#17 The Hallucinating Funder
Every paradigm has fallen in Palestine—even those imposed on us by colonial powers. The two-state solution, the separation of Gaza from the rest of Palestine, the conditional "citizenship" of Palestinians inside the 1948 territories: each of these arrangements is crumbling under an Israeli aggression that has won the international backing and confidence to destroy anything that might lead not only not to peace, but even to the faintest possibility of Palestinian social existence.
The aggression is everywhere at once: in every Palestinian village and city, from Jenin in the north of the West Bank to Hebron in the south; in the Galilee, where ministers and politicians are leading a campaign for its "Judaisation"; and, of course, in Gaza.
This attack is taking place in the shadow of a Palestinian political collapse. That collapse is the product of decades of Israeli oppression and persecution targeting Palestinian political life, activism, journalism, and social organisation—and of a parallel, systematic social engineering carried out through economic and "development" tools, including NGOisation and politically conditional funding.
Election season is pouring fuel on the fire. The reason is obvious: anyone with even a passing knowledge of Israeli society knows that violence against Palestinians has become the surest path to popular support.
This is the moment “liberal” funders have chosen to invest.
Today, streams of "liberal" funding flow toward the so-called "opposition" in Israel. Some insist on calling it the "Israeli left," admiring a garment no one else can see. This is not an opinion. Not a single Zionist party running in this election calls itself leftist, let alone behaves as such.
The same old burning of resources: hundreds of millions spent financing a political system that celebrates its consensus on genocide, while funders fantasize about "alternatives."
What is missing here—and from most political analysis in this sphere—is a social reading of Israeli reality. The hope of change from within is a hallucination. There is no alternative on Israel's political map capable of saving Palestinian lives and Palestinian existence. Genocide, occupation, and war crimes are not merely "natural" within the Israeli ethos. They are consensual. Beyond debate.
Funding the illusion of an Israeli "alternative" is not a bet on change. It is an investment in a criminal political system: one roomy enough to contain every disagreement, as long as all sides agree on the erasure of Palestinian society.
The answer is already known. It lies in the hands of those who own resources and are able to move them—toward the Palestinian communities and grassroots networks holding their ground—and away from a left that exists only in funders' portfolios. █