National identity in the context of ethnic cleansing and settler-colonialism. The case of Palestine

Abstract

The Palestinian Authority was formed at the height of the neo-liberalism under the supremacy of a settler colonial repressive regime to dominated internally by Palestinian financial, and estate capital. The split between Fatah and Hamas heightened the vulnerability of the wide majority of Palestinians who have to face not only high rates of unemployment and poverty, but also an ongoing military repressive occupation and aggressive Jewish settlers. In the Gaza Strip Palestinians live under a suffocating siege and a ghetto situation. Both Fatah and Hamas endorsed neo-liberal policies, and both fostered a relatively large salaried middle class. The fragmentation of a weakened Left deprived Palestinians in the two territories of an alternative political vision and a strategy of struggle to that presented by the major two political parties in these areas. However, statelessness, neo-liberalism, fragmentation and settler-colonialism pose an existential threat to all Palestinians. With no political future on the horizon under continued settler colonial occupation, the situation is increasingly getting explosive as Palestinians have nothing to lose.

Keywords

• Settler-colonialism, Palestinian Authority, the myth of state building, the collapse of the political field, national identity