Accountability for 2025

As we enter the year 2026, the Palestinian issue is in dire need of a moment of strict rational reflection, rather than additional mobilizing rhetoric. We are at a historical turning point that compels us to adopt a different approach: a comprehensive national accounting, similar to what institutions do when they face a gap between their records and reality. At its core, this accounting is not an act of skepticism but an act of salvation; it is not self-flagellation but an attempt to restore balance before collapse.

In accounting, inventory is used to verify assets and liabilities, focusing on actual values rather than just recorded ones. In politics, this inventory becomes a tool to reveal the distance between what we actually possess and what we believe we possess, between our public discourse and our actual capacity to act. The central question at the beginning of this year is not: who is with us and who is against us? But rather: where are we really?

The first thing that the inventory calls for is the national assets. The justice of the Palestinian cause remains a massive political and moral asset. Despite international transformations and the rise of cold interests, Palestine has not lost its symbolic dimension as a liberation and rights issue. However, like other intangible assets, this one faces deterioration if not managed wisely. Justice alone does not translate into political influence unless it is expressed through contemporary discourse, effective alliances, and well-considered pressure tools.

The second asset is the Palestinian people: the most resilient human capital in the region, yet also the most exhausted. Decades of occupation, division, blockade, and repeated wars have transformed steadfastness from an act of resistance into a state of exhaustion. In any honest accounting inventory, the question of sustainability arises: how long can an asset operate without genuine maintenance? This question must be posed politically and morally.

The third asset is the legal and international standing: UN resolutions, agreements, and legal references. However, these assets have largely remained mere bookkeeping entries, recorded on paper, with limited impact on the balance of power. The problem lies not in their existence but in the absence of an operational strategy to convert them into tools of action, rather than merely archival materials for rhetorical consumption.

In contrast, the inventory reveals heavy liabilities on the national balance sheet. Foremost among them is the Palestinian division, which has turned from a political disagreement into a structural debt with compounded interest. The division has drained legitimacy, squandered resources, and created a deep chasm between society and its representatives. It is, in accounting terms, a long-term liability for which no serious settlement has been made.

The second liability is the erosion of the national project in favor of daily crisis management. Politics has shifted from a tool of change to a mechanism of containment, from a liberation project to a survival system. This transformation did not occur suddenly but occurred through a series of short-sighted decisions that prioritize temporary stability over long-term vision.

The third liability is the lack of integration between the political, economic, and social spheres. There is no politics without a resilient economy, no economy without a minimum of sovereignty, and no sovereignty without unified decision-making. This simple equation has long been ignored, leading to glaring disparities between what is declared and what is practiced.

Here arises the methodological question: what type of inventory do we need? What has occurred over the past years resembles a periodic inventory; seasonal reviews after every disaster, critical reports, and then a return to the same course. This pattern is no longer viable. The next stage requires a continuous inventory: a daily review of discourse, tools, and the impact of each step on the ultimate goal. It may also require occasional sudden, shocking inventories that reopen closed files and raise questions that have been postponed out of fear or interest.

The most dangerous revelation from the inventory is the gap between records and reality. Between the discourse of unity and the practice of division, between glorifying sacrifices and the absence of accountability, between talking about the future and operating with a crisis management mentality. In any institution, these gaps necessitate reconciliations. In the Palestinian case, they cannot be overlooked as we enter a new year without addressing them.
The year 2026 must be the year of transitioning from emotions to management, from reaction to planning. National accounting is not an intellectual luxury but a condition for survival. We must either have the courage to look in the mirror and rearrange our priorities and tools or continue recording beautiful numbers in the political ledgers while the assets quietly erode in reality.

Note: The Israeli occupation has been consciously excluded from this accounting, not out of ignorance or neutrality, but out of a stance. The occupation, regardless of how its forms change, is no longer a subject of moral or political debate, but a fixed element in the equation of injustice; it neither solely explains our incapacity nor justifies our accumulated failures. This inventory is directed at the Palestinian self because when a tragedy is prolonged, it transforms from an imposed event to an internal structure if not dismantled. Just causes are not defeated only by the strength of their adversaries but also by the erosion of their ability to produce meaning, organize strength, and maintain a project. Naming the occupation in every sentence does not absolve us from the question of competence, nor does it grant failure national legitimacy. Before we demand justice from the world, we must prove to ourselves that we deserve it; and before we condemn the occupation, we must conduct a rational judgment on ourselves, because liberation does not begin with condemning the external but with regaining control over the internal.