Dr. Abeer Thabet
Professor of political science and international relations
A severe crisis related to the Palestinian political system and its national identity is overwhelming the Palestinian society under the 37th Israeli government -headed by Benjamin Netanyahu- and its original Zionist settlers. Although the Palestinians have underwent several major turning points and political interactions along its conflict with the Israeli occupation extending over the past years and have managed to deploy such transformations in favor of their interests and for the benefit of the Palestinian national project, a severe structural crisis regarding the features of the collective identity has been overshadowing the Palestinian society lately. This crisis has directly affected the possible means to confront the Israeli occupation. The Palestinians could not solve this structural crisis up to this moment, generating contradicted approaches in encountering the extreme government and its colonial settlers.
As known in political sociology, communities are the most affected by political interactions. In case the work of the representative institutions was disrupted, the space of democracy will be reduced and the principles of transparency, political participation and human rights will fade away. This thus would de-construct the Palestinian identity. The impact of political disputes on the Palestinian society differs from the other societies as the Palestinians undergo a political, cultural and cognitive conflict with the Israeli occupation. Such interactions deeply affect the Palestinian identity, which constitutes a fortress for the Palestinians to encounter the Israeli occupation, as well as generates a state of friction inside the Palestinian society, particularly within the youth. Many have lost their political front; as a result, confidence in political parties and factions were lost. Many people have started to consider factions as burdens over the Palestinian community.
The crisis of the Palestinian identity has engendered deformities within the moral and material components of the Palestinian thought, marginalizing the national principles and their significance in confronting the Israeli occupation policy that tends to deepen this crisis. It also causes the populist societal distortion to sovereign to become a substitute for the value moral judgments. Thus, the factional and partisan concepts advanced over the national concepts, and the clan and tribal conceptions advanced over the citizenship and civil concepts, triggering horizontal conflicts within the society. This structural crisis therefore generated varied identities that sought to justify the practices of the factions and parties and the rejection of their opponents no matter what their national positions are.
Under this structural crisis of the Palestinian identity that affected everything that is Palestinian, there was no space for any national, rational discussions among the different opinions for what best fits the public. The Palestinian dialogues among the crisis parties have started, weakening the Palestinian conflicted parties. This weakness thus melted the Palestinian identity under the factional division and reconciliation efforts.
Despite all the societal and political distortions overriding the Palestinian society today, the Palestinian man is the right-holder who strengthens his belonging to his cause though several commonalities represented in destiny, religion, history, land and the likes. He can also record diverse victories in the conflict with the Israeli occupation through making a societal, cognitive, intellectual and behavioral revolution. Undoubtedly, there are no alternatives rather than the Palestinian identity in order to stop the current Zionist government's policies, which race against time to annex the West Bank, Judaize Al-Quds and eliminate any possibility of establishing an independent Palestinian state.
It is known that the unity of the Palestinian identity is one of the most important defense policies to stop all forms of repression, colonization, and murder practiced by the Israeli occupation government against the Palestinians every day in the West Bank and Al-Quds.
There is nothing wrong with preserving the individual identity as it does not contradict the collective identities. This, however, requires respect for the identities of other ideological and cultural groups, and requires an equal citizenship that gives meaning to the mutual affiliation in the national quest under the motivation of belonging to the nation, which integrates differences into a common culture based on citizenship, through which the cultural commonalities are established to strengthen the collective national identity through all formal and informal institutes that seek to localize the values and concepts of supporting the national football team up to upholding all national principles.