Justice and the Will of National Sovereignty: The Path to Liberation and Statehood

The Palestinian People's Party commemorates the 44th anniversary of its re-establishment on February 10, recalling a long history of national and social struggle, while simultaneously preparing to hold its fifth conference. The material presented in this article represents the first episode of a series dealing with the fundamental elements of the political strategy of the Palestinian People's Party in light of the stormy changes facing the Palestinian cause and the world. It is a subject proposed for discussion and development at the level of the party and the national movement, contributing to the expansion of intellectual and political discourse in the Palestinian arena, especially since dealing with various issues after October 7 and following the genocide cannot be the same as it was before. This first episode aims to provide a focused analysis of the foundations of this strategy, not as a set of circumstantial positions, but as a reference framework addressing the nature of the transformation in the conflict, the conditions of national action, and the dialectical links between justice, liberation, sovereignty, and national will. This is against the backdrop of an unprecedented intertwining between the national cause and the turbulent international changes and power struggles, not only at the level of elites and states, but also at the level of popular movements and the rise of the latent power of social forces and new generations, in the context of openness and the use of social communication tools and new forms of organization. --- First: Genocide as a Central Issue Necessitating Pursuit and Justice The ideology of the Palestinian People's Party is based on considering the genocide faced by the Palestinian people as a central analytical and political foundation, not merely as a present-day crime or an escalation in tools of repression, but rather as a qualitative transformation in the nature of the Zionist colonial settlement project, and a comprehensive test for the international justice system and its ability to protect peoples from existential cancellation. This genocide reflects a profound interconnection between the structure of thought and practice of the savage capitalist elite and its aspiration to continue hegemony, and between global and Israeli Zionist elites as an integral part of this dominant network and its power on both local and global levels. The analysis of the colonial settlement structure of the Zionist project has entered a qualitatively new phase with the ongoing genocide, surpassing the descriptors of apartheid and occupation. The ongoing genocide has re-established direct communication with the ideology and practice of ethnic cleansing that accompanied the Nakba of 1948, thus surpassing the period extending from that date until October 2023, characterized by occupation and apartheid. Despite their structural violence, occupation and apartheid operate based on managing the existence of the Palestinian people from a position of oppression, discrimination, and control, while maintaining this existence within the equation of hegemony. Genocide, however, represents a rupture with this logic, as it rejects even this form of "coerced coexistence," transforming the elimination of the people itself into a central goal. Thus, the Zionist project returns to being a fascist and exclusionary project in its practices, ideology, and public discourse. Thus, confining the description of the Palestinian reality to the discourse of apartheid alone no longer reflects the level reached by Zionist fascism, and insisting on this description without developing it risks turning the analysis into a linguistic normalization with the reality of genocide, rather than serving as a tool for revelation and accountability. The closest manifestation of the practice of genocide in the Zionist project connects it to the form of ethnic cleansing that characterized the Nakba of 1948, and extends it to the level of genocide in terms of not being satisfied with mere population displacement or expulsion or hegemony and demographic changes under occupation, pushing it toward total cancellation and destruction of the human group. Although the manifestation of genocide has so far been confined to the Gaza Strip, while the manifestation of occupation, settlement expansion, and other repressive practices remains the most prominent in the West Bank, this does not contradict the essence of the analysis, which is that the Zionist project in its current phase has taken on a genocidal character that it can resort to practicing in the West Bank if the opportunity or pretext arises, and even this genocidal nature can, at a certain stage, overshadow the existing apartheid character in relation to Palestinians within Israel. The shift of the Zionist project towards a genocidal character is not an exceptional deviation, but rather the result of a long process of fascist transformations and changes within Israeli society itself, which has witnessed a rise in the ideology of religious Zionism and fascist right, reflecting the power struggles between forces, parties, and Israeli elites. It is also the result of the realization of failure to achieve the subjugation of the Palestinian people and the cancellation of its national aspirations, in addition to its civil struggles under apartheid and occupation. The Palestinian people, with its various components in historical Palestine and abroad, has maintained its existence and attachment to its national identity despite all factors of weakness, failure, and divisions, and has achieved international recognition of its rights, foremost among them the right to self-determination, statehood, and return. The structural transformation in the Zionist project is also manifested in its adoption of a radical expansionist strategy that transcends traditional security frameworks to spaces of hegemony. The genocidal practices against the Palestinian people represent a redefinition of the concept of expansion, where the goal is no longer just spatial control as in 1967, but takes on a functional expansionist form aimed at entrenching economic and political superiority deep in the region. This transformation aligns with the U.S. strategy of restructuring the region, where Zionist interests intersect with international capitalist trends to subjugate countries like Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon to the logic of total hegemony. This expansion, which spans a broad geography from the Fertile Crescent to the Horn of Africa (Somalia), and the pressing threats to neighboring countries like Jordan and Egypt, reflects an attempt to impose a new regional order in which colonial Zionism is a fundamental, driving, and protective part of the geopolitical and economic interests of major capitalist forces. This seeks to compensate for Israel's diminished status and deterrent capability that it lost on October 7, which it has tried to compensate for through genocide and through a doctrine of targeting civilians as primary goals and means of warfare, particularly as seen in Lebanon. This entire transformation is linked to the rising international changes as the Zionist project has been associated since its inception with the interests and goals of major colonial capitalist elites, and continues to be organically linked to the financial and political interests of the dominant elites, such that its behavior cannot be read in isolation from the overall strategy of those forces aimed at managing global crises and securing flows and geopolitical interests in the region. The most prominent of these changes is the shift in the economic and geopolitical balance of power, the changes in forms of acquisition, ownership, and social relations, and the accompanying scientific and technological impacts of the rising digital revolution, which coincide with the failure of neoliberalism and capitalism in general to address issues of poverty, discrimination, the environment, and international peace. All of this has generated a clear impetus to confront these changes that peaked under the Trump administration, manifested in the frantic pursuit of imposing a more savage hegemony over the world, including the legitimization of the violent seizure of states, lands, resources, and sovereignty, where "peace by force" has become the means to achieve that. This approach, in addition to the complicity and complacency of the previous U.S. administration and the ruling capitalist elites regarding halting the visible genocide against the Palestinian people, has become a new theoretical synonym for covering up genocide and protecting and preventing accountability for those responsible by pressuring judges at the International Criminal Court and South Africa and all forces demanding accountability. In conclusion: The ongoing genocide represents a sharp surpassing when considering the Zionist project solely from the perspective of apartheid and occupation, and that genocide is not an exceptional deviation from this nature, but rather an expression of a transformation bearing a genocidal character manifested in practice in the Gaza Strip, and the threat of its continuation and recurrence has not ceased. It is also capable of being represented in the West Bank and even within Israel itself if conditions permit. The impact of this analysis reflects the necessity of looking at various issues from the perspective of this understanding, starting from formulating priorities in confronting and halting the genocide and its implications (where displacement is an integral part of it) and leading to placing the issue of justice at the forefront of these priorities. Here, justice carries two dimensions: the first being associated with transitional justice and accountability, and the second linked to achieving liberation justice for the Palestinian people through ensuring its legitimate rights to statehood and return. Thus, justice becomes both a goal and a means at the same time: a goal for pursuing and guaranteeing rights for victims and for the entire Palestinian people, and a means to confront the Zionist project at its new point of weakness that has shaken its legitimacy like never before, allowing for demands for the application of models of international justice in dealing with the issue of genocide, including, ironically, the Holocaust itself.