The kind of power that supports the Palestinians manifests slowly, but not gradually. It takes a long time to get to a tipping point, and before it does, nothing really changes. Apartheid goes on, settlers continue to rampage, Congress continues to flood Israel with money and the Palestinians with condescending criticism, Gaza continues to be a giant open-air prison. 

But fortunately for the Palestinians, the U.S. is not the key to Palestinian liberation. The Palestinian people are.

When Palestinians use terminologies not of their own making to describe their experiences, all in the name of gaining legitimacy in the eyes of a white liberal (and sometimes Zionist) audience, they become divorced from their own reality. This includes centering the discourse of international law, the apartheid analogy, and retractions of official Palestinian statements after pressure from the Israel lobby.