Reflections on the Current Palestinian Situation

Before October 7, 2023, Palestine was on the American guillotine, and Benjamin Netanyahu was preparing his political knives for slaughter. He shifted to a stage of "decisiveness" in the conflict, believing that the Palestinian "division," the Arab "normalization," and the world's preoccupation with the Russo-Ukrainian war, including European engagement, represented his historic opportunity that may never come again. Thus, he openly declared through his most extreme followers in the "fascist government coalition" that the choices for Palestinians had become limited and confined to three options:

Either submission, death, or expulsion and displacement. Netanyahu prepared his famous maps and began to circulate them, explaining, clarifying, and boasting about how Palestine had been erased with American approval, Arab indifference, and European silence, except for those whom my Lord has mercy on.

Until that time, things were proceeding as Netanyahu wished. The West Bank was the primary arena for decisiveness, believing that the Gaza Strip had entered a phase of "bargaining" for the survival of Hamas's authority in exchange for calm, keeping the Strip out of the political equation by maintaining separation from the West Bank, striking at the heart of Palestinian national identity, allowing him quietly to achieve his historical project of liquidating Palestinian national rights and transforming them into living requirements, not only in the West Bank but also in the Strip, following the consolidation of its separation.

Up to that moment, the fascist "right" was confident in its vision, armed with enough "facts" to affirm and even enhance the accuracy of this vision.

Here, the Israeli situation had deceived itself or was blinded by those "facts" driven by interwoven factors under one large title: ideological blindness, which usually leads, under special Israeli conditions, to the gravest dangers affecting any political system, any strong state, or any superior army, and any cohesive society.

I believe that Yahya Sinwar, who had quietly prepared his plan, laid out all the necessary "Hamas" factors for the "Al-Aqsa Flood," struck his immense strategic blow, aiming to disrupt the balance of the occupying state, shatter the fragile cohesion of Israeli society, and undermine the preemptive capabilities of the occupying army and its intelligence and security arms, which would have come to subdue the Strip after settling the West Bank battle.

Looking back at Sinwar's speeches prior to this blow, we can understand his motivations. In short, he intuitively knew that "Hamas" would face its fate in an upcoming political moment; either it would play the game of authority and bargain with its resistance to hold onto it under Israeli conditions that would inevitably lead to its end, or the movement would turn the equation and upend the table, potentially ending its own authority and perhaps diminishing the role of its resistance, but at a cost that places the occupying state in a new historical predicament, forcing its army and even its entire society to confront new realities that starkly differ from those Netanyahu deemed "ripe" for seizing Palestinian national rights.

Indeed, Sinwar achieved what he wanted by placing the occupying state and the entire Zionist project in front of lethal dangers against the backdrop of a global confrontation, against the societies of the entire world.

As a result, the occupying state has now become synonymous with crime, genocide, and racism, turned into a pariah entity that has lost everything—its army's reputation, its unique identity in the region's "democracy," its security, which has transformed into the least secure entity in the world, and its economy, once considered an emerging and exemplary economy, has faltered, along with its developmental leadership in various sectors, its export advantages, and its engagement with major global companies in the knowledge and technology fields, ultimately losing its investment reputation.

Additionally, the occupying state has lost its reputation among the world's Jews, and its outstanding human resources have started to emigrate, reaching record rates of reverse migration.

Moreover, what distinguishes the Israeli losses is that they are strategic losses that cannot be compensated in the foreseeable future, predominantly irreversible, transformed into a trajectory of development rather than mere trends capable of reverting.

In summary, Israeli losses are non-repairable strategic political losses that may last for decades to come.

In contrast, Palestine has returned to the heart of the world and the focus of the world's peoples, albeit at a tremendous human cost, some aspects of which are catastrophic on the humanitarian level, compared to the catastrophic Israeli losses on the political front. It should not be, as I see it, that we fall into the trap of superficial equations that perceive this image as inverted—searching for "solutions" to the political squint we suffer in our national situation.

Therefore, reality can no longer bear many discussions still revolving around the accuracy or inaccuracy of assessments, calculations, and forecasts, for the losses of the occupying state are apparent, and the losses of Palestine are also evident—politically catastrophic losses for the occupying state and human losses for Palestine. Searching for alternative equations is mere political illusions and not political visions; wishes rooted in subjective motives rather than objective considerations. They are specific driving factors, whether intellectual, political, or self-interested, no matter how much they try to cloak themselves in the gravity of the humanitarian disaster; on the Israeli side, this is almost an identical copy of this situation.

This is the reality of escaping from political catastrophe under delusions and lies that serve merely as a facade to maintain a racist government unrelated to "national" Israeli interests, but instead tied to visible personal, political, and ideological considerations that need no further proof.

Yet the Palestinian humanitarian disaster in its severity could turn into a political disaster if our people and its active forces do not adeptly manage the complexities of the new phase resulting thus far from the genocidal war over the past two years.

The title of the upcoming battle is the legitimacy of national identity and its national identity, alongside required steadfastness strategies. Here, we must return to Netanyahu and Trump to understand the nature of the battle, its significance, and its associated dangers.

The Zionist-American scheme was aimed at destroying any Palestinian national identity as a means to facilitate the liquidation of the Palestinian issue or to prevent it from playing an effective political role in countering this scheme, or to avert the danger that this identity might turn this plan upside down in the event of its failure.

This explains the siege on the Palestinian National Authority, the secret behind the Israeli promotion aimed at preventing the emergence of "Hamasstan" and "Fatahstan," and concurrently, it unveils the American shamelessness in prohibiting President Mahmoud Abbas from attending the United Nations General Assembly, revealing America's alignment under both Biden and Trump's administrations with the Israeli stance.

Conversely, America feels no discomfort from the "praises" it has begun to shower on "Hamas," aiming and hoping to draw the latter into the "trap" of American promises of political solutions under the pressure of its unique situation, thus America knows that there is no official legitimacy for "Hamas" as of now, and therefore, there's no fear from attempts to ensnare it.

The legitimacy of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and that of its national authority, therefore, are in severe danger, marking the first face of the threat that the humanitarian disaster could morph into a political catastrophe.

The second face is Hamas believing it can shift into any form of legitimacy unless it transforms into a new "Jolani," thereby falling into the American trap.

Defending national legitimacy and national identity is a defense of rights and the cause, not of individuals, factions, parties, or organizations.

Fatah, Hamas, all national factions, and all independent national figures stand before the test of responsibility in this phase of danger to the future of national action as a whole, and it is still possible to thwart the hostile plan with a minimal degree of unity.