By Susan Abulhawa
December 11, 2025

The following remarks were delivered by internationally renowned and award-winning Palestinian author and poet Susan Abulhawa to the Muwatin’s 30th Annual Conference, “The Impact of the Genocide in Gaza on the Future of the World and the Reading of the Palestinian Question” on Dec. 3, 2025.

I want to talk about the strategic ­­mistakes we’ve made, the lessons we can learn, and to humbly offer suggestions on how we move forward our indigenous liberation struggle.

In my view, one of the most painful and recurring patterns in our struggle — a strategic error that has, time and again, transformed moments of undeniable power into periods of deepened dispossession. It is the mistake of willfully allowing the transfer of our struggle from the arenas of our power into the arenas where we are essentially powerless.

A central question that we must ponder is this: Where does Palestinian power truly reside?

I argue that Palestinian power is at its zenith in the indigenous spaces of mass mobilization and in the unfiltered narrative. It is in the streets and the global consciousness. It is in the common sense of morality and common quest for truth and justice. And most importantly, it is in all that we inherit from our ancestors of heritage, history and culture.

On the flip side, we are most vulnerable in the imposed spaces of diplomacy — the closed rooms and negotiation tables that are brokered by the very powers that hold our lives in utter contempt.

The critical error we make is this: repeatedly, Palestinian leaders cash in the immense power that the people garner in the streets, from their bodies and blood — a power born from immense loss of life, home and heritage.

Freedom doesn’t compromise with colonizers

Then the leaderships cash it all in, in order to have a “seat at the table” — a table where the game is rigged, the rules are set by the colonizer and the prize is not liberation but a managed defeat that uses words like “interim, “phased,” “compromise,” “conditional” and so on. No one stops to ask “interim” what? “phased” what? compromise what? Conditional what?

Because freedom does not happen in phases. It does not spring from interim agreements with colonizers. It does not happen in compromised promises, nor is freedom ever conditional.

History teaches us that liberation is a cataclysmic rupture. It is a violent breaking of chains. It is a tumultuous imposition of one’s humanity.

In February 1985, after more than 20 years in prison — 20 years stolen from his life, from his family; 20 years of hard labor and in a tiny cell with one barred window — Nelson Mandela famously refused an offer to be released from prison by the South African government. An offer from the state’s President P.W. Botha. Mandela refused, because the offer was conditional. It spoke of compromise, of phases and all the diplomatic trappings of colonialism. He refused, because it required him to renounce armed struggle, a condition he deemed unacceptable as long as the indigenous majority of South Africa remained oppressed and the African National Congress (ANC) was banned.

Specifically, it required him to “unconditionally reject violence as a political instrument.” The offer was widely seen as a ploy to divide the anti-apartheid movement and portray Mandela as an uncompromising figure if he refused.

Compromise, the oppressed are always told, is required.

But Mandela’s message was an uncompromising rejection of the terms, emphasizing that the freedom of his people cannot be conditional, nor would he trade it for his own personal liberty, for phased diplomatic advances toward freedom, and so on.

The iconic lines from his response are these: “I cannot and will not give any undertaking at a time when I and you, the people, are not free. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated. Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts.”

Mandela argued that the government was the one responsible for the violence by enforcing apartheid and banning peaceful resistance, and the onus was on them to create conditions for a peaceful resolution. And in turn, he made his own demands of the government.

History proved him right, and Mandela was released unconditionally five years later in 1990, without having to renounce armed struggle, and he went on to lead South Africa’s journey toward freedom.

Herein lies our repeated mistake.

Historic resistance and the British Mandate

One of the first clear examples occurred during the Great Revolt of 1936 – 1939. This was a massive, popular uprising. A general strike that paralyzed the British Mandate economy, combined with widespread armed rebellion. It was a raw expression of indigenous power from the streets, challenging the very foundation of the colonial project.

It was so potent that the British established the infamous Peel Commission of 1937. This was the first diplomatic “table” that channeled the energy of the revolt into a political process whose primary outcome was the dismemberment of Palestine. The British, together with their zionist proxies, used brutal military force to crush the revolt. They assassinated leaders in public spectacles, exiled them, broke bones, demolished homes, confiscated weapons and land and so on. But ultimately, it was the idea of diplomacy that broke the revolt — through strategic concessions and promises on worthless paper that allowed the British to quell an indigenous uprising in exchange for words and half-baked concessions.

In effect, the British succeeded in shifting the arena of struggle from the potent and unpredictable street, where we were most powerful, into the colonial space where our fate was placed in the hands of elites who could be corrupted or duped with empty promises. Imagine if we had not accepted a simple white paper. Imagine if we refused a mere promise of freedom but instead demanded it then and there, when Britain most needed us as the renewed German threats loomed.

First Intifada in 1987

There were many examples of this strategy repeated on a micro scale after that. At the international level, the pattern emerged again from the First Intifada in 1987. For six years, the world watched as an indigenous population armed with little more than stones and collective action held a moral mirror up to the most powerful military in the region. The images of Palestinian children facing Israeli tanks shattered the veneer of innocence that Israel had worked so hard to cultivate. It broke through their lies and their tidy narrative. It imposed immense reputational costs on them and made the status quo of direct occupation unsustainable.

This was Palestinian power at a historic peak — despite the “break their bones” policy; despite the zionist inhumanity — Palestinians held the power, because our struggle had taken to the streets, into the light of truth and into the moral consciousness of global masses.

Thus, the counter strategy was not to offer justice, accountability or moral reflection. They simply did what had worked in the past. They changed the venue of our struggle.

The West, led by the United States, and a desperate Israel, offered a way out: the Madrid Conference of 1991. This was the bait. It was a spectacle of legitimacy, inviting Palestinians to a grand international table. But the real trap was sprung in the secret back-channels that led to the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Oslo Accords sell out

The unparalleled moral capital of the Intifada — the global sympathy, the grassroots unity, the clear narrative of right versus might, the real indigenous power — was catastrophically traded. For what? For a handshake on the White House lawn, for the illusion of statehood, for an airport they’d just obliterate a few years later and for the reality of the Palestinian Authority — a treasonous subcontractor for Israeli security designed to quell the very street power that had brought them to the table in the first place.

Oslo didn’t just halt the Intifada; it institutionalized our defeat. It turned a revolutionary struggle into a bureaucratic process and paved the way for Jordanian normalization and those that followed. The energy of the streets was channeled into endless, fruitless negotiations over borders and water rights, while settlements doubled. The hard-won power was gone.

The Second Intifada was a rinse and repeat cycle; this time it was not with the revolutionary Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) or the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) of the past but a tamed, bureaucratic Palestinian Authority under a new, client leadership. It was not the city of Oslo but Sharm el-Sheikh, with the participation of Egypt, the most consequential Arab country, having fully normalized Israeli occupation.

Unprecedented level of Israeli barbarism

Now, we arrive at this moment of an unprecedented level of Israeli barbarism and horror. And I say unprecedented not because they are more hateful or more sadistic than before. No, they have always been this way — whether the genocidal carnage of the Nakba, of Sabra and Shatila, Qana, the endless bombing campaigns against Gaza and on and on.

It is unprecedented, because they have learned from the patterns of their wicked past. History taught them that no matter how intense the international outrage or reputational damage, people forget and move on, and new generations can even be brainwashed all over again in ways that repair their narrative and close all the holes with enough propaganda, branding campaigns, public relations and Hollywood films.

Their decades-old internal laments of missed opportunities to “finish the job,” is what drives them now to push through the pressure and international condemnation, to get rid of us and take more and more of our land, homes and heritage.

October 7 to them was not a tragedy or defeat. It was the opportunity that they’ve wanted, perhaps even coaxed along. In their efforts to go all the way, to finish the job this time, Israel has once again been exposed. The rot of their colonial project is more exposed than ever. The brutal, genocidal logic of the zionist project is naked for the entire world to see.

And in response, we have seen a global awakening of popular support for Palestine on a scale never before witnessed. Millions in the streets from London to Jakarta. University encampments reviving the spirit of anti-apartheid solidarity. This is raw, indigenous, global street power. It is our power, paid in blood and tears. The kind of power Israel can never have. And it is potent.

Ceasefire – no guarantee of Palestinian sovereignty

In response, the same old trap is being set for us once again.

Look at the U.N. Security Council and the so-called “ceasefire” deals. The Palestinian Authority, along with Arab and Muslim nations, are once again being lured to the table. They are being asked to legitimize a process that is designed not for Palestinian liberation — as we can all clearly see — but for managing the crisis in Israel’s interest.

The Palestinian Authority’s shameful blessing of this resolution allowed so-called “friendly” nations to act, not out of solidarity but out of self-interest. They are seeking to secure their own regional stability and concessions from the United States. They are, in effect, being paid off to help quell the storm. The “deal” on the table was a deception: to stop the bombs temporarily, perhaps even facilitate a minor withdrawal, but it did so without a fundamental guarantee of Palestinian sovereignty, without a dismantling of the occupation and without addressing the root cause of colonialism.

They are asking Palestinians, and the world, to once again cash in the immense power of what can legitimately be called a “global intifada” for a “seat” at a diplomatic table that will decide how to manage the continued subjugation of Palestinians. They are trying to pull the struggle from the streets — where we are winning the narrative war — back into the closed rooms of the U.N. and diplomatic deals, where we have no power.

The lesson is stark, and it remains unlearned by those in positions of nominal authority. The “table” is not a prize. It is a weapon of pacification. The acquiescence of the Palestinian Authority is the height of betrayal, corruption and frank stupidity. The so-called ceasefire has not stopped the slaughter. It has not improved lives. It has not opened the border for sufficient food, water, fuel, medicine and the things of living. It has not brought education back to Gaza, our children now in their third year without formal schooling.

Every time popular power surges, an invitation to negotiate follows. Every time the occupier’s narrative is fractured, a diplomatic “process” is offered. And every time, we emerge from those talks weaker, more divided and with less land.

The only thing the PA’s acquiescence did was to squander the hard-won global solidarity. Not in total, thank God, as imperial powers expected or would like. It is thanks to the tenacity of activists and to the moral force of our martyrs and warriors.

Five moves for a path forward

So, what do we do now? I promised that I would offer at least a sense of the path forward and perhaps some concrete steps. But in effect, whatever steps we take must be predicated on a fundamental reorientation to stop cashing in our streets for their tables. This requires concrete, simultaneous actions, some of which are already ongoing. I give you five points. Five moves toward reorientation and reinvigoration of our movements.

ONE, we must consciously and relentlessly acknowledge and nurture our power where it actually resides. The most potent of these arenas is our indigeneity and history in the land — the heritage, traditions, culture, stories and audit of our lives and unbroken presence in the land over millennia. We take it for granted, but this is the basis of everything we do and everything we are. It is the basis of why our colonizers hate us — a deep-seeded jealousy of us for having real, tangible, verifiable, familial and moral roots in the land.

It is what they want more than anything. It is why they work so hard to promulgate the kind of fairytales that claim a Polish family, with centuries, millennia even, of history and roots in Poland, is actually indigenous Palestine, a fantastical claim that defies logic, reason and recorded history. But they invest so much in selling these fairytales to the world, because they understand the power of narrative.

We don’t have to make things up. Unlike them, we have receipts, we have proof. We have the terraced hills, the land deeds, the family histories, the ancient stories, the indigenous knowledge — botanical knowledge, the stories behind all the names of villages and land formations, the culinary heritage, the foraging traditions, the connection to the olives, to the almonds and pomegranates, the heritage of our clothes that speak their own language through Tatreez (Arabic embroidery) that springs from the land itself.

This is not abstract. It is the daily work of decolonizing our minds and reclaiming our narrative. It is in the ongoing work, however tedious and costly, of projects like that undertaken by Dr. Salman AbuSitta and the Palestine Land Society — of mapping Palestine, her stolen villages, the families that lived there and so on; or the archiving of land ownership prior to 1948, undertaken by Forensic Architecture; or the databases of oral testimonies of our elders; or archeological endeavors in historic places Israel hasn’t yet erased; or the scholarly auditing of Tatreez patterns and motifs; and so on.

This is not nostalgia. It is the active, unassailable proof of our indigeneity and our collective will to remain and return. More importantly, it is the foundation of our power, and efforts to nurture this arena deserve our attention and resources.

TWO, we must work to ensure that every Arab man, woman and child understands that Palestine is not a border dispute. It is the beating heart of West Asia and North Africa. Not because Palestine is a spiritual and cultural center (even though it is), but because Palestine is the locus of the region’s collective dignity and honor.

An Arab world brought to its knees over and over, whether through direct invasion (as in Iraq), through violent regime change (as in Syria), through decapitation and destabilization (as in Libya), or economic coercion and blackmail (as in nearly all the remaining states); then to have its treasures looted and controlled by western corporations, only to then be forced to witness the daily dismemberment, humiliation and genocide at its center and do nothing but issue mealymouthed statements or discuss normalization — this is a region that has lost its soul, lost its honor and betrayed its ancestors.

The liberation of Palestine is the key to liberation of the entire region, and indeed of humanity at large, from client regimes and imperial domination. It is the key to creating societies based on the region’s own intrinsic values, moral codes and traditions — not on the Western brand, unfettered capitalist consumption and the plastic life promulgated by Hollywood. To abandon Palestine is to accept a permanent state of dishonor and subjugation. To stand with Palestine is to fight for the soul and future of the entire region.

Indeed, it is to fight for a moral future for the entirety of humanity.

THREE, we must orient our outward national conversation not toward western elites, no matter how much power they hold over our lives. Instead, our efforts must be concentrated with the masses — organizing with labor unions and shared interests with workers’ movements, with the Global South, with the students putting it all on the line for the ideals of the world we all want, with the moral majority around the world who reject the increasingly apparent control and manipulation of an elite, imperial and largely zionist genocidal class.

FOUR, we must take deliberate steps to dismantle the illegitimate, collaborationist Palestinian Authority and reconstitute a truly representative leadership. This begins with the monumental but essential task of creating a full and comprehensive database of every Palestinian, from the river to the sea, and in every corner of our global diaspora.

With this registry, we must then implement a transparent, modern voting mechanism — one that empowers every one of our people, everywhere, to elect new regional and central leadership committees. The goal may well be the reconstitution of the PLO, purging it of the corrupt, incompetent and compromised and restoring it to its original revolutionary purpose: of liberation, not management.

FIVE, we must weaponize our legitimacy. Our strength is not in mimicking their diplomacy but in the unassailable justice of our cause. We must use every tool of mass mobilization — boycott, divestment, strikes, activism, direct actions, encampments and most importantly, international labor coordination.

We must empower cultural endeavors wherever they are, archival projects (I cannot emphasize enough the importance of archival work), scientific mappings and collections and so on. We must use the levers of international and national law, however flawed and skewed they are.

We must use every moment of global solidarity to impose such a cost on the colonizer that their current reality becomes untenable. We should not beg for a seat at their table. We have the power to make the table they sit at crumble beneath the weight of the world’s moral outrage, the weight of our pain and the weight of their own illegitimacy and cruelty.

We must make the cost of occupation so high — politically, economically, morally — that the colonizer is forced to come to our terms, which happen to be the terms of international law, universal human rights and common human morality.

Palestine’s power lies in her people

The strategic mistake we’ve made is a seductive one. A seat at the table feels like recognition. It feels like progress. But history has shown us, from the Peel Commission to Oslo to Sharm El Sheikh and to the current U.N. deception, that it is a mirage.

The power of Palestine is, has always been and will always be in her people and their story. To win, we must stop cashing in our blood and streets for their tables. Our future will not be negotiated in their closed rooms; it will be built on the open foundation of our unwavering resistance and our undeniable right to be free. We must not ever again accept anything that is less than a freedom that is total, unconditional and wholly ours.

I come back to Nelson Mandela. He was offered an exit from his chains, conditional on a diplomatic process that included the relinquishing of a fundamental right of colonized people to armed resistance. His response was not just a rejection. It was a reclamation of power. It was a refusal to move their national liberation struggle from the streets and masses to closed rooms and elites.

“Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts,” he said.

We are, today, being offered a process of managed death, dispossession and imprisonment. A conditional calm. A phased return to a smaller cage. We must have the courage of Mandela to refuse. Our message must be the same: We cannot and will not give to any undertaking to negotiate the terms of our subjugation and ethnic cleansing.

Time to escalate the struggle

Now is the time to escalate in every way possible — not to squander the ineffable loss of life we have witnessed over the past two years for a deceptive calm. Now is the time to organize, both internally and externally, with a vigor as never before. We must do so deliberately and relentlessly on every front available to us, wherever we are in the world. And we must not stop until unconditional freedom is ours, the zionist abomination is dismantled and Palestine is once again restored to her pluralistic, multi-religious, indigenous glory.

I have no doubt we will achieve this reality. Some day. But we must all imagine it. You must see it clearly in your mind. You must believe it. Because freedom is possible. Restoration of our homes, monuments and heritage in our homeland is possible. Reunions of our families in the land where all of our ancestors are buried is possible. The calming, maybe even healing, of our broken hearts is also possible.