To say the current Palestinian political crisis is simply a Hamas-Fatah split is to ignore a history of division that cannot be solely blamed on Palestinians.
The Palestinian people have not only been fragmented by Israel, but also by its own corrupted leadership. It is up to grassroots activists and intellectuals to correct the capitulation of the Oslo elite.
Across the international community there is a growing awareness that what has been happening on the ground in Israel-Palestine is morally unacceptable. Palestinian leadership must respond by presenting an alternative vision that rejects ethnic domination in favor of justice and equality for all who live between the river and the sea.
The Palestinian people need elections that will bring them closer to self-determination. Haidar Eid writes that the current election plan only promotes further fragmentation, and the interests of Israel.
Jerome Slater’s new “Mythologies Without End” is an indispensable, compelling guide to the truths behind the myths in Israel, Palestine and the Mideast.
The shots that killed Yitzhak Rabin were not the opening shots of a civil war – they merely exposed the hidden war that had existed within Zionism since the beginning.
On the occasion of World Mental Health Day, Tamam Abusalama reflects on Palestinians’ personal and collective trauma: “Nearly 20 years after the eruption of the Second Intifada, I still freak out each time I hear ambulance sirens and thunder, or see a soldier or a helicopter. My heart beats so fast that it takes me back to Gaza, trapped with my people and my family during war.”
Palestinian leadership bears responsibility for accumulated diplomatic failures. The public’s confidence cannot be restored without serious intervention, including dissolving the Palestinian Authority and reforming the PLO.
The UAE and other Arab states making peace with Israel have backed Palestinian rights. With nothing to show for it. Ever since Oslo, Israeli leaders have fought creation of a Palestinian state. In the Labor Party, it was liberal Zionist hero Shimon Peres “who most vehemently opposed the idea,” Shlomo Ben-Ami recalled.
Fifteen years ago Israel left its settlements in Gaza, and Gazans dreamed that the end of military checkpoints to protect Jewish settlers and bulldozed citrus groves and barriers to the Mediterranean Sea meant an end of occupation. What a savage illusion that was, though Emad Moussa recalls the dreams of that day.