Liberating Palestine Awaits Reconciliation

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

For years, the Palestinian factions — Hamas and Fatah in particular — have kept the Palestinian people preoccupied with reconciliation, distracting them with trivial and absurd internal matters that divert their attention from the real conflict. Instead of mobilizing the people, in all their segments, to confront Israel, raising the level of popular awareness of national duty, and working tirelessly to raise people’s capacity to endure hardship and confront threats and dangers, the factions work to drain the energies of the Palestinian people, to demolish their morale, to tear apart their social fabric, and to drag them down to degraded moral levels. These factions have kept people so preoccupied with reconciliation that some have come to think that the liberation of Palestine awaits nothing more than an exchange of kisses between the leaders of Hamas and Fatah, and the clasping of their hands before the television cameras.

It seems that talk of reconciliation and its news have clouded the hearts of many Palestinians, to the point that they have come to believe that Israel’s defeat hinges on reconciliation, and that all of Israel’s policies will inevitably shatter against the rock that constitutes the wellspring of Palestinian strength and might. Israel presses on with settlement construction because reconciliation has not been achieved; it presses on with confiscating land, violating Palestinian sanctities, and assaulting Jerusalem and al-Aqsa, because the factions have not reconciled. Israel is in a race against reconciliation, working to accomplish a great deal before the factional giant rises and brings the world crashing down over its head.

…and what use is reconciliation while we still coordinate security matters with Israel?

It is a disgrace for us to be divided and scattered, but the greater disgrace is to reconcile on the basis of negotiating with Israel, coordinating security with it, and normalizing relations with it. If reconciliation is going to preserve these national transgressions, then the absence of reconciliation is more beautiful and better for the Palestinian cause.

The Palestinian factions have done a disservice to the Palestinian people and to the Palestinian cause, with the exception of that part which insists on keeping its hand on the trigger in confronting the enemy. It is clear that the factions use the idea of reconciliation not in order to achieve it, but in order to make the Palestinian people believe that it is a national demand they are firmly committed to. No faction wants to appear as though it rejects reconciliation, so the more convenient course is to toy and play with the people’s emotions and feelings. The factions have manipulated national sentiment for factional interests, working to drag the people into a game of stoking emotions by signing reconciliation agreements, followed by disappointment through failure to implement them. Their slogan is clear: let the people be damned, and let the factions endure — even on a land without a people, even in name only, without land and without people.

Our way out is to acquire strength — that strength which drives Israel to think many times over before carrying out its Judaization plans for the whole of Palestine. The faction that will win the people’s support and backing is the one that makes events happen in confronting Israel. And if there are small factions that think Palestinian history has come to a halt at the large factions, then such a faction has simply chosen to hide beneath the cloak of weakness, waiting for the big ones to reconcile. A faction is great by its actions, not by the number of members affiliated with it, and the people of Palestine unite under the banner of resistance, not through decisions issued from luxury hotels.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “تحرير فلسطين ينتظر المصالحة” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.