Rashid Khalidi
The situation of the Palestinian people is extraordinarily grim. I don’t remember the Nakba — I was born in November 1948, by which time it was pretty much over, and I wasn’t conscious of any of this, obviously. I don’t know that I can even make the comparison historically, but I would say it’s certainly the darkest day for Palestine and the Palestinians since then — no question of that.
Whether it’s worse or not, only time will tell, because it’s not over. We’re not anywhere near the end — I wish that we were, but it doesn’t seem that we are. On the political level, the Palestinians are facing the same dilemma that they were on October 5 or 6 last year. They’re still divided, and they’re still, in my view, leaderless.
There is a powerful trend or faction that advocates an unrestricted form of violence. In my view, this trend does not have a strategic vision. It has achieved tactical victories and some catastrophic strategic defeats, and it has caused enormous suffering to Palestinians and also to Israelis. But there is no unified leadership or collective strategic vision. That was the situation before October 7, and it hasn’t really changed.
There’s no sense of how Palestinians want to live in the future and relate to the Israelis in Palestine in the future. Nor is there a sense of how they intend to get there. Those are strategic questions that are not being asked or answered by the people who currently claim to lead the Palestinian national movement, whether in Hamas or in what is laughably called the Palestinian Authority — an institution with no sovereignty, no authority, and no legitimacy among its own people.
I don’t think those leaderships have answers to the questions that I’ve just asked, so the Palestinians are rudderless as a people in terms of political leadership. On the other hand, it…
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Auteur: Rashid Khalidi
