Obada Nawawra was chatting with friends at a restaurant in Bethlehem. Outside the window, the terraced hills around the old West Bank city were rolling in the distance. It was early June, and most restaurants were closed for Ramadan; apart from a tourist table, the main square was almost empty. As the conversation turned about the Palestinian Authority (PA) – the semi-autonomous government based in the occupied West Bank – the idle waiters were getting closer to Nawawra's table.
A historically dominant position: The AP is an important institution for maintaining peace in the Palestinian enclaves. "Without authority," he said, there would be anarchy – "more crime and drugs." A waiter at the child's mine was incredulous: "How is authority good?" Before that, was there more crime? Another waiter, a woman who appeared to be in her twenties, answered: "No!" Other catering workers have added their disapproval – an attitude increasingly popular among young Palestinians.
After years of allegations of corruption and is considered with growing suspicion by this generation, their parents were dreaming of a Palestinian state and the end of the Israeli occupation, but they saw illegal Israeli settlements spreading, and they listened to the drums of Israeli politicians. 39, far right, like those of the Likud, claiming a "Greater Israel", which would bring back the territory rather than give in. They watched the Arab world come closer to Israel, turning its attention to the threat of the Iran,
These fears In January, President Donald Trump cut funds to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which badists and represents Palestinian refugees in the Middle East. A month earlier, he had announced that the US Embbady would move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May, a clear message that his administration was formally and unequivocally in favor of Israel. Jerusalem includes sacred sites for Muslims as well as Jews and Christians, and Palestinians have claimed East Jerusalem as the capital of their future border state, as defined in the 1993 Oslo Agreement or the process. Israeli-Arab peace. Band and Jordan. After decades of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations led by the United States, Trump's decision weakens America's credibility as a neutral party, undermining the hope of a peace treaty. To further complicate matters: Twelve years after what is theoretically a four-year term, PA President Mahmoud Abbas is ill and there is no clear succession plan.
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The once indescribable idea of a binational Israeli-Palestinian state gained popularity among young Palestinians many years ago – a radical change from the traditional solution of two States. A state, of course, means different things depending on who you are talking to. For the right-wing Israeli government, a state would mean the annexation and segregation of Palestinians; Everything else involves the end of the Jewish state. For many older Palestinians, a state is only suggesting a new violence, or even a civil war, as well as the real possibility that the balance of power remains with Israel and that they remain second-clbad citizens .
But for Palestinian youth rights, the intention is a single democratic country encompbading all of Israel's current territory, the West Bank and perhaps the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. This generation is willing to risk violence because its members grew up with it. They reached their majority during the second Intifada of the mid-2000s, an uprising unleashed by Israel taking over Palestinian cities in the West Bank. The brutal campaign, orchestrated by kamikazes, claimed the lives of 6,371 Palestinians and 1,137 Israelis; on both sides, at least half of the casualties were civilians who did not participate in hostilities.
The causes were long-simmering frustrations. the current Israeli occupation and the lack of economic development promised in the 1993 agreement. This treaty, between the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Ybader Arafat, and Israel , was supposed to be a step forward five years towards the Palestinian state project. In the next 23 years, peaceful negotiation efforts failed. Even worse, Palestinians are now divided between a secular party backed by the international community, Fatah, and Theocratic Hamas, an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. The parties do share the same goal – a Palestinian state – but while some within Hamas would be willing to accept the borders established in 1967, the more militant majority supports armed resistance (the Jewish genocide is enshrined in the Hamas charter).
which was designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, the EU and Canada, won the 2006 parliamentary elections. For many voters, it was less a support of the Islamic party that a message to Fatah of extreme dissatisfaction about the party's corruption, internal divisions and perceived collusion with Israel. Fatah rejected the victory. A resulting armed conflict in 2007 left Hamas in control of the Gaza Strip and Fatah in the West Bank.
Muslim women in the shadow of an Israeli soldier. ABBAS MOMANI / AFP / Getty
To get closer to the state dream, Abbas pushed his people to join international organizations like the United States. And to maintain relations between the Israeli and Palestinian security forces. The current Israeli and American governments are betting that Abbas's replacement will maintain the status quo, which will allow them to appear as favorable to the peace process, at least publicly.
In fact, Abbas has made little progress that Palestinians care about. He is also accused of the kind of aggressive tactics badociated with Hamas in Gaza – to run the West Bank as a police state, where freedom of speech and badociation is ignored. Both parties, say their critics, are essentially exploiting the misery of their people.
Many young Palestinians interviewed by Newsweek – from the West Bank, Jerusalem, Israel, and Gaza – reject their own policies – serve the priorities. They are highly educated and highly underemployed (40% of West Bank residents under 30 are unemployed). The goals of this generation are equality, dignity and freedom: relief from unemployment, housing shortages and censorship, and the end of surveillance by the police and Israeli soldiers. Although they are geographically fragmented, social media has allowed them to share information like never before. A Palestinian in Haifa, in northern Israel, for example, is immediately alerted when Israeli soldiers attack Kalandia camp in the West Bank.
Supporters of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al-Ahrar protest against Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the city of Rafah in 2017. SAID KHATIB / AFP / Getty)
Nawawra and his restaurant acquaintances agree on one thing: the PA's security coordination with Israel – which includes sharing information about alleged crimes and militant attacks and letting them know what they are doing. arrest of people at the request of Israel – constitutes a complicity with a government they regard as their oppressor and strengthens occupation.
But they sharply disagree on the future role and the sustainability of AP. Nawawra's allegiance comes in part from his exp childhood experiences. His father was one of the Palestinian militants who barricaded themselves in the Church of the Nativity in 2002, when the Israeli army occupied Bethlehem. After the 39-day siege, Nawawra's father ran off and was eventually killed by Israeli soldiers. AP was busy with his family.
He was then 12 years old and, like many Palestinian boys who grew up in Bethlehem, he was spending time in an Israeli prison for "participating in the violence". changes in a bakery, the only job that he can find. With a high unemployment rate, opportunities are greater in Israel or outside the country – in America or in Germany. His parents' generation interacted freely with Jewish Israelis in the streets, in the markets or at work, but with the second Intifada came the barrier that surrounds East Jerusalem and the West Bank, including Bethlehem. Without a permit coveted by the Israeli army, he can not work in Israel, and he can not afford the visa he needs to go abroad. Even though he speaks a little Hebrew (learned in prison), the only Israelis he knows are soldiers.
At this point, he is tired of promises and discussions. He is also bewildered by right-wing Israeli parliamentarians, such as Naftali Bennett, who want to partially annex the West Bank. The annexation, he says, with all his checkpoints, soldiers and tensions with the settlers, is not very different from the life he's already living.
But the restaurant's waiter, who refused to give his name, is eager to change. He studied law and lives in the Dheisheh refugee camp
a labyrinth of dilapidated housing. He sees the AP as corrupt and repressive. "God willing, it will go, because people will reach a stage where they will change the authority," he says. "I will argue that we are returning to Israeli rule, when we have only one enemy: Israel."
Their argument lasted for a while, about the pizza, and then ended amicably. Before leaving, Nawawra offered the waiter the rest of his meal. He could not take the leftovers home, he joked, or the others would know that he had not fasted during Ramadan.
President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas Sefa Karacan / Anadolu Agency / Getty
Nawawra's best choice would be a man whom he met during his days in jail. militant turned pacifist, Marwan Barghouti, former leader of Fatah. He is a rare ruler among Palestinians, but is serving several life sentences for orchestrating suicide bombings (an accusation he denies).
The Fatah-led PA governs 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank, and, according to a recent survey, the majority of these people believe that it has "become a burden". The close coordination of security with Israel is the main selling point of the PA at the international level. And this has contributed to the security of Israel by thwarting Palestinian attacks and crime. But this only adds to resentment as the Palestinians accuse the PA security forces of having contributed to perpetuating the occupation by opening a wide net against the dissidents, leaving the family members and friends persecuted and repressed on both sides
. political women at the top of Palestinian politics, pleads for a reformed PLO that will take the place of the PA. Her accessibility and her sharp English made her a popular public figure of the Palestinian national movement. Yet the younger generation is wary of anyone in the old guard. Ashrawi understands this, and she understands why she has lost faith in the peace process, but she remains opposed to a one-state path.
"Israel systematically destroys the two-state solution," she says to Newsweek but "if we start moving toward a one-state de facto solution, that scares me," 39 is that we lose sight of the occupation itself. Israel can continue to expand its settlements and create Greater Israel, while we remain in a state of slavery. "
Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki says that although there is still a desire for self-determination among young people, the belief is if this is true, it means that Israeli, American and Palestinian officials are disconnected from a generation of Palestinians
PA security forces arrest Palestinian in West Bank HAZEM BADER / AFP / Getty
East Jerusalem: Catch-22 Land
Abbas holds the title of Palestinian leader, but this designation does not reflect the disparate makeup of today 's population Twenty percent of the nearly 9 million Israeli citizens are Palestinians, descendants of families left after the foundation of the Israeli state in 1948. About 300,000 Palestinians reside in East Jerusalem, occupied by Israel since 1967.
Palestinians in East Jerusalem are now denied automatic citizenship. When Israel captured the city in 1967, most believed in the promise of a Palestinian state and refused the offer of citizenship. Decades later – with Israel now speaking of a unified Jerusalem – they remain stateless. Their continual contested status means that they can not vote. In addition, they must be able to prove their resident status or risk losing their legal right to live where they were born – something that Israel may revoke if they live too long outside of their home country. Jerusalem or for reasons as vague as unfair (a new law). Israel argues that they enjoy many resident privileges, such as access to health care, education, and employment. Yet more than two-thirds of East Jerusalemers live in poverty, without the representation the poor receive on the west.
Osama Abu Khalaf, 28, is not your typical local; He speaks Hebrew, that Palestinians in East Jerusalem learn badly at school. And he asked for Israeli citizenship, a path Abu Khalaf, and a growing number of his peers, believe to be the best option to obtain rights.
The citizenship application process is complicated and cumbersome (for example, Arabic is one of the two official languages of Israel, but applicants must be fluent in Hebrew ). The lucky ones receive it after a few years of waiting. Abu Khalaf submitted his application ten years ago, at the age of 18, and was denied several times. He appeals, even though he believes denial reflects a broader agenda: the Israeli government's desire to maintain a Jewish majority. Israel is encouraging people in East Jerusalem to apply for citizenship, but for much of the past five years it has effectively stopped citizenship approvals. The Israeli Population Authority, which processes the requests, rejects this accusation, accusing it of serious delays in a backlog (a spokesman will not confirm the number of applicants still waiting.)
Abu Khalaf does not want not live under Palestinian rule. is he confident that the Oslo process was or could be effective? He wants a multinational state; in the short term, it would be open to a sort of federation, like Catalonia and Wales. Yet despite his desire for Israeli citizenship and his dislike for Abbas, he still identifies strongly as a Palestinian. There are divisions among his people, but they will not matter in the end. He is convinced that Israel will treat all Palestinians in the same way, for better or for worse.
Yasmeen Zahalka, 28, born and raised in Israel, claims to be Palestinian with Israeli citizenship. The government and the media refer to people like it Arab-Israeli, but it rejects this term because it actually erases "Palestinian." For decades, she says, her people have been encouraged to badimilate, to become "good Arabs". their relatively greater rights and comfort. Zahalka, like many of her peers, sees the fate of all Palestinians as bound.
His father is one of the 17 Palestinian members of the Israeli parliament. She grew up in northern Israel, where the Hebrew language and Jewish culture dominate. "It's not just that the school does not give us the knowledge of Palestinian history and culture," she says. "We are also taught something that ignores us and teaches us the Zionist narrative."
It was only after moving to East Jerusalem to work that she became aware of the tactics that make the challenge difficult for Palestinians. to unite. For the first time, she felt the presence of the Israeli occupation, including the paramilitary police in the neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. She saw that companies frequently favor Palestinians with Israeli citizenship over the residents of East Jerusalem when they recruit. And that those who have citizenship do not want their children to marry in Jerusalem or the West Bank, which would cost them privileges. "It's hard for us to motivate people here," says Zahalka. "We are still divided."
Thus, while she favors a "democratic and secular state built on Palestinian land for all who live there," she does not know how to get there to from here. For Zahalka, the Palestinian Authority is "the enemy", responsible for decades of repression that put the West Bank to sleep. Existing political parties "need a lot of work and reforms to truly represent the people."
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner with Sarah and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, on May 14. Israel Press Office / Handout / Anadolu Agency / Getty
Gaza: The Despair of Tomorrow
One thing the Palestinians agree on is that young Gazans have the worst of all. The region implodes after more than a decade of war with Israel and authoritarian rule of Hamas; among other things, the party (which initially gained support for its social services) suppresses Palestinian women and harshly persecutes religious and badual minorities. Hamas rulers 1.9 million Palestinians in Gaza, where unemployment is one of the worst in the world (about 60% of young people, two thirds of the population, are unemployed). This did not prevent the party from further crippling Gazans with mbadive tax hikes, used to finance, among other things, underground tunnels in Israel. Hamas, according to Palestinian critics, gives priority to the death of Israelis on the lives of Gazans.
An important factor contributing to Abbas's lack of popular support is the perceived complicity of the Palestinian Authority in perpetuating divisions by crushing the people of Gaza. . For example, electricity goes through Israel, but the PA led by Fatah pays for it. Last summer, he reduced payments, leaving the people of Gaza with only four hours of electricity a day, against eight. And in mid-June, PA security forces shocked and angered the Palestinians by violently disrupting a protest in Ramallah against the Palestinian Authority's sanctions on Gaza
After having occupied Gaza since 1967, Israel officially left in 2005 but kept control. Since 2007, it has a very controlled access, by land and sea. Israel says the restrictions are necessary to protect Hamas militants, but they go far beyond what is necessary for security, separating families and making it virtually impossible for students to leave the country to study elsewhere. As a result, the majority of young Palestinians have never traveled outside the coastal enclave.
Hamas is doing badly in Gaza polls, but has not allowed elections since 2006, so it can not be rejected. And people have little freedom to protest; dissent is often encountered with brutality. This leaves young men like Naser (he refused to give his full name to protect his family) with a lot of frustrations. The 28-year-old would like to see a new form of politics in Gaza – he does not particularly like the way Hamas exploits religion – but he also does not have a clear idea of what who could replace it. Naser and his friends simply want the territory to open up for them to breathe, reflect, reevaluate. If that happened, he said, an alternative policy would be possible, rather than a policy that only benefits the families of the party. "Hamas and Fatah have their interests," he says. "Their policy is now far from the ideology they talk about in the media."
The US cuts to UNRWA, which one out of every three Gazans depended on, seemed to want to push the PA to meet the Trump administration. The Palestinian Authority refused, arguing that the United States is encouraging peace negotiations on Israel's terms. The debates in Washington do not reflect the everyday realities, says Naser, and the cuts to UNRWA have only made the solution more distant. In addition, the PA has reduced the wages of its employees still in Gaza. Everyone felt the pressure. "I do not know what will happen with the future of authority," says Naser. "I do not think it's independent of the occupation [Israeli] or we will have a solution where the Palestinians will continue to die, we will not give up."
Many in Gaza are considered refugees, the descendants of the 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from Israel in 1948. On March 30, tens of thousands joined the Great March of Return, destined for a six-week campaign of non-violent protests. -violentes; they demanded the right of the Palestinians to return to their homes in what is now Israel. Hamas did not initiate the march, but quickly gave its support (you can not protest long in Gaza without the party's consent) and in the sixth week it controlled the demonstrations. Israeli officials condemned the march as a front for militant attacks against Israel.
Naser did not participate in the protest, but he helped international journalists cover it. The young walkers explained that they joined because they wanted to be heard, and because they believed that it could change their future. It was a short-lived hope. The situation has degenerated into a deadly Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the Gaza war in 2014.
The worst day was 14 May. Israeli and US officials – including Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner – celebrated the departure of the United States. Embbady in Jerusalem, Israeli snipers fired and killed 60 Palestinian protesters in Gaza. We do not know what prompted the shooting. Critics have accused Hamas of using peaceful demonstrations to cover military operations, which the party admitted to doing in the past. As a result, 135 people were killed on July 6, including two journalists, and more than 15,501 people were injured. More than 4,000 young men were shot in the legs, an Israeli army tactic, to mutilate rather than kill. Most of them have not been able to receive adequate treatment in Gaza's besieged hospitals.
In Jerusalem, as the death toll in Gaza increased, Zahalka joined a Palestinian-led demonstration near the new embbady. "We are not in solidarity with Gaza, we are them," she said at the time. "We are all under Israeli occupation in different ways."
But Abu Khalaf stayed at his job, the embbady's move was not relevant to him, and he also refrained from demonstrating on May 15 for Nakba (Disaster) Day. a condemnation of the founding of Israel.He knew that they would be met with force.
Nawawra and four childhood friends also avoided the protests of the Nakba. used to join the protests against Israeli forces, but he stopped after being shot in the leg and abdomen.But they were hanging around a bus stop in Bethlehem, along the wall filled with graffiti separating the West Bank of Israel, watching other young men burn tires and launch some stones on Israeli soldiers. They had no better place to be.
![NW_PalestineINTSA [19659006] Alex Nabaum for Newsweek </span> </span> </span></span></p>
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