Clashes in recent days between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants in the Jenin refugee camp on the West Bank have reminded the international community just how far off a possible peace deal is in one of the Middle East’s oldest and bloodiest conflicts. . This community has spent decades arguing that the only solution to the conflict is an Israeli state living in peace with a Palestinian state., But the two-state theory has fewer and fewer followers, especially among Palestinian youth, who also don’t believe in their own leaders.
Palestinians under the age of 30 have never had the chance to vote in an election and many say they have little faith in the current Palestinian leadership.
Exclusive data shared with the BBC suggests they are increasingly rejecting the idea of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The two-state solution is a cliché thought up by the West that doesn’t take into account the real situation,” 17-year-old Janna Tamimi replies dismissively when asked about it, adding: “Where are the borders?”
Janna says she is one of the youngest accredited journalists in the world.
At the age of seven, he began borrowing his mother’s phone and covering protests in his hometown of Nabi Salah, in the occupied West Bank.
“I’ve been reporting on the nightly raids [de las fuerzas israelíes] and the daytime raids that occur quite frequently. I don’t shoot all of them, but I do the best I can. It’s been kind of hard with school and everything. There’s always something to cover.”
Since Janna was born there has not been a single call for general elections in the Palestinian territories.
The last ones took place in 2006, which means that those under 34 years of age have never had the opportunity to vote.
trust collapse
And what has happened in this time is a collapse of confidence in the Palestinian political leadership and a decline in support for the two-state solution, the internationally endorsed peace formula that envisions an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.
The West Bank-based Palestinian Center for Policy Research and Surveys has collected changing public views for more than two decades and has shared data exclusively with the BBC on 18-29 year olds.
The findings demonstrate clear trends in declining support among this generation for the ruling Palestinian Authority (PA) and a steady decline in support for a two-state solution over the past decade.
“Today, the discontent of young people is largely due to the lack of legitimacy they see in the political system.
So we have a president who for the last 14 years has been ruling without electoral legitimacy,” explains Khalil Shikaki, the center’s director.
“Our political system is largely authoritarian; it is largely one-man centered. In theory, we have a Constitution, but in reality, we are not adhering to it.”
Support for armed option
At the same time, support for armed confrontation is highest among those under 30 years of age.
More than 56% support a return to an intifada, or uprising against Israel, according to the most recent poll in March.
In the past year, numerous new militant groups have sprung up in the northern West Bank cities of Nablus and Jenin, challenging the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority security forces.
The best known are the Lion’s Den and the Jenin Brigades, which have carried out attacks in the West Bank against Israeli forces and settlers.
We joined the brigades at 2am as they conducted training exercises in the labyrinthine streets of the Jenin refugee camp.
Each member is armed with an M16 assault rifle and dressed in black from head to toe as they silently advance in a single line formation. Their weapons point straight ahead, scanning alleys and rooftops as they move.
They are mostly men in their 20s, fighters who claim to be independent from the main militant groups and have publicly rejected ties to political parties in the Palestinian territories.
One of the fighters, Mujahed, 28, tells us that his generation is not represented by the current leadership.
“The youth of Palestine have lost hope with the politics of the last 30 years,” he says.
I support violence
“The occupation comes in here every day and kills in cold blood, in broad daylight,” he says, referring to the Israeli forces.
“This occupation only understands the language of force.”
In the absence of general or presidential elections, student elections at universities are a barometer of the political temperature.
Birzeit University in the West Bank and its student elections are widely seen as a reflection of the political mood in the territories.
The change in sentiment is evident here as well.
The student party Fatah, the youth wing of the dominant party in the Palestinian Authority, has always resisted the advances of Islamist opposition parties, including Fatah’s main rival Hamas.
But that changed last year.
“It was a shock,” explains Mustafa, a student representative from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine party who is also running in the 2022 student elections.
“Usually the difference between Fatah and Hamas factions is one or two seats. This time it was 10 in favor of Hamas.”
Hamas’s unprecedented landslide victory in these student elections is largely seen as a protest against the Palestinian Authority, a feat that was repeated last month, albeit with a slightly reduced majority.
“Of course, if there were a general election, it would show the same results as Birzeit’s,” Mustafa continues, “because people are fed up with the way the Palestinian Authority is running things, whether it’s political arrests, taxes, assassinations or the suppression of freedom of expression”.
of the 48
For many who have grown up without a voice in the future of the Palestinian territories, doubts about identity have grown.
Majd Nasrallah is a curator at the Qattan Foundation, an independent organization that works in culture and education.
He lives in the West Bank city of Ramallah, but was born in a city located in the north of Israel.
Arab citizens make up 20% of Israel’s population and, like many of his generation, he prefers to identify himself as “48”.
This term describes the Palestinians who remained on the land passed to Israel after its creation in 1948.
As a result, they feel excluded from Palestinian society.
“I am not recognized as part of the Palestinian system in the West Bank,” continues Majd.
“I’m not supposed to vote [en las elecciones palestinas]. Actually, according to Israeli law, I’m not even supposed to be here. [en Ramala]”.
Israeli law prohibits its citizens from traveling to Palestinian areas in the West Bank for security reasons.
With no voice in the Palestinian political process, Majd also has no faith in a two-state solution.
“The two-state solution is really a corpse of a political project that is often used to cover up the continued oppression of the Palestinians,” he says.
“If you ask me, this isn’t about the States. A five-year-old can look at the map and tell you this doesn’t work.”
The future of a two-state solution is in doubt if a generation with high stakes increasingly rejects it as a viable option.
I ask Majd what his hopes are.
“For a long time, I was an advocate of the ‘one democratic state’ solution. [que abarca a Israel y los territorios palestinos]”, says.
“For at least the last decade, there have been many attempts to express our discontent with this current form of government, which have been completely suppressed,” he says.
“I can say with all my heart that the Palestinian Authority does not represent the voice not only of my generation, but of the Palestinians in general.”
The Palestinian Authority did not respond to a request for comment on the issues raised in this article.
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BBC-NEWS-SRC: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-internacional-65892515, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-07-04 03:40:06
Yousef Eldin
BBC World Service
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