The Disunited Palestinian States
A political analysis describing the reality of the West Bank as separate population islands under Israeli control, with geographical and political fragmentation preventing the establishment of a unified Palestinian state, coinciding with an internal crisis within the Palestinian political system.
A political analysis describing the reality of the West Bank as no longer just settlement expansion, but a reshaping of Palestinian geography according to a colonial logic based on controlling the land, fragmenting the Palestinian space, and confining the population within separate clusters. The writer argues that settlements, bypass roads, and checkpoints work together to produce a new geography that connects settlements to each other and to Israel proper, while cutting off communication between Palestinian cities and villages. He points out that annexation has become a de facto reality even if not officially declared. This external fragmentation coincides with an internal crisis within the Palestinian political system, where the Palestinian house is burning while part of the political effort is preoccupied with rearranging power centers. The writer criticizes the Palestinian Authority's preoccupation with managing itself at a time when the space in which it is supposed to exercise its national role is shrinking, and warns that the restructuring of the PLO may turn from an opportunity to rebuild the inclusive national framework into a process that reproduces it from within the Authority's system. The options before the Authority are limited: either continue managing the existing reality or redefine its role within a broader national project.