Breaking Free from the Civil Representation Dilemma and Restoring National Representation; Without Apology

The leadership crisis for Palestinians in the interior today is not merely a crisis of political representation, but a crisis of definition: a definition of role, function, and the limits of politics itself.

Over the years, there has been a gradual process of reducing political action to the narrow framework of civil representation, until this framework became not a temporary means but a final ceiling for political action, and a dilemma that is reproduced in every discussion about the feasibility of leadership and its meaning; sometimes under the pretext of specificity, or mimicking the daily concerns of people, and in worse cases as a populist discourse in the competition for voter voices in Knesset elections.

Civil representation has, over time, shifted from a tool for acquiring basic rights to an alternative to politics. Instead of serving as an entry point for posing major questions, it has become a means of escaping them.

Thus, dealing with the Palestinian in the interior has been as if they are merely a collection of daily needs, rather than a national group with its own position in the struggle, and an open question regarding the future.

The problem does not lie in civil issues themselves, as they are an integral part of people's lives and dignity, but in transforming them into the essence of political representation.

When budgets, services, and improving living conditions become the sole metric of success, politics loses its meaning, and the conflict is reduced to managing reality instead of questioning it and organizing people around it.

This reduction did not happen in a vacuum; it coincided with the reshaping of the concept of citizenship within Israel: from a natural right to a framework conditional upon integration and adaptation. Citizenship is granted to the extent that national presence diminishes and rewards silence more than it protects rights.

In this context, the discourse of equality has ceased to be a confronting discourse, and has transformed into a language of negotiation within pre-drawn boundaries.

Moreover, there are those who have adopted this framework as an approach and logic, or rather: as an electoral product and profitable trade, by engaging in the game of Israeli camps.

Worse still, this proposal has become a knot for leadership and parties, to the extent that it demands apologies and exhausting justifications for any pure national political action, unless it is accompanied by a "report card" and account of tangible achievements.

However, the deep transformations in the political reality, especially following major events in Palestine, have revealed the fragility of this path. It has become clear that the Zionist project does not, in its essence, distinguish between one Palestinian and another, and that rights not grounded in a collective national consciousness remain temporary and susceptible to subversion.

At this moment, the illusions of "responsible representation" fall when it is used to justify incapacity, rather than challenge it.

When questioning the future of Palestinians inside Israel, the rhetoric of achievements appears pale, disconnected from the dangers of the moment.

Emerging from the dilemma of civil representation, and the fear of being accused of isolation from the people or participating in Knesset elections with a boycott mentality, does not mean jumping over reality or ignoring people’s daily concerns, but rather repositioning them within their natural political context.

It means shifting from managing affairs to representing meaning, and from improving the conditions of existence to posing the question of existence itself.

And it means, above all, that leadership returns to its role as a political actor, rather than an administrative intermediary.

These are not mere slogans, but a necessity and a condition for existence in an era of extermination and fragile tools, in a time when the annihilation of Palestinian existence, identity, and meaning has become a declared goal.

Palestinian leadership in the interior is today required to reclaim its national role and to state clearly and courageously: We represent a people, not a civil file; we represent a future, not a budget; and we engage in politics from a position of awareness, not from a position of adaptation.

We are a purely Palestinian issue, and politics - in its true sense - is practiced in confronting the central question: Who are we? What do we want? And how are we represented?