This Tuesday morning, far-right Israeli cabinet minister Itamar Ben-Gvir stormed al-Aqsa mosque, marking the starting point for the new Zionist regime’s plot to escalate tensions with the Palestinian people and assert Israeli authority over the occupied city of Al-Quds’s Holy Sites. The underwhelming response from the rest of the world stands as a testament as to why the armed resistance in Palestine is a necessity, but also why a mass united movement must be formed inside the occupied lands.

The new Zionist administration is formed of extremists who seek to introduce policies that speed up the process of ethnically cleansing Palestine and to undermine the Muslim and Christian status of the Holy Sites inside the Old City of occupied Al-Quds. The mere fact that no action has been taken by anyone except the Palestinians to combat the new Israeli regime's agenda at al-Aqsa, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu as its Prime Minister, stands as a testament to the indifference of those who see no unified Palestinian movement capable of standing up to the Zionist regime.

The new Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, has included the Religious Zionism party in his coalition, as the second-largest Israeli Party. There was once a time where the Likud Party was considered to be the Israeli far-right, whilst the settler extremists belonging to the likes of Religious Zionism were fringe and even banned from running for the Israeli Knesset. Now, the Religious Zionism alliance is the mainstream far-right and Likud is considered to be a moderate right-wing Party. 

Whilst all of this is simple enough to point out, what does it truly mean and how will this affect Palestinians? The first thing that has to be established when we talk about the new Israeli regime, is that it represents the natural next step towards completing the goals of the Zionist entity. The segment of the Zionist movement which roots in the camp of David Ben-Gurion is now inept at facing the challenge ahead, whereas the Zionist revisionist camp, which dates back to Ze’ev Jabotinsky, is now seen as the torchbearer of finishing what the Zionist movement started. The Religious Zionism alliance is simply a manifestation of what the hardline Israeli settlers believe is the solution to their problem, that problem is the existence of the Palestinian people.

The followers of a liberal, pseudo-socialist, Zionism, are now fading into irrelevance. Although the Zionist adherents to liberalism and the tenets of Western “democratic” liberal doctrine are much more desirable to Western nations and their leaderships, it is clear that a return to hardline nationalism is re-emerging across the West and so far this has not caused the implosion of NATO or similar alliances, despite the ideological grievances between different Western nations and political parties. In the West, there has been a large negative reaction to the choice of the Zionist electorate, who chose to vote for representatives that do away with the “peace talk” masquerade and openly pursue policies that are viewed as taboo by Western nations. The policies of ethnic cleansing, settlement building, desecration of Holy Sites, war crimes and racial discrimination, are all fine with Western nations, however, it becomes a real problem when there is no veneer of respectability or cover-story about achieving peace, democracy and freedom, attached to it; in order to hide the crimes being enacted.

The battle between the populist right and the liberal imperialists in the West will continue to rage on, however, this will not mean that we will see any immediate change in policy towards the Zionist entity. This Israeli regime is simply an embarrassment and creates problems for the West in terms of its image, that is the real concern here for them. The same problem was created by the introduction of Donald Trump as president of the US. Trump did not necessarily represent much of a change in US policy, although there were certainly some differences, but most crucially it was his crude and unapologetic approach that sparked outrage amongst Western liberals.

Now that we have this out of the way, the most important thing for the future of the Palestinians is what happens next on the ground. At this current moment, there are a number of armed movements that have grown organically out of major West Bank cities, the armed resistance also holds a strong base in the besieged Gaza Strip, these are two points of strength. Yet, there is no unified Palestinian movement, no legitimate Palestinian representative and no unified mass popular mobilization. Whilst the armed struggle is certainly a necessity and is crucial to combating Israeli violations against the Holy Sites and Palestinian rights, without a unified movement and mass mobilization, no significant progress can be made towards liberating Palestine.

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The ability of the armed resistance to combat, protect from and repel Israeli aggression has been demonstrated countless times. This ability is crucial, but it comes with limitations and the military power of the Palestinians is evidently not enough to overcome the highly equipped Israeli military entirely. In order to achieve large-scale victories, the Palestinian movement has to be on the offensive and/or put their Zionist settler-colonialist enemies on the backfoot. When simply reacting to the enemy, you are responding to an offensive which they have prepared for and the only way to be successful when this occurs is to have the power of the masses behind you.

The battle of Saif Al-Quds, during May of 2021, served as an example of what can be achieved by the Palestinian resistance, in a response scenario, with the backing of the masses. The victory that was achieved there would have been impossible without the popular support of the Palestinian masses in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the 1948 territories.

Looking into history, the 1936-9 ‘Arab Revolt’ under British occupation served as a powerful example that displayed the potential power of the Palestinian masses. The Palestinians launched a mass general strike, embarked on an armed campaign and confronted both the Zionists and British occupiers. At the end of the revolt, it was clear that the Palestinians had a major impact and this even eventually factored into the UK’s decision to leave Palestine altogether, in addition to temporarily halting Zionist immigration to the Holy Land. The reason why the revolt was not successful has largely been put down to the lack of a clear leadership and direction, both militarily and nationally, this was despite the influence of the Grand Mufti of Al-Quds Haj Amin Al-Husseini and others. 

As of now, there is no unified Palestinian movement and no clear representative of the Palestinian people. The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) has been hijacked by the Palestinian Authority (PA), which focuses their efforts on collaborating with "Israel" on maintaining security for the Zionist entity and seeking to put themselves in financially advantageous positions. Hamas and the resistance forces in Gaza have tried repeatedly to unify the movement, but this has failed as every other Palestinian political Party is sanctioned and blacklisted by the West and so the PA will not pursue unity out of fear of the Western backlash against it for such action. 

The Palestinian people, specifically the younger generation, has become fed up and are actively striving for liberation and to revive the national movement, however, they lack the expertise, in addition to financial backing, that they need to advance. The sense of hopelessness, felt by many in Palestine, especially affecting the older generations, has come as a result of the fracturing of the Palestinian movement for national liberation. The PA maintains a monopoly on access in the West Bank, which makes dealing with it a necessity; it also employs a large chunk of the population that are dependent upon its success. So when Palestinians see it cooperating with "Israel", breaking its many promises, achieving no progress towards forming a State and preventing elections for over 15 years, many simply do not have the position to revolt.

The PA is the biggest obstacle at this time to achieving a unified national movement, it does a better job at spying on Palestinians, thwarting resistance attacks and preventing unity than "Israel" could ever do. This is why it's inevitable fall cannot come sooner, however, this must be preempted and the fall of the PA will spark an internal conflict in both the Fatah Party - between the revolutionary and normalization branches - in addition to a larger confrontation with the Zionist occupation. The standards of living in the West Bank will drop significantly with the fall of the PA and there may be a descent into chaos, meaning that the situation must be directed towards mass mobilization and revolution in order to prevent an even greater catastrophe.

The Zionist regime that has just been ushered in, commanded by Benjamin Netanyahu, is openly looking to annex portions of the West Bank, change the status quo at Al-Aqsa, introduce the death penalty for Palestinians, ethnically cleanse Palestinian citizens of "Israel" and much more. This has come at a time when the PA is on its last legs, or at least this current iteration of it, the armed struggle has also jus returned to the West Bank. 

The goals of the Palestinian national movement are clear, but there will inevitably be a newly stated mission that will have to come out of the new Palestinian leadership, the most important thing however, is getting to a place where there is a clearly understood unified leadership. In order for the world to listen to the Palestinians and take Israeli war crimes seriously, there must be a unified leadership, one that is legitimated by the people, one that has clear goals and is able to mobilize the masses. This leadership also must pursue the armed struggle, but due to this conflict not being conventional, there must be a people's armed struggle, not just an armed struggle from groups and factions.

The reason why the world turns a blind eye, including the Muslims to a large extent, beyond making Dua for Palestine, is that there is no leadership or unified movement. The PLO had power and influence because it was the sole representative of the Palestinians, every year since the Oslo Accords were signed this influence and legitimacy has declined. The Zionist regime has no reason to listen to the UN, the ICC, the ICJ, or even the US or EU, because none of them will do anything to them beyond occasional condemnation. The Zionist regime will only listen to the Palestinians when they are forced to do so and for this there must be the ending of the PA, the emergence of a unified leadership and mass mobilization, coupled with armed struggle. No one else will save Palestine other than the people themselves and everyday we head closer to the situation just mentioned, the Palestinians know what is required and are heading towards a new equation. Once this new era is birthed, then the outside players will become more engaged out of necessity.