A slice of Palestinian politics over Christmas dinner

What’s happening and where are we going in the new year? An excerpt from Christmas dinner.

A snippet of conversation from Christmas dinner at my family home near Washington DC: someone asked me what the situation is currently like on the ground in Palestine.

I answered that (in my slightly jaded opinion) we are dealing with a situation in which all the political parties are ideologically bankrupt, having nothing new to offer the people as their own ideas (negotiations, armed resistance, leftist ideologies, respectively) have all proven ineffective. At the same time, those in power in the West Bank and Gaza are unwilling to concede an inch of space to those Palestinians entering the fray with fresh ideas. The situation in the near future, in my opinion, will be an internal struggle among Palestinians for the future direction of Palestinian resistance.

Someone else piped in that yesterday (now the day before yesterday) Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas’ politburo in Damascus, said publicly that the organization is looking into civil disobedience as the way forward. Having proved itself an effective tool in the Arab Spring, with successes in the occupied territories, it appears that unarmed resistance and civil disobedience may be the best strategy for ridding ourselves of military occupation.

And so we see that the process of reformulation is already beginning. I believe that over the next few months we will see a greater effort at reconciliation, bringing Hamas into the PLO, elections, and the slow redevelopment of the Palestinian body-politic and strategic processes in 2012. It is either that or stagnation. I hope for the former.