Palestine: How Can We Break the Infernal Cycle?

The Palestinian situation is living through one of the most dangerous moments in its modern history, not only due to the fascism of the Israeli occupation alone, nor merely as a result of internal divisions, but due to the convergence of two lethal factors: the arrogance of Israeli power supported by structural international bias, especially American, and internal Palestinian incapacity to produce a political and social alternative capable of breaking this infernal cycle. The occupation is not merely a temporary control project, but has transformed into an integrated system for managing Palestinians as a demographic burden that must be subjugated or eliminated, not as a people with rights. In contrast, the Palestinian political structure is no longer capable of transforming suffering into strength, nor pain into a project, but has become consumed in managing incapacity.

When power becomes policy and bias becomes a system

Israel today is not only waging a war of extermination, but is imposing a unilateral vision for the Palestinian future: a fragile, fragmented entity stripped of sovereignty, a society managed security-wise, a dependent economy, and a political horizon postponed indefinitely. This project would not have continued with this level of brazenness and arrogance without explicit or silent international bias, which justifies killing in the name of “security,” and treats international law as a selective tool rather than a binding reference. This bias has not only failed to protect Palestinians, but has contributed to reproducing the conflict. Whenever accountability is absent, power expands. Whenever politics recedes, war advances. Thus, Palestine enters a closed infernal loop, where violence begets violence.
Gaza today is not merely a battlefield, but a mirror of the failure of the international system. Even when a ceasefire is announced, it carries no real political or moral significance, other than reducing the daily death toll for a limited period. No serious reconstruction, no political path, or accountability. Only temporary management of a permanent catastrophe. In this sense, Gaza has turned into a laboratory for managing human pain, not ending its causes.

The Palestinian Authority: Incapacity as a fait accompli policy

In the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority is eroding dangerously. It is politically besieged, financially strangled, and functionally constrained. But more dangerously, it is losing its social base. An authority that cannot secure the minimum salaries for people, and abandons its history rooted in the legitimacy of resistance led by the national movement. At the same time, it lacks a vision to confront economic and social disintegration, meaning it is beginning to lose its practical legitimacy regardless of its legal reference. Here, one cannot suffice with explaining Palestinian incapacity solely by external factors; the absence of reform based on consensual legitimacy, the erosion of resistance legitimacy, and the postponement of democratic entitlements leading to the absence of accountability, all are internal factors that have deepened the crisis instead of containing it.

Hamas and the Authority: Different responsibilities

Political equality between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority does not hold, as each has a different position, function, and responsibility. But this does not exempt either from frank criticism.
Hamas bears heavy responsibility for linking Gaza's fate to military choices not built on national consensus, nor on sufficient assessment of societal cost. Resistance, no matter how legitimate, does not grant an open mandate to manage the lives of more than two million people without political or civilian accountability.
In contrast, the Palestinian Authority bears a more complex responsibility: it is the internationally recognized entity, required to represent the entire national body, but it has chosen, due to incapacity or narrow calculations, to manage the crisis instead of confronting it, and to preserve institutional survival instead of renewing popular legitimacy by devising governance tools capable of restoring trust and mobilizing popular energies.
The problem is not in the existence of political pluralism, but in the absence of any national framework that imposes accountability, utilizes pluralism as an element of strength, and prevents unilateralism in fateful decisions.

Can this infernal cycle be broken?

Breaking this infernal cycle will not come from isolated international initiatives, nor from betting on a sudden change in the balance of power. Rather, it begins with one indispensable condition: a realistic national consensus that reorders priorities on the basis of protecting society. This consensus does not necessarily mean resolving major issues at once, but agreeing on a minimum program: first, protecting people in the face of extermination and settler terrorism, and from economic and social collapse; second, unifying the moral and political discourse before the world; third, restoring the role of civil society in all its components as a lever for national steadfastness and preserving the social fabric from disintegration, and all of this requires national incubators in unified frameworks at the level of the organization and the authority.

Can life be managed independently of the occupation?

The experience of the First Intifada is not a myth, but its rich lessons show that managing life under occupation is relatively possible when society has organization, serious leadership attached to the national concern and people's interests, a sense of participation and responsibility, and effective networks for social solidarity. This in addition to clarity on who the enemy is. The occupation was no less cruel then, but internal confidence was higher, and popular legitimacy was clearer. Today, the challenge is not limited to the occupation, but manifests in the disintegration of the internal fabric. And if this disintegration is not addressed, nothing will remain to defend politically.

How can collapse be prevented?

Preventing collapse does not start from the outside, nor from anticipated international decisions, but from three interconnected internal circles:
First: Restoring the national function of the authority
Not as a illusory sovereign authority, but as a tool for social protection, public service, and managing the capacity for steadfastness. An authority incapable of paying salaries, and of protecting society from economic chaos, loses its practical legitimacy regardless of its political reference.
Second: Realistic unity, not ideological; unity built on a minimum program: protecting people, preventing chaos, unifying the national discourse before the world, which forms a solid lever for the possibility of answering the major questions. Unity today is a condition for survival, not a political luxury.
Third: A decisive role for networks and frameworks of civil society. When politics fails, society does not automatically collapse. Palestinians have proven that society, if its latent energy is mobilized rather than marginalized, will be capable of organizing itself, alleviating the effects of occupation and the repercussions of division together.
Today, the occupation is harsher, yes. But what we lack is not conditions alone, but internal confidence, leadership legitimacy, and organizational capacity. Managing life independently of the occupation is not withdrawal from the conflict, but redefining it: from an unequal military confrontation to a battle of steadfastness, organization, survival, and effective engagement with sweeping transformations in international public opinion.

A call to the world… Who hears Palestine's pain?

It is no longer possible to continue viewing the Palestinian tragedy as a “chronic conflict” without solutions, or a balanced struggle between two parties that “fail together.” This description is not only misleading, but morally comforting, as it exempts power from its responsibilities and empties international law of its content. Policies justified in the name of stability or security, from unconditional support for Israel, or calculated silence on grave violations, or settling for managing humanitarian crises, do not prevent explosion, but delay it and make it more destructive. The absence of accountability does not produce moderation, and depriving an entire people of horizons does not generate surrender, but more desperate and dangerous forms of conflict levels. And if the West is serious in defending an international system based on rules, values, and human principles, then Palestine is not an exception, but the clearest test of the credibility of this system. And continuing to treat human consequences without confronting political causes will only lead to reproducing the same infernal cycle that everyone claims to want to break.

Palestine today stands before two choices with no third:
Either a national consensus that reproduces politics as a tool of salvation, or a gradual fall in which the national cause turns into a humanitarian file without political horizons. The occupation seeks to impose this fall by force, and international bias facilitates the task with silence. But collapse will not become fate unless accepted Palestinianly. And history, so far, has not said its final word.