the calamitous split that has separated the West Bank and Gaza into two regimes incapable of unifying the nation- indeed incapable of meeting their respective responsibilities- has deepened divisions on the ground.
In fact, these failings have provided the supposed common enemy with a rare opportunity to tighten control not only over the Palestinian Authority and its narrow presence in the West Bank, but also to impose direct control over Gaza. Israel calls the shots: from determining how many people enter and exit through the Rafah crossing to micromanaging the West Bank and its people.
It is noticeable that the Palestinian cause now has far stronger regional and international standing than it does domestically, which will remain almost catastrophic so long as the split between those who rule the West Bank and those who rule remains of Gaza persists, and so long as neither side take even minimal steps to end this division and unify the homeland and its people under a single representative qualified to speak on behalf of all Palestinians.
This split has exhausted the world after nearly twenty years of efforts to address it. Rather, it has only grown and deepened despite the catastrophic conditions imposed on the Palestinian people, and we are now seeing each party seek to resolve its own particular problems. There is no link between the two sides beyond the measures Israel imposes on both, and all they can do is shout and complain, for fear of losing what they still have in the West Bank and Gaza.
I do not like to place the blame for its plans and actions solely on Israel. While it is indeed broadly influential and has done a lot to shape all Palestinian trajectories, as well as regional and international action, the oneness is first on what the Palestinian political class ought to have done and failed to do. This follows a simple principle: if Israel worked to produce and sustain the divisions, then it was incumbent upon the Palestinian leadership forces to end it.
Time has been a crucial factor here from the very beginning. Failing to nip this division in the bud allowed the catastrophic repercussions to accumulate. These ramifications are not limited to human and political losses over these long years; it has placed Palestinian achievements attained with immense hardship and the enormity of sacrifices at the mercy of the winds. We need no evidence to substantiate this.
After all that has happened, and whose catastrophic repercussions have not ceased to this day, Palestinians ask: what is to be done? And how can they emerge from this condition, if not to achieve the major objectives, then at least to protect rights from disintegration and keep the cause alive?
Through Arab, regional, and international actors, the global arena has rallied around achieving the most difficult but most substantial objective: the establishment of a Palestinian state in the territories that had been occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem. The progress that they have made goes beyond mere acknowledgments of this national right to full and explicit recognition of the state.
What seems incomprehensible, however, is the chasm between the comprehensive international push for inevitable statehood and the Palestinian leadership’s complacent approach to putting their internal house in order and unifying it, especially in unifying representation. Another absurdity is the widening gap between the Palestinian people and those who are supposed to be their leaders.
The Palestinian people have given everything required of them to protect their rights. Through miraculous steadfastness and commitment to their land, they have endured what no human being should be expected to endure. Forced displacement, which lies at the heart of the Israeli program, is no longer merely unacceptable but no longer even tenable, and the country is no longer an easy morsel for the occupier to swallow simply by issuing decisions to that effect.
The widening gap between the strong people and the Palestinian Authority must be closed. Israel’s lethal weapons, which have not ceased to attack Palestinian bodies since the beginning of the last century up to our present day, have failed to crush, despite Israel’s wager on destroying the Palestinian struggle from within. In reality, Palestinians’ domestic conditions are the locus. They determine our position in the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and the place of the Palestinian cause within it. All the credit, so far, belongs to the strength of the people and their grassroots initiatives in defense of their rights and hopes.
