Once Again on the (Political Rigidity) of the Political Class

In late November 2021, we wrote an article titled: Political Rigidity, and in late April 2024, we wrote another article titled: The Palestinian Political Class as an Obstacle to Reviving the National Condition. Before and after these, we wrote about the crisis of the national project and the internal dysfunction, all of which were published in several newspapers and websites. Although many friends tried to convince me of the futility of writing about the topic because those I refer to do not read, and if they do read they do not care, and if they care it is not to correct their course or acknowledge their mistakes, but rather to look for a way to punish those who criticize them, I am determined to continue writing because the problem is not with the entire political class, which includes many sincere nationalists, but with a few corrupt and corrupting influencers. Furthermore, matters have reached the point where the silence of intellectuals is considered complicity and participation in the crime.

Yes, Israel and the United States are enemies of the Palestinian people, and other countries can also be added as enemies or non-supporters of the justice of our cause. However, this is not the only reason for the crisis of the Palestinian national project and the inability to achieve even the minimum of legitimate political rights.
There must be an acknowledgment of the structural and functional dysfunction in our political system in all its components: institutional from the Liberation Organization and parties to authority and political, economic, and cultural elite, as well as a dysfunction in the intellectual and cultural systems. This internal dysfunction is the responsibility of a ruling political class, in the West Bank and Gaza, that possesses a high degree of arrogance and political rigidity, such that it despises the people and treats them with condescension, listens only to itself, and trusts only its close associates and hypocrites. It controls all positions and offices and limits employment in high positions to close associates or those deemed 'well-connected.' The danger of this group from the political class is no less than the danger of occupation because the latter employs their existence and their interest connections to achieve its objectives. This requires that the struggle against occupation be accompanied by a political struggle to change this ruling class, whether it controls our fate in the name of religion and resistance or under the banners of national ideology.