In the dialectic of primary and secondary contradiction

Criticism of the Palestinian Authority leadership in the West Bank and Hamas leadership is on the rise among citizens in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

While there are objective reasons behind legitimate criticism, the danger lies in presenting the secondary contradiction, which in this case is the Authority and Hamas, over the primary contradiction, which lies in the occupation and all its consequences of settlement, racial discrimination, and ethnic cleansing.

In the laws of national liberation movements, the main contradiction is embodied in the struggle against occupation because it targets everyone.

In the Palestinian case, the occupation doesn't exclude anyone from its targeting circle. It targets all Palestinian factions and civilians, pushing for displacement and ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip, and is attempting to replicate this model in the West Bank. It also plans to undermine the Palestinian Authority financially and fragment it administratively by establishing municipalities to administer cantons and enclaves.

Some citizens believe that the catastrophe that befell the Gaza Strip was caused by Hamas through the October 7, 2023 operation. A number of citizens also believe that the Oslo Accords and the Palestinian Authority's performance led to the loss of the West Bank and the Palestinian cause.

In fact, the occupying state is using these pretexts to continue implementing its colonial, settlement, and racist project at the expense of the Palestinian people. It is using the division to separate the Gaza Strip from the West Bank and undermine the idea of an independent state, which the Zionist Knesset legitimized by adopting a law that considers the Palestinian state an existential threat to the occupying state.

The Palestinian people's awareness of the main contradiction and its prioritization over the secondary contradiction has given rise to a continuous demand, sometimes through popular pressure, to work to end the division and achieve reconciliation and national unity as the law of victory.

A limited minority is trying to carry out a political sorting with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and with Hamas in Gaza. While this minority does not constitute a majority, its demands and slogans have dangerous dimensions that may lead to internal strife by fueling the secondary conflict so that it becomes the main one, which pleases the occupation and reinforces its claim that the Palestinian people are not worthy of governing themselves and achieving their right to self-determination.

The national and rational approach lies in working to achieve unity within the Palestinian representative institution and holding general elections to enhance participation in the Palestinian political system.

Any call outside the framework of the comprehensive national dialogue to implement the Beijing Declaration on national unity, including holding elections after stopping the massacre in Gaza, lacks credibility and serves to inflame secondary contradictions rather than the primary contradiction, thus contributing to diverting the compass from its objectives, as everyone is within the circle of targeting a fascist and racist right-wing government that believes in displacement and ethnic cleansing as its program.