A new year. A new decade. What we Palestinians need is a new revolutionary approach and a new school of thought based on total unity of purpose for the common good, not just for the benefit of one faction or another. For that to happen, without shedding one drop of Palestinian blood, both Fateh and Hamas, the two main Palestinian factions, must put aside their differences and think of one thing and one thing only. The liberation of our lands.
This is not something I just thought of. I’ve been calling for unity and inclusion in our ranks all my life. I used all the tools at my disposal to advance this school of thought. Yet, so far, my voice has not been heard and my ideas, simple as they might be have not been adopted.
Is this because the message is incomprehensible? Am I asking for too much? Is the goal too hard to achieve? Or are our leaders happy to perpetuate the status quo to stay in power? You tell me.
2019 was a horrible year for Palestine on all fronts. Thanks to the Israeli occupation and the Trump administration’s total support for Israel and total enmity for us Palestinians. Alongside this enormous hurdle is Palestinian disunity, Arab Nations open collaboration with our enemies, the inability or unwillingness of the UN to honour its mandate and stop Israeli aggression and flaunting of International laws and conventions and
the utter indifference or cowardice of the International Community.
All these factors combined made it impossible for us Palestinians to advance our just cause even one tentative step. On the contrary. Our situation is looking more desperate with every passing hour.
Israel, as per usual and in accordance with its founding doctrine, continued on its path of ethnic cleansing, especially in and around Jerusalem and Hebron. Home demolition, land confiscations, settlements enlargement and more new ones in the pipeline, cold blooded murder of innocent, unarmed civilians, savage raids all over Palestine, especially on Gaza, desecration of Holy places, both Muslim and Christian, incarceration of men women and children without charge or trial. All of this while playing the victim and getting sympathy from the usual Zionist cheerleaders in USA, Australia, Canada and Europe.
The Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, despite all signs that read in block letters ‘NOT FEASIBLE’, is chasing a mirage called ‘the peace process and the two states solution’. Hamas in Gaza is embarking on a different agenda altogether locally, regionally and internationally, that reads in block letters ‘DIVISION AND SEPARATION’ with no hope of the twain ever coming closer together. When Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the PA, announced his intention to have elections back in September most of the factions agreed, including Hamas, while questioning the motives and methods. Until now no date has been fixed and we have no idea who the candidates are going to be. These proposed elections will only see the light of day if Israel agrees to allow them to take place including in East Jerusalem. We the Palestinians of the diaspora, seven million of us, are never mentioned or even thought of. Do you ever wonder why?
Meanwhile, our people in Palestine are suffering on levels that test human endurance and faith under three brutal occupations. The PA in the West Bank. Hamas in Gaza. Israeli occupation over the entire historical land mass of Palestine and a suffocating total siege over Gaza.
From the above and more, much more prohibitive conditions, do you see any hope of deliverance any time soon? Somehow I doubt it ever happening. No, we definitely need a miracle or a flood of Biblical proportions.
Jafar M Ramini is a Palestinian writer and political analyst, based in London, presently in Perth, Western Australia. He was born in Jenin in 1943 and was five years old when he and his family had to flee the terror of the Urgun and Stern gangs. Justice for the people of Palestine is a life-long commitment.
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