Palestinian youth are a lost generation


Amid the bickering between Fatah and Hamas, indifference of the Arab world and political self-interests Millennials in both Gaza and the West Bank have no prospects and no hope; the least Israel can do is to avoid further violence

Young Palestinians protest near the Gaza border

Shimrit Meir writes in YNet News

Had it not been for the latest deadly flare-up between Hamas and Gaza, which raised the tension on the southern border even more, Nakba Day would have passed unnoticed for most Israelis. This year, one of the most important dates in the Palestinian calendar overlapped with the Eurovision Song Contest being held in Tel Aviv, making the disparity between the two sides more evident than ever.

While we’re broadcasting the hedonistic celebrations live from Tel Aviv, in Gaza, thousands of people were queuing for a chance to get $100 donation from the Qataris in order to break their Ramadan fast with some kind of a meal and feed their families.

When you can’t muster any more energy to fight your battles fairly, what you have left is destroying what the other side has. On Wednesday’s Nakba Day, the Palestinians marked 71 years since what they call “the catastrophe” occurred. Right now, the Palestinians are at a low point, the lowest maybe, since 1948.

Even before the Trump administration began working on its peace plan (dubbed “the deal of the century”), before the Palestinians lost a lot of its support in the Arab world and before the results of the Israeli election, they were caught in the midst of intra-Palestinian conflict. It has been 12 years since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority and created their own “two-state solution,” except in this case both states are Palestinian.

Those in the West Bank have become quite indifferent to the fate of their brothers and sisters in the Gaza Strip, who over the past year have been staging mass – and sometimes deadly – border demonstrations with a goal to lift the blockade of the coastal enclave. This is the biggest indication yet that the Palestinians have not yet matured for a state of their own. A nation fighting for independence simply can’t afford to have such a deep geographical and political divide.

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