Historically, people will not ask who was right when the first Palestinian schism took place in the late 1920s, between the Jerusalemite ‘Hussaini camp’ and the ‘Nashashibi camp’. This split, along with other major factors, led to the loss of 78.5 per cent of the historic land of Palestine. Currently, nothing new then, to see the Palestinian national project losing its direction because of the present schism between Fatah and Hamas.
The Palestinian crisis of failure to unite persisted when the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) was established in 1964, led by the late Ahmad Al Shuqairi, amid the boycott of the resistance factions at the time, especially the Fatah movement. The latter considered PLO an Arab project to dominate the Palestinian national action. But the current Fatah/Hamas crisis has degenerated into a dangerous reality of division that has sadly led to the emergence of two opposing political entities under Israeli occupation/blockade.
The first comprehensive Palestinian uprising (1987), popularly called “intifada”, quickly gave rise to pricey results (Oslo Accords, colonisation and Judaisation of occupied Jerusalem) that cast a heavy shadow on nationalist achievements. Before it turned into a devastating disaster — disappointing to many who believed that this movement (well-intentioned but hard-won for many reasons) was the path leading to real change in the Arab world — the first deviation from course took place in the Palestinian arena as earlier mentioned. It happened when the serious differences between two different ideological and political movements (Fatah and Hamas) led to the emergence of two “sovereign” authorities. The first was positioned in the West Bank and the second in the Gaza Strip, thus the political, ideological and organisational separation turned into a geographical one! With the outbreak of the ‘Arab Spring’ revolutions, the Arab people with their broad social spectrum, were suffering, leading them to an abyss of backwardness at various levels. With the occurrence of such ‘revolutions’ that aimed to deepen roots of an ‘Arab Spring’ and dismantle the multi-dimensional social injustice, they were seen by many people as underlying heavy prices, destroying — as in the first Palestinian uprising — many achievements, yet, appearing as a simultaneous victory of the ‘counter-revolution’ or the ‘deep state’ in more than a country. The latter, with all their components and alliances (military apparatuses, intelligence, judicial system, intellectuals, administrators, politicians, media people, and religious figures) have proven their ability to swerve from the path of ‘Arab Spring’. It is not a state within the state, but rather the state itself with its institutions, organs, and media, cultural and religious frameworks. Across the capitals of the ‘Arab spring’, there is a violent/ bloody coup that tears apart in the components of the fabric of their societies. Indeed, it proved to be very painful that the new leaders in the Arab Spring capitals failed to fill the political vacuum that existed. The most serious development was the eruption of sectarian tensions at religious levels and within existing tribal and class divisions.
The outcomes were serious with strikes directed at Arab nation-states, some of them fragmented or their resources plundered — as the case was in Iraq, which faces the threat of fragmentation and division or the failure of Syria as a state. Libya and Yemen also have their problems.
Deviation from the path is the name of the current Arab stage. Fruitless years have been passing by with Arab blood flowing on the streets, only to discover that there have been no revolutions but only partitioning and further fragmentation of those already divided.
Unfortunately, Arab opposition groups (possibly the people) were not able to build solid positions to block the road in order to prevent deviation of Arab Spring from its path, which led to collapse into the labyrinth of destructive civil wars. Hopes are faltering now as a result of the domination and intervention by powers with special agendas. In such a dark situation, would optimistic views that people never fail to progress and that history, despite deviations and faults, moves forward, come true? It is a difficult question at this critical time for Arab history.
Professor As’ad Abdul Rahman is the chairman of the Palestinian Encyclopaedia.
