Catastrophe, setback and division! from where we start?

Written by: Dr. Dalal Saeb Erekat

Coinciding with the anniversary of the setback! The late Mahmoud Darwish recalled the teacher who said: We liked June in his memory... If we do not find someone to defeat us again, we will defeat ourselves!
The Palestinian people witnessed a catastrophe and a setback of displacement and deportation because of the Zionists, and now we are suffering from a catastrophe of our own making. We have found someone to blame after the catastrophe of 1948 and the setback of 1967, and we are still suffering under occupation in forms of racism, injustice and persecution until apartheid has become internationally documented and now it is time for us to admit and blame ourselves for the catastrophe century of division. After the failure of many initiatives, dialogues, and shuttle visits to Arab and Western capitals that brought together the two delegations of reconciliation in the presence of a third party mediator in the hope of reaching a settlement, these efforts only served to waste time, effort, and money, and worse than that, it killed hopes and the Palestinian national spirit until everyone became in a state Waiting and waiting for the political will shrouded in a vacuum.
A real confrontation with reality is required on several internal and external fronts. Real stances that go beyond slogans are required.
Identity is what we inherit, not what we inherit! Palestine is more important than any party. Palestine brings together Fatah and Hamas, not the other way around. It is time for us to invest all opportunities and capabilities for the purpose of liberation, and for all of us to remember that we are facing one occupier. There must be a strong and real national initiative that reflects the aspirations and sacrifices of the Palestinian people to stand in the face of this catastrophe that we have caused. For ourselves so that we can achieve the national priorities of the Palestinian people and restore the prestige of the national project.
The Palestinian people deserve an alternative to the current situation. The Palestinian people deserve peace, living in dignity, freedom of movement, freedom of education, childhood, motherhood and humanity, leading to the right to self-determination. The Palestinian people deserve a better reality, and they deserve the beginning of liberation from the Israeli occupation. This fact is ignored by the international community, which perpetuates the manifestations of the occupation and increases the burden of Israeli arrogance and injustice against the Palestinian people. The occupation's crimes must be investigated, and accountability must be held. The occupation must be held responsible for its repeated crimes, and the occupation must be ended. However, awareness and national concern require ending the division in the first place.
The occupation authorities are working to impose facts to distract us with many details, from Jerusalem to the prisoners of the martyrs to the settlement of clearing funds for field executions, to attempts to close UNRWA and cancel the rights of refugees, to attempts to annex Jerusalem and the West Bank. We have passed the memory of the Palestinian Nakba, and today coincides with the anniversary of the Naksa, and we remember the scenes of displacement, the key to return, villages, asylum, injustice, and everything that the occupying state has done to this day, a continuous Nakba and setback. It is not difficult to transfer the experience to new generations and to our children. What is happening in Sheikh Jarrah, Masafer Yatta, Silwan, Khan al-Ahmar and Beita is nothing but new displacement operations, a repeated Nakba through military orders to forcefully displace and evacuate citizens. In addition to all that, the policy of settlement, captivity, deliberate killing and executions continues.
There are many witnesses to the injustice that the Palestinian people suffered from as a result of external parties, but it is time for us to confront what we have caused ourselves, the scene of division in Palestine. We may disagree on the name. On the one hand, some use the term division, coup, or seizure of power, and on the other hand, some call it the day of decisiveness and the day of cleansing the sector of corruption! Name it whatever you like, the result is the same and no one disagrees with it; Observations of favoring the party's interest over the national interest resulted in a shameful Palestinian division that led to the loss of an entire people and the loss of the Palestinian project in general. On the anniversary of the setback and the Nakba before it, we have to admit that as long as the division exists, it is almost impossible for us to regain our status, our value, and our national project.

- Dalal Erekat: Professor of Diplomacy and Strategic Planning, Faculty of Graduate Studies, Arab American University.