We, the region and the world are in a new phase

As for us – the Palestinians – what awaits us is neglect, denial, and dismantling, in addition to the threat of expulsion, annexation, or enslavement, or all of that combined. Now, Israel sees itself as victorious, and that it is not at all compelled to settle the minimum Palestinian demands. No one is pressuring it or even possesses the tools or desire to pressure it. All the hopes and illusory promises that were built thirty years ago have been demolished in the face of an extremist and violent reality. This is not because we are terrorists, racists, corrupt, and immature, but because our enemy is changing at lightning speed, from the desire to integrate to the desire to control, carried by illusions of power and more of it. The enemy’s rapid social, political, and intellectual transformations have been met with slowness, slackness, and lack of preparation on our part. It is clear that the colonial Western world does not think about or intend to reward or even console us. All it does is anesthetize, distract, and manage the conflict so that it does not bear its burdens. The two-state solution is no longer a valid vision for resolving the conflict. Rather, control, subjugation, and various tools of power are the best means to obtain calm. Although this situation will explode one day, However, the occupier and those who stand with and support it are prepared to confront it, as they claim. In short, the new phase carries risks, the beginnings of which we can already see. The first of these features is that our social unity and our future state are completely at risk. Scenarios and solutions are being hastily and vulgarly concocted to circumvent our ambitions, our tears, and our blood.

The Arab and Islamic region has been in a state of fragility, even fluidity, for almost a decade. The region has witnessed division, disintegration, civil wars, repositioning, changes in direction, the demise of regimes, and the rise of tribal, sectarian, and ethnic groups. For almost a decade, we have seen the Arab nation-state collapse in the face of challenges and questions, and crumble in the face of external and internal attacks, revealing a corrupt structure, unconvincing content, and a limited development vision. I believe that this weakness will increase, and that dependency will deepen, as most of these countries will increase their reliance on external powers in search of protection, funding, or legitimacy, a situation that will enable Israel to lead, protect, and control.

Our Arab region will be unable to offer solutions or initiatives due to weakness, fear, and inability. It will leave action—if it even allows it—to groups and organizations that will be accused, besieged, and persecuted. In my opinion, this political and cultural absence will deepen the region's crisis even further, not because of political and intellectual tension, but because of the economic and social crises arising from the state's weakness, the absence of its institutions, and the scarcity of its resources.

The world around us has left the global order that was formed after World War II for another order without laws, a fluid order that transcends and challenges international bodies, diplomatic norms and traditions, an order that does not recognize geography, borders, sovereignty, dignity or cultural privacy, an order in which companies compete with banks to reap profits, colonize the market, monopolize knowledge and reshape societies, countries and borders whenever that is beneficial, an order that creates its laws according to its interests and adopts new standards based on opportunism, piracy and oppression, cloaking them in glittering slogans and formulations that reduce reality and details for the sake of an incomplete, unjust and blind narrative. In this world, wars and military, commercial and scientific confrontations will increase due to competition over everything: knowledge and its tools, the market and its capabilities, geography and the advantages it provides.

The picture is bleak, yes, unfortunately bleak. Is there a way out of this frightening tunnel? What can be done? We have a few scenarios before us: either surrender and surrender to this brutal force and wait for another historical cycle, or confrontation and engagement despite the narrow margins and high risks. I am not in the position to offer advice or preach, as I believe that time - despite us - gives birth to its choices and options. What is happening today with such speed and intensity will inevitably lead to a conflict of interests between the powerful, and will certainly lead to conflict over everything. This is what drives us to hope for rapid change, meaning that the strong will not remain strong and the weak will not remain weak. What we need is patience and faith that we are a people who deserve dignity, sovereignty and a state, and that we are one people no matter how much others try to distort us, divide us and prevent us from achieving our ambitions.

What is happening now is just one more cycle of history. It was and will be the same. What is happening will not deceive us, nor will it dazzle us, nor will it overwhelm us, nor will it blind our eyes to the correct vision. What is happening is injustice and tyranny itself, and it will not last forever. All we need is patience and faith, and for the thousandth time, patience and faith are the most deadly, powerful and enduring engines of history.