So that the Palestinians do not pay the price of settlements in the region

By this title, I mean that the regional parties will not achieve most of their demands by abandoning the Palestinian people, or by marketing illusions or selling spoiled goods, under the pretext of the balance of power, or a change in the region, or a difference in the international mood. There are those who are re-establishing their alliances and calculations by washing their hands and feet of the obligations of defending the Palestinian people, and being satisfied with selling some resonant slogans or weak positions that are not translated into real actions.

This is after some people saw that they would pay prices they could not afford, or that they might lose their living flesh, or that their head might be toppled altogether. There are those who believe that their role is limited to holding conferences, forming committees, and going back and forth between capitals, begging for positions that have not come and will not come. There are those who try to give the impression that they are getting closer to the occupying state in order to pressure it, blackmail it, and prevent it from further extremism, annexation, and killing.

There are those who believe that the occupying state is sparing it the wrath of the United States, and giving it enough to survive or stabilize, and there are those who try to say that it is trading moderate positions for extremist ones for a possible tangible settlement, and no one knows exactly what the real meaning of the word tangible is here. In short, the regional parties that are up to their ears in poverty, unemployment, impotence, and the threat of dismantling or even removal are losing the ability to support the Palestinian people or pay the dues of standing with them.

Therefore, after the change of the American administration and the arrival of a violent, extremist and impatient president, the parties in our Arab and Islamic region want to settle their situations and achieve their interests without paying attention to the Palestinian people whose tragedies are increasing and who are drowning in a sea of new challenges. Talk about the future Palestinian state is almost actually disappearing behind the global talk about annexing Area C and separating the Gaza Strip from the West Bank, or it disappears behind talk about imaginary or real and acceptable efforts or paths, leading to a Palestinian state. That is, talk about embodying the state has been replaced by merely starting actual negotiations, which is a dangerous trap and a great illusion that the Arab and Palestinian parties must not fall into.

There is no need to spend more time talking about the state, its importance, its content, and the method of its establishment. There is no need to spend effort, time, bloodshed, and destruction in order to talk about a subject that has been killed a hundred times through research, digging, and coverage. We cannot fall into the trap again, especially since Israel is openly talking about annexation in the West Bank, settlement in the Gaza Strip, and Judaization in occupied Jerusalem. This is on the one hand, while on the other hand, the Islamic countries in the region are also trying to settle their situations before Trump enters the White House by redefining their positions in the empty and violated Arab region, aspiring to influence and possessing military and economic power cards, which makes them reconsider their calculations with the Palestinian people again so that they do not get more involved or offer more entitlements than they planned, or were not and will not be prepared to pay. At least the bets of the Hamas movement have not achieved what was hoped for so far, and it does not seem that they will achieve it in the near future after everything we have seen. Our Arab and Muslim brothers and sisters, before Trump enters the White House, are each trying in their own way and style to present their cards and good intentions to the new American administration by softening or reducing the Palestinian demands, or even bypassing and ignoring them. Therefore, there is no real and effective unified proposal that everyone stands behind in order to solve the Palestinian issue, and there is no unified Arab or Islamic position to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people or at least stop the deadly killing machine that has not stopped killing in the Palestinian territories. It is strange that the dialogue and even the debate about the ceasefire is between Israel and its sponsors, and not with other parties. Someone will say that this is an exaggeration and that the Arab and Muslim brothers have done a lot for the Palestinian people, and no one denies this at all, but the question is: What are the results? Moreover, the helpless, fearful and hesitant usually tend to blame the victim rather than punish the executioner, and this is what happens to a large extent.

What can the Palestinian people do to avoid paying the price of settlements, and to avoid being the scapegoat for all settlements? There are usually two ways out of crises: either the flexible and realistic way in which the ceilings are lowered and demands are modest, or the difficult and costly way in which dreams are held on to no matter the cost.

I mean, do we have to make a settlement with the occupier, no matter how difficult and harsh it is, because our allies, friends and brothers have abandoned us, and do we have to acknowledge the losses and therefore change direction?! Or do we have to stick to the last positions for the sake of the last goals?!

The problem this time is that the occupier did not even leave us the luxury of choosing between flexibility and rigidity. This time, the occupier does not want us to choose at all. In our case, the occupier thwarted and aborted the idea of a settlement under the pretext that we failed to obey and submit, and the occupier also thwarted our resistance because it did not submit to his conditions and goals. After all, we and our occupier are in a deep crisis. We both reject a settlement, and we both reject defeat, and that is another matter.