It is against this backdrop of misery, humiliation, fear, oppression and corruption that Palestinians arose. They were mostly young people born after Oslo, became politically conscious after the Fatah-Hamas clash, raised in the conflicting worlds of their own leadership co-existing with the Occupation, on one hand, and clashing with other Palestinians on the other.
These youth, however, never perceived Occupation to be normal; never came to terms with the fact that the earth beneath their feet kept shrinking while illegal, massive Jewish cities kept on being erected upon their land; true, they learned to navigate their way across the checkpoints, but never assented to the superiority of their occupier. They abhorred disunity; rejected identity politics and factionalism; never understood why Gaza was being disowned and slowly slaughtered.
This is a generation that is the most educated, yet; most politically savvy and, thanks to the huge leaps in digital media technology, is the most connected and informed of the world around it. The ambitions of these youth are huge, but their opportunities are so limited; their earth has shrunk to the size of a single-file queue before an Israeli military checkpoint, where they are corralled on their way to school, to work and back home. And, like the Israelis who shot at anyone who dared to protest, Abbas imprisons those who attempted to do so.
It is a generation that simply cannot breathe.
The current Intifada is an expression of that dichotomy, of a generation that is so eager to break free, to define itself, to liberate its land, yet resisted by an Old Guard unremittingly holding on so tight to the few perks and dollars they receive in the form of allotments every month.
History must remain in constant motion, and the last six months have been the attempt of an entire generation to move the wheels of history forward, despite a hundred obstacles and a thousand checkpoints.
This might be the most difficult Intifada yet; for never before did Palestinians find themselves so leaderless, yet so ready to break free. The outcome of this tension, will not only define this whole generation, as it defined my generation of the 1987 Intifada, but it will define the future of Palestine altogether.
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