Alon Ben-Meir
The international community has rallied behind the Palestinians in support of their aspiration for statehood. The question is, will the Palestinians seize this rare opportunity and adopt a new strategy critical to realizing their national goal?
I do not recall a period since the 1967 Six-Day War when the international community has expressed such overwhelming support for the Palestinian cause. This global coalescence and outpouring of support represent an unparalleled precedent, which they cannot afford to miss, compounded by Trump’s just-announced peace plan.
Ironically, it is Hamas’s heinous October 2023 attack and Israel’s devastating retaliatory war in Gaza that have injected new life into the two-state solution, bringing it back into focus on the global stage.
To capitalize on this focus, the Palestinians, especially the extremists among them, must reassess their stance on three major psychological and/or strategic self-imposed constraints that have prevented them from realizing their national aspirations over the past several decades:the failure of violent resistance, demanding justice to remedy the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe), and their religious right to the land.
The Strategic Failure of Violent Resistance
Although the temptation for revenge and continued violent resistance against Israel, especially in the wake of the Gaza catastrophe, overshadows the prudence of adopting a new strategy that could better serve the Palestinian cause, Hamas must ask where the strategy of continued violent resistance has led to.
The Palestinians are more despairing and despondent now than any time before. The Palestinians in Gaza are devastated, and those in the West Bank are being choked and suffering under brutal Israeli occupation.
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