Ibrahim Mar’i Hamed: Restoring the Liberation of Palestine

 

The following article, by Palestinian prisoner and national leader Ibrahim Mar’i Hamed, was originally published in September 2023 (prior to Al-Aqsa Flood) in Arabic by the Journal of Palestine Studies (Majallat al-Dirasat al-Falastiniya). We are republishing it in translation in order to advance the project of confronting the isolation of imprisoned Palestinians by the Zionist regime, which seeks to deny the Palestinian and Arab people — and the world as a whole — access to their ideas, thoughts, analysis and leadership.

Ibrahim Mar’i Hamed, from Silwad in the West Bank of occupied Palestine, is one of the most prominent political and resistance leaders of the Palestinian liberation movement currently imprisoned in occupation jails, and like Ahmad Sa’adat, Marwan Barghouti, Abdullah Barghouti, Abbas al-Sayyed, Hassan Salameh, Mahmoud al-Ardah and other leadership figures, the Zionist regime has repeatedly refused to release him in a prisoner exchange with the resistance. He is serving 54 life sentences in occupation prisons, the second highest sentence of all Palestinian prisoners, for leading the Al-Qassam Brigades in the West Bank. Hamed’s security file is considered the largest in the history of the occupying state, with 11,000 pages of case files submitted to court.

Restoring the Liberation of Palestine

By: Ibrahim Mar’i Hamed

Over the past two decades, serious reevaluations have brought renewed attention to many core terms and concepts that initially shaped the understandings and frameworks of the Palestinian struggle—concepts that once clearly defined the nature of the conflict and its parties. Yet, due to years of erosion and exposure, these concepts faded and were obscured, reaching their nadir during the Oslo era, a moment marked by an acute loss of meaning.

Some of these reevaluations, many of which emerged as reactions to the despair of the Oslo moment and belated recognition of the enormity of its catastrophic consequences—and from the collapse of any remaining hope in the so-called “peace process” or “two-state solution” —have rediscovered that we are, in fact, living under colonial conditions. These reassessments redefined Zionism and its project, “Israel,” as colonial constructs that were spawned by the long era of colonialism. In such texts that restored the focus on the term “colonialism”, the term “colonialism” or “colonial” and their derivatives may appear sixty or seventy times in a single ten-page article, as though the repetition itself was an act of celebration, affirmation, and reinforcement of the rediscovery.

Among these re-evaluators were those with the courage to follow this logic to its natural conclusion: if Zionism is a colonial project profoundly imbued with racism, then the confrontation the settler-colonial presence imposes is by definition a national liberation struggle. This conclusion responds to all the debates and theories promoted during Oslo’s inception—that “the stage of national liberation” had ended, and that the current era was about “state-building.” At that time, institutions such as “Veterans’ Associations” emerged, and people began to recount their past underground activities as if that chapter had closed and all secrets were now revealed. Others reproached the political organizations focused on liberation for failing to address social issues or community development, while some tried to straddle both realms by defining the era as one of “liberation and state-building” simultaneously, launching into theories of sustainable (or semi-sustainable) development—after the older discourse of the economy of steadfastness had been forgotten.

Even those who logically concluded we were still in a phase of national liberation stopped short of the natural conclusion to follow: reclaiming the goal and the call for the liberation of Palestine. Many of them had previously discarded this objective altogether in the past decades under the influence of “realist thinking” shaped by military defeats, or ideological convictions promoting coexistence, reconciliation, and peace.

But the idea of liberating Palestine and nothing else was, for the Palestinian people following the Nakba of 1948, their political faith. It was the umbrella of all national objectives, the source from which all other goals stemmed. When Palestinian organizations first emerged in the late 1950s, their names, programs, and literature were built around the singular goal of liberation. There was the Palestine Liberation Front, and Fatah itself was nothing other than the “National Liberation Movement.” The PLO was born as the Palestine Liberation Organization. Subsequently came the Popular, Democratic, Arab, and Palestinian Fronts, and the General Command—none of which had a mission other than the liberation of Palestine.

When Palestinians drafted their solemn founding charters, to which they swore, and often described at the time as the “Bible of the Revolution,” they were liberation charters and nothing else. The original 1964 Palestinian National Charter, written during Ahmad al-Shuqeiri’s leadership, included the term liberation 22 times across 29 articles, excluding any use of the words “free,” “freedom,” or “free people.” The revised National Charter, which updated the earlier version, mentioned the term liberation 34 times in 34 articles. It is striking that neither charter mentioned, or even merely alluded to, the concept of a “state” or “Palestinian state” as a goal the Palestinians sought to achieve. Rather, articles in both charters explicitly and consciously affirmed that no mission superseded that of liberation—even if that mission were an entity or a state.

The process of replacing the sacred goal of liberating Palestine (as its sanctity was literally stated in Article 13 of the Palestinian National Charter, and Article 15 of the Palestinian National Covenant) with other secondary, “less sacred” goals—goals that became subject to possible negotiation—was carried out through a process of “rationalizing” and domesticating the Palestinians. This process relied primarily on beating them down to the point where they would “learn the lesson” well enough to veer and incline toward “realism.” And it would not be improper to call this process by the most imaginative revolutionary term: “revolutionary realism”!

The tragic exit from Jordan following the events of Black September—September 1970 and July 1971—was, in our view, the origin of “realist thinking.” At that time, some concluded that we were so weak that we could not achieve victory or hold our ground against the Jordanian Desert Police—so how could we confront the Zionist nuclear fortress? Political settlement projects flourished then, following the 1967 defeat, and priorities shifted from restoring the “usurped homeland” to “removing the consequences of aggression.” Those efforts relied on UN Security Council Resolution 242, adopted in November 1967, which became the pillar and cornerstone of the settlement process (nobody mentions it these days, although it used to be cited dozens of times daily in the news!). Global and regional powers began playing a role in “rationalizing” and ripening the situation, which included waving before Palestinians the temptations and lures of “realism.” Adaptation to these was translated into decisions of the National Council, which would not approve any new policies except after extended debates and disputes.

We later understood that the disagreement was sometimes not over the core of the position, but rather over how it was formulated, presented, and linguistically expressed. For instance, according to the Ten Point Program, once approval for the establishment of the Palestinian Authority was secured (as stated in the second point), it was acceptable to add the qualifier “fighting authority.” Likewise, the PLO could be declared the “sole legitimate representative” at the Rabat Summit in 1974.

In this process of manipulation, in which supreme objectives were changed and replaced, three alternative national goals were proposed to substitute the overarching goal of liberating Palestine. As announced in 1974—the year in which the Palestinian political leadership’s orientation was altered—these goals were:

• the right of return,
• the right to establish a state, and
• the right to self-determination.

This “discourse of rights” became subject to and confined by the logic of rights permitted under the unjust laws of the United Nations regarding Palestine and its cause.

The paradox here is that if “liberating Palestine” were to be actually achieved, then these “three rights” and others would become automatically guaranteed. However, their proposal in 1974 came as a substitute for the liberation goal that was sidelined. Moreover, each of these rights is negotiable by nature—as later proven by experience. In fact, this downward logic ended up rendering even those three goals forgotten and forsaken!

What’s worse is that the internalization of these transformations and the sidelining of the liberation objective in the Palestinian arena were not limited to political actors—whom some might excuse due to the coercions of politics—but extended, more dangerously, to intellectual, creative, cultural, and prominent figures. Many among them advanced arguments and legal pleadings that led to abandoning the possibility of liberating Palestine militarily, and toward embracing convictions in favor of coexistence and “humanization.”

What is also alarming is that if we accept this, it would mean eternalizing our weakness and passing it down through generations—those generations that are still seeking an answer to the challenge posed by the loss of Palestine in 1948. (And this challenge, in fact, does not concern the Palestinians alone, as some might prefer to portray it, but is of a broader challenge that has affected the capitals of the Arabs and Muslims: Cairo, Baghdad, Amman, Damascus, Beirut, Rabat, Riyadh, Tehran, Sana’a, and Khartoum. It is the kind of challenge that concerns Arabs and Muslims just as much as it does Palestinians themselves.)

The mistake of the Palestinian political thought that leaned toward “realism”—which in many cases resembled passivity—was that it sought to avoid asking the questions that would lead to proper conclusions and answers. If the exit from Jordan made us realize the limits of our strength—or rather the extent of our weakness—then the real, realistic question should have been: What is the remedy for the weak?

The simplified answer is: to become strong!

And the deeper question is: How can we attain the desired strength under the conditions of the current reality of the 20th and 21st centuries? Rather than reinforcing and eternalizing our weakness—as has happened under the logic of “political realism” that emerged after the exit from Jordan and moved only in a single direction. One of its most tragic and striking manifestations was when the “realist” Palestinian president stood methodically, lost and bewildered, before the annual representatives of the United Nations, declaring in phrases filled with confusion, loss, and helplessness:

“To whom shall we complain? Where shall we go? We have accepted disgrace, but even disgrace does not accept us…”

And then he pleaded:

“Protect us… even animals have someone to protect them!”

The truth is, politics here have been practiced upside-down. Political science teaches us that raw, direct, material power (power) is a pillar of the “realist school,” not the immersion in weakness and its institutionalization. Even Gandhi’s “nonviolence” built a type of power—one grounded in renaissance and self-liberation. Reality, which must be changed, requires tools of strength—not submission and conformity!

The problem is that this mindset of weakness and frailty—long discussed by the late Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, and which has eaten away at the spirit and body of our political entity—has become more than mere fascination with the power, mentality, and science of our enemies and the “foreigners.” Time and again, it has preached to us that we are less than capable of fighting “Israel”… And the matter has now gone even further: there are some Arabs and Palestinians who have reached a point where they object to the very idea of liberating Palestine! They are even willing to enter into systematic plans and policies to undermine and prevent it.

This is a disturbing level of “realism.” These ultra-realists, since day one, possessed a sparse commitment and were ideologically and politically alienated. They recognized “Israel” from the outset, never believed in liberating Palestine, and never supported armed struggle. But at least they “didn’t object” if others pursued that path. Today, however, some of them are actively opposed. They have both theoretical and practical objections, and they consider their stance to represent a “national consensus.” They now exclude others (many others) from that consensus, accusing them of holding “narrow partisan agendas.” Thus, adherence to liberating Palestine, which was once the “father of all national goals,” becomes labeled as a fanatical, irrational, narrow partisan proposal. Its proponents are branded as extremist and doomed, and at best are dismissed as unrealistic and irrational dreamers!

There have long been urgent calls to conduct a comprehensive review and to examine what the situation has come to, particularly in the aftermath of the disasters and devastation inflicted on the people and the cause by the Oslo Accords. Evasive conciliatory language that avoids confronting the truth is no longer useful. And without confronting hard truths—no matter how bitter and harsh—there can be no hope for any meaningful discussion or dialogue.

In order to contribute to liberating this conversation and to establish some conclusions that can be built upon, we record and call for the following:

1 – Acknowledging Failure

If there is consensus on anything in the Palestinian arena in recent years, it is that the Oslo track and the “two-state solution” have utterly failed. This has not only been stated in the declarations, statements and assessments of those who reject and oppose the Oslo Accords, but also in the very declarations, statements, assessments and bitterness of the Oslo architects themselves. This includes the bodies in Ramallah—the National Council, the Central Council, and the Revolutionary Council—which announced the expiration of the agreement. Though in truth, this was not their preference, it came as a necessary response to the weight and pressure of the moment—particularly since Oslo was effectively nullified by “Israel” itself, through its parties, governments, and forces that publicly rejected it, implemented alternative programs, and turned the page on it years ago, to the point that even the “Israeli” signatories of Oslo later disavowed and abandoned it.

And if, as psychology says, recognizing the problem is half the solution, then courage and responsibility require a public acknowledgment of the error committed in signing the Oslo Accords—even if many describe it not as an error, but a sin. The late George Habash, in his characteristic honesty, called on his generation by saying:

“If the generation I represent failed to achieve its just slogans, it must at least record the lessons and causes of that failure so the next generation can benefit and avoid repeating these mistakes.”

If there are lessons and insights to be drawn from this failed trajectory, we summarize some of them as follows:

A – The Oslo Agreement Blocked a Rolling, Escalating and Promising Intifada

One wonders, after this bitter harvest: Can academic analysis today calmly determine that the political exploitation of the 1987 Intifada—which some once considered a brilliant move—was actually the worst and most mistaken investment?

Strangely, Palestinian academic research—not to mention politicized debates and polemics—has avoided, if not outright shied away from, asking the right questions we must now raise after all this devastation. These questions include:

• What if there had been no Oslo Agreement, as is the case with the Syrians and Lebanese, who to this day have not signed peace treaties?

• What if the phenomenon of Yahya Ayyash (the martyrdom operations phenomenon), along with other emerging Intifada phenomena such as the kidnapping of soldiers and the bold, point-blank engagements from zero distance innovated by Imad Aqel and his cells—which were on the rise even in the early Oslo years (1993–1996)—had been allowed to reach their full momentum and revolutionary expression?

• What would have been the results and harvest of that ascending resistance activity in terms of political independence and national liberation?

• Wasn’t the Israeli occupation already preparing to withdraw from Gaza in 1992, unconditionally, as documented in that period’s records and memoirs? Didn’t the Oslo Agreement delay that withdrawal, and make the subsequent presence of occupation forces in Gaza more convenient—until a second Intifada, equipped with even fiercer tools of violence, forced Israel to withdraw in 2005 without conditions?

• Haven’t many wondered: Was resolving the Palestinian leadership crisis prioritized to the point of sacrificing the entire Palestinian cause?

• Isn’t the current phase of “Oslo reproduction” in the West Bank since 2007 worse than Oslo itself—whether in practice, or in the suicidal disavowal and suppression of resistance, or in the complete absence of political horizon and related promises?

• How will academia describe this state of acquired helplessness, lack of capacity, and absence of alternatives?

B – There Is No Peace with Zionism

Though once a foundational axiom of Arab and Palestinian political consensus (such as in the Khartoum Summit and thereafter), the bitter experience of attempting to make peace with Zionism has proven—beyond the need for any further evidence—that we are dealing with an extremely racist enemy, that has no regard for us, our rights, or our cause, except to the extent that it facilitates the theft and desecration of our land.

Zionism does not seek to Judaize us, nor does it wish to civilize or elevate us. It aims to destroy us, corrupt us, and empty us. From the perspective of those calling for the liberation of Palestine and rejection of normalization with the occupier, there is bitter reassurance—ironically—that our enemy is so fanatically racist that it would expel and reject us even if we offered to work for it as woodcutters or water carriers. Zionism has confirmed, in every way that even a dim-witted person could understand, that it is inherently incompatible with peace or compromise.

C – Despair and Loss of Any Trust in Negotiations

Beyond the disappointments recorded by many specialized academics, critics, and observers regarding the Palestinian negotiating performance (pitiful) or the “Israeli” performance (arrogant and bullying), those in the Palestinian leadership who, for decades, insisted on the necessity of “direct negotiations” and pursued them by every means—these very people have now washed their hands of the entire doctrine. They no longer believe in its utility, even if they have not yet completely abandoned hope in negotiations via other mediators.

But what did this long negotiation experience teach us?

In truth, it was nothing but a practice in futility and exhaustion—draining the foundations and elements of our national cause, and undermining its spirit as a just and legitimate cause. If we were to gather the mountains of documents and papers from these negotiations and agreements and ask: What was the result? Our answer would not go beyond what Farouk al-Sharaa said in his memoirs:

“We caught nothing but wind!”

The truth is that all their successive governments—from Rabin, Peres, and Barak, to Sharon, Olmert, Netanyahu, and Lapid—as shown by documents, testimonies, procedures, and policies, never intended to grant us a “state”. The most that was ever proposed was limited and incomplete self-rule. The most instructive lesson in the futility of negotiating with such an enemy is that this same enemy unilaterally withdrew twice, without condition, during the same extended negotiation period:

• In May 2000 from South Lebanon

• In 2005 from Gaza and parts of the northern West Bank

These withdrawals were not the result of negotiations—but were forced by an accumulated and persistent resistance, despite the denial and ingratitude displayed by Oslo’s hardliners and their Lebanese and Arab counterparts.

D – The Question of the Alternative

After the exit from Beirut in 1982, the most important argument presented by proponents of the peace settlement and its “rationalists” to their opponents was the question: What is the alternative?—based on the assumption that armed struggle from outside had reached a dead end.

But what is their justification today, after the catastrophic failure of the settlement they dreamed of, desired, followed, and dragged the people and the cause into—delivering us to such levels of deterioration, retreat, and decline?

In truth, the question they asked back then now turns back upon them after this bitter harvest: What is the alternative? What is the alternative to settlement, negotiation, and compromise? Haven’t these peace advocates been given ample time—and more than enough—of experimentation, exhaustion, and erosion?

Is there any remaining room for more reckless betting on yet another kind of settlement?

There was an early slogan of the Egyptian revolution—adopted by the popular movement that paved its way—that was summed up in the phrase: “Enough!”

Enough of the neglect and indifference. Enough of continuing in such dire political, economic, and social conditions.

So, it would not be inappropriate to revive that same slogan here: Enough for the Palestinian cause of loss, confusion, dispossession, and alienation. It is time to return it to its compass, its direction, and its original path.

We have read sound and perceptive opinions in the pages of this magazine in recent years—written by those who, after the failure of the two-state solution and the collapse of the peace process, called for abandoning the notion of reconciliation with the Zionists and urged preparation for a long-term phase of steadfastness.

E – Oslo as an Obstacle to the Mission of National Liberation

As usual, the Zionist Jews took everything they needed from us through the Oslo Agreement, and then discarded it—unilaterally nullifying it—because they see no obstacle to their continued expansion and to their claim of an “eternal right” to our land.

In fact, the performance of the Oslo-era Palestinian leadership has emboldened them to press for a final resolution of their existential conflict with us—and to revive all ideas and projects of displacement and transfer.

If some had believed, at the time of signing Oslo, that the agreement carried nationalist content because it promised a potential Palestinian state, that illusion reached its final chapter at Camp David in July 2000 and was definitively buried with the assassination of President Yasser Arafat in November 2004.

The post-Oslo phase saw a significant narrowing of the national space. It came, in truth, to reflect a component of the machinery of occupation—a tool of its dominance and control.

The Oslo discourse itself candidly described the reality:

“An authority without authority, and an occupation without cost.”

If that is the case, then what is the point of maintaining Oslo and clinging to it—especially its organic security, political, and economic ties to the occupation?

We believe that one of the first necessities of liberation from occupation is to liberate ourselves from and dispose of these loathsome and burdensome relations. Their continued existence, in their current form and as they have been practiced to date, remains among the heaviest burdens, greatest obstacles, and most entrenched barriers standing in the way of any genuine process of national liberation.

F – Correcting the Oslo Mistake: Nothing Less Than Withdrawing All Concessions

Some academics and political analysts referred to Oslo (1993) as “the annihilation” (al-halka)—in poetic and semantic harmony with the terms used for the two earlier catastrophes: the Nakba (1948) and the Naksa (1967).

But if the latest national evaluation has concluded that Oslo was a grave mistake committed against the people and the cause, then the question is: Can that mistake be corrected? If the Oslo Agreement was a mistake—then what is the correct path? And what of those who committed this mistake?

It is useful to point out—at least from a legal perspective, let alone a political one—that Oslo was a “Declaration of Principles,” not a “Peace Treaty.” This means there is room to withdraw all the massive concessions that have been made to date—especially the “mother of all concessions”:

the Palestinian recognition of the “legitimacy” of the Zionist entity, as declared on September 9, 1993.

This is in addition to all other forms of recognition included in previous decisions by Palestinian National Councils, and those written into the agreements and protocols signed over the years.

But the question remains: Who will undertake this noble national mission?

Usually, honest political leaders—those who respect themselves, their positions, their programs, and their word—resign seriously and finally when they fail or are unable to implement their programs and policies. But in the uniquely Arab fashion, resignation here is seen as the greatest sign of renewed confidence, continuation, and survival! Failure becomes an irrelevant topic when measuring confidence in a leader, a party or a “political tribe.”

It was expected that those who brought failure to the Palestinian arena—and repeatedly recycled that failure—would at least apologize for it, for the disappointment, even before submitting their resignations and exiting the scene.

If the courage of the Oslo supporters, the proponents of the “peace of the brave,” similar to the political line they embraced, only ever showed in offering costly concessions—and if their instinctual pride prevents them from having the guts to admit failure and wrongdoing—then the responsibility now lies, in our view, with the Palestinian people and its living forces, who have been overly polite and reserved in confronting this confusing internal situation, uncharacteristic of a people known for its courage and initiative.

The Palestinian people always surprise everyone with their vitality, maturity, and capacity to overcome barriers and obstacles.

And yet, the Oslo Accords have not been overturned despite the urgent awareness on social media of the need to abandon them, which is possible, as the signatures of millions of Palestinians and refugees can be collected to bring about a popular overthrow of them!

Even more puzzling is that the political forces opposed to Oslo—despite their sweeping victory in the 2006 elections—did not proceed to issue laws or resolutions abolishing Oslo and its appendices, nor have they organized a popular campaign across Palestinian communities to bring down the agreement that, in our view, is an essential step toward building the new national consensus we are calling for.

2 – Return to the Roots and Wellsprings

With the proliferation of initiatives and settlement projects in the Palestinian arena after the exit from Beirut in 1982, Palestinian literature increasingly emphasized—by way of contrast—the importance of the Palestinian national constants and the need to uphold them and not transgress them.

What was meant by the “constants” were those newly introduced after 1974:

• the right of return,

• the establishment of a state,

• and the right to self-determination,

• in addition to the constant of the singularity of Palestinian representation, exclusively through the Palestine Liberation Organization.

As for the original constant, “the liberation of Palestine,” its page was effectively turned after 1982—practically, after it had been theoretically shelved by the Ten Point Program (the transitional program). That document fulfilled the sharp and prescient warning of the thinker Hanna Mikhail (Abu Omar)—a leading figure of the democratic current in the Fatah movement before his early and untimely death in 1976—that the real purpose of “gradualism” was not to liberate Palestine in stages, but rather to recognize “Israel” in stages! And this is exactly what later experience proved.

Eventually, the concessions of 1974—those “constants”—came to be referred to as minimal demands! In truth, this “minimum” was shaped by the unjust resolutions of the UN Security Council, and was not the product of Palestinian thought or the decisions of their national councils.

Indeed, any careful observer of the transformation in Palestinian political thinking will find that it was essentially a matter of inventing terminology and concepts to conform and align with what is called “international legitimacy”—a “legitimacy” whose adoption required not only stripping away the legitimacy of the former liberation struggle, but replacing it with the legitimacy of the colonial status quo and the recognition of “Israel” as an absolute political reality, with strict instructions not to deviate from this framework in any way.

Therefore, these newly introduced Palestinian constants stem from the master constant of the unjust “international legitimacy.” From a national perspective, no matter how tempting their legal and political vocabulary may sound, these constants are corrupted, flawed, and distorted.

Today, after the catastrophic failure of that entire trajectory—and with all those “constants,” borrowed and substituted for the organic and inherent goal of “the liberation of Palestine,” now shaken to their core—is there still room for entering new experiments, entanglements, and spinning cycles in this peace settlement direction?

Especially considering that today’s world is not the world of fifty years ago, when those Palestinian concessions were formulated; and that the international, regional, and local balance of power is now witnessing a fundamental and decisive shift; and that our position as a people and a cause in 2023 is not what it was in 1974—or 1948.

One of the most famous slogans of the settlement camp, after conceding their inability to liberate Palestine, was to defer the matter of its liberation to future generations. But this wasn’t just a matter of surrendering the role of the current generations—it amounted to bequeathing to future generations not only the inability to liberate, but even the inability to retain the liberation goal itself—as a present, valid, and achievable aim, without deleting it and turning its page.

The truth is, the new generations constantly surprise us. By their nature, they have never truly departed from their wellsprings and roots. They do not need excessive mobilization, theorization, or convoluted formulations. In fact, they often remain unaware of the contortions of “realism” and the paths taken by those without capacity. But the innate, unspoiled awareness of these new generations manifests in their reactions to all aspects of occupation, provoking their energy and motivation.

And it is entirely appropriate for the living, thinking, cultured, and politicized forces—and for all who are concerned with the public Palestinian cause—to assist in returning to the roots and wellsprings, and, along the way, to sweep away and isolate all the accumulated rubble.

3 – A Call for a New Palestinian National Consensus to Restore the Original Consensus: “The Liberation of Palestine”

The shift from the full “liberation” program to the “state on the 1967 borders” program happened through a long series of rationalizations, deliberations, and domestication. Murky terms like “tactics,” the ambiguous “no”, and other timid expressions became common euphemisms for sidestepping the natural and instinctive national consensus, which had always been nothing other than the goal of liberation.

The tacticians were given their full chance—and more—starting in 1988, when they claimed to have constructed a new “consensus.” In reality, what they did was eliminate and marginalize broad sectors of our political and struggle-based consensus.

Ironically, this second, newly created “consensus,” as it distanced itself from the original consensus and its sacred principles, tried as much as possible to conceal its announcements and positions. But once Oslo was entered, it began issuing blatant declarations that nullified the original consensus—its charters, covenants, and promises. However, it did not reach the point of easily deleting and erasing what was once called the “Bible of the Revolution” until, after a long path of rationalization, reformulation, and domestication, it was done with the least possible reaction.

Today, after the disastrous results of that “second consensus,” the Palestinian people are called upon to re-establish a new consensus—which, in truth, is a return to the original consensus.

When we speak of Palestinians and “the Palestinian people,” we’ve found—after Oslo and after the collapse of the Palestine Liberation Organization (which appeared to end its historical role upon signing the Oslo Accords), and which had once rightfully been described as “the symbolic moral homeland of the Palestinians”—a fragmentation of the previously unified Palestinian identity that the PLO had struggled above all to consolidate and embody.

After Oslo, we were faced with multiple Palestinian identities. Among the various Palestinian communities, the 1948 Palestinians, according to researchers and observers, formed the most active arena of post-Oslo debate—not only on matters of identity, but also regarding the future, the state, and destiny.

But overall, the Palestinian presence as a whole was overcome by confusion, loss, and lack of guidance.

Let us note here: during the peak of the Oslo flood—when everyone else seemed submerged—we found ourselves, alone or nearly alone, resisting the Zionist evil entrenched on our soil. We said, with our heads above water and vision clear: we were not sure of anything in that confusion, except for fighting that evil, with only the field of confrontation as the one thing that gave us a sense of a free and dignified life.

Alienation had become suffocating, and things, words, and meanings no longer resembled themselves. (The pessimistic predictions of Professor Ghassan Salameh, which he formulated in an influential five-part piece of political literature on the dangers facing the region in an issue of Arab Future magazine during the Oslo summer of 1993—proved accurate when he foresaw our entry into eras of: annexation, infiltration, crushing, incineration, and suffocation.)

At that time, we refused to be among the drowned masses. There was no place for people like us—not in the streets, nor in the barren, lifeless public forums or yellow media arenas. We moved like people walking on coals… Our natural positions and stations remained—as they still are—either under the sacred soil, in a detention center, or on the battlefield.

Back then, we would say:

Let all dreams die if our dream of liberating Palestine dies.

In recent years, when speaking of “the Palestinian people,” full acknowledgment was once again given to all the components of this people—not just those in the occupied territories, as was implied by the dominant political and media discourse after Oslo.

Thus, Palestinians in today’s political and media discourse are the 14 million people that now make up the nation’s total population (as the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics has also tried to affirm, verify, and constantly remind us).

The most crucial and worthy question we must now confront (especially after the failure of Oslo and the two-state solution—which, at best, would have addressed only a part of the Palestinian people, on a part of the Palestinian land, leaving the rest of the Palestinians outside of it, and this was the most severe criticism directed at Oslo) is this:

How can we formulate a political and liberation program that represents the hopes, ambitions, aspirations, goals, and aims of all 14 million Palestinians—equally and fully?

With complete clarity: There is no program other than liberating Palestine that can answer this existential and liberation-based question. It is the only one that can meet the needs and aspirations of all Palestinian descendants. This is not about wishful thinking, nor flights of idealism seeking absolute justice or the full realization of rights. It is not about ideological rigidity or dogmatic obstinacy.

Rather, returning to the “head of all national goals”—its essence and foundational pillar—comes after a path of exhaustive experimentation that has run through every conceivable alternative. These alternatives have exhausted their usefulness, yielding only wasted time, delayed opportunities, betrayals of generations. Those who were shaken from the goal of liberating Palestine, which they saw as distant and unattainable, have reached the point of abandoning the choices and “solutions” they sought, imagining that they were a rope to salvation.

The goal of “liberating Palestine” is not solely related to the failure of peaceful solutions, although that failure does add extra merit and legitimacy to the restoration of this goal. It also spares us the need to reproduce many of the arguments we used to make to justify keeping “liberation of Palestine” as a declared and protected goal—insisting it should never be overthrown in the name of all Palestinians.

Even if the peaceful solutions had succeeded, it would not have invalidated the efforts of those calling for the liberation of Palestine—for this goal is original, natural, and inherent, whereas the settlement trajectory is the exception, the deviation from the natural path—regardless of what was claimed about “consensus” around this alienation and exception!

Today, we are once again called to return to the origin, to the roots, and to declare it openly—even if it takes decades (even if it takes thirty or forty years), for this remains the shortest path. Especially in a time like ours, where history moves at a jumping pace, marked by fluid changes and rapid opportunities.

And ultimately, liberation—like in all historical experiences—depends on the act of will.
Our current generations possess high levels of readiness for struggle, qualifying them to confront and contend—within an international context of profound changes that allow for the achievement of milestones on the road of liberation, if the struggle is organized and consistent with the true road to liberation.

Thus, returning to the liberation of Palestine is a return to achieving cohesion, harmony, and full integration among all Palestinians. It is the return of the soul to the body—after Oslo made us no longer resemble ourselves.

Some may argue that there now exist segments of Palestinians for whom “liberating Palestine” is no longer relevant, or who no longer adopt it as their goal—and this is to be expected.

Therefore, the consensus we are calling for does not stop at the fourteen million Palestinians alone. Even if they all unanimously agreed, we cannot dispense with the necessity of broadening that consensus to include our Arab and Islamic surroundings, and at the very least, the Levant.

The cause of Palestine—as all Palestinian documents emphasize—is a broad, collective cause , deeply linked to its surroundings. Palestinians have always considered themselves the spearhead and vanguard of their nation.

Waiting for those who have lost conviction in the liberation of Palestine to be convinced once again is only another waste of time!

**