Palestine's Bloody Internal Family Feuds

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

The phenomenon of family feuds is spreading forcefully and widely within the Palestinian interior. Every day we hear of internal fighting between two families or more in this village or that, of fighting between a refugee camp and a town, of homes burned and families displaced. In every feud there are losses of life and property, and there are wounded and seriously injured. Palestinian kills Palestinian, burns his home, and violates his honor without deterrent, without the slightest sense of responsibility. Families and population clusters fight over the most trivial reasons, blood flows, and vendettas then develop, keeping people pursuing one another. A quarrel can break out between two children and end up dragging adults into opening fire and killing.

In the territory occupied in ‘67, we are not safe only from the occupation — we are also unsafe from ourselves, having declined morally and nationally to a very dangerous degree, to the point that we now need a guardian. We constitute a danger to ourselves, to our cause, and to our social cohesion, and we have come to need someone to restrain us and organize our lives and activities.

Weapons are spreading across the West Bank, but they are not weapons of resistance — they are weapons of thuggery, hooliganism, assault on people, and chaos. In every nook and corner of the West Bank you find weapons ready for feuds and assaults on peaceable Palestinian adversaries who have nothing to do with the internal problems and conflicts. Enforcers are everywhere, and the Palestinian has come to fear Palestine’s own young men, a large portion of whom now resemble thugs, hoodlums, and bullies imposing their will on others. You no longer dare speak to a Palestinian young man about some bad conduct of his — he will simply assault you with curses and insults, and may call on thugs like himself for help, gathering together, armed. One of them might shoot you, wounding or paralyzing you fatally. This does not mean all the young men of the West Bank are like this — respectable young men exist, but they possess no weapons, and are not prepared to confront the thugs and hoodlums.

Where did these people get their weapons from? Quite simply, Zionist intelligence allowed weapons to be brought in under its own knowledge. It knows exactly who possesses weapons, and knows exactly whether the one carrying them has a national vision or is a mere thug. It knows the weapons aimed against Israel and the weapons aimed against Palestinians. It does not pursue weapons aimed against Palestinians, and the Palestinian Authority, for its part, does not work hard to pursue those carrying weapons against Palestinians. How could it, when its own weapons are licensed by Israel?

Here I point to the city of Nablus, which occupied the position of popular leadership across decades in Palestine. Nablus was the Palestinian national leadership, the cultural, intellectual, and scholarly leadership in Palestine, and it was the country’s greatest financial center. Now it is the greatest center for gunfire. Armed men go out in groups, firing randomly and terrorizing people, and no one restrains them. There are very modest attempts to control internal security in Nablus, but these attempts remain unserious to this day, to the point that the Authority cannot pursue and arrest some of the individuals who have laid the foundations of chaos in the city. Even some political leaderships in the city have engaged in the arms trade, and have long enlisted thugs to run their errands or settle scores with rivals.

The West Bank groans under the deterioration of internal conditions, and people are unsafe, lacking serious, firm action to protect them and provide them security. People must rise to their own rescue. We need to put our internal affairs in order, and set popular and official plans in place to confront the phenomenon of internal, bloody feuds. It is not enough to lament our bad luck — had we not gone easy on corruption and thuggery from the very beginning, matters would never have deteriorated to this dangerous level. No one is safe in the West Bank, and there is no mechanism on the horizon for resolving disputes between people or stopping the conflicts. At the official level, the matter is catastrophic, and there is no effective attention to the internal scene. So what are we to do?

If officials lack the capacity to provide security for citizens, we will be forced to internationalize the matter, hoping to find, among the states of the world or the international bodies, someone who will rise to rescue us from this deadly plague. There is a deliberate contempt for Palestinians’ security, and there are those who benefit from this chaos, whether at the level of the Zionist entity or the level of the Palestinian Authority. It is clear that the spread of chaos pushes Palestinians toward seeking the Zionists’ help in controlling Palestinian internal security. The goal is clear: liquidating the Palestinian cause once and for all, and pushing people to beg the occupation for rescue.

O Palestinians, unite and move in defense of your own selves, your children, your women, and your properties, and leave no opening for the liquidation of our national cause and our fixed national rights. Nothing benefits us but our own good, courageous, sincere arms, and no one else can do anything but conspire against us. So shall we become our own enemies’ accomplices against ourselves?

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “الشجارات الدموية الداخلية الفلسطينية” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.