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One of the defining features of colonial regimes is a strategy of divide and rule. Successive Israeli governments have repeatedly resorted to this tactic to undermine Palestinian unity and erase any semblance of a collective Palestinian national identity.
Soon after its occupation began in 1967, Israel sought to empower Palestinian leaders more loyal to Jordan than to the Palestine Liberation Organization. But the tide turned in 1974, when the Arab League Summit in Rabat officially recognized the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. That same year, Yasser Arafat addressed the UN with his now-iconic speech, raising both an olive branch and a pistol. He urged the world to support peace and warned against those who would snatch away the olive branch. Rather than respond in kind, Israel signed a separate peace agreement with Egypt — one that deliberately sidelined the PLO.
Israel’s efforts to marginalize Palestinian nationalism continued into the 1980s. A growing alliance of nationalist mayors, intellectuals and civil society leaders began to gain popularity in the Occupied Territories. In 1980, an underground Israeli settler cell planted car bombs targeting three prominent West Bank mayors. While none were killed, the attacks left lasting scars: Nablus Mayor Bassam Shakaa lost both legs and Ramallah Mayor Karim Khalaf lost part of one leg. Rather than silence them, the attacks elevated these mayors to national hero status.
When intimidation failed, Israel turned to a different colonial tactic — pitting rural Palestinians against the urban leadership. Menahem Milson, a Hebrew University professor and Israeli official, spearheaded the creation of the “village leagues.” These bodies were meant to act as an alternative to the overwhelmingly pro-PLO nationalist movement. While they managed to attract a few collaborators, especially around Hebron, they were widely rejected by the Palestinian public.
By 1988, the situation had reached boiling point. Inspired by nonviolent movements like those led by Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., Palestinians launched the first Intifada — a largely nonviolent uprising demanding freedom. Yet even then, Israel’s divide-and-rule strategy persisted. During the 1970s, Israel had allowed Islamist groups to grow in influence as a counterweight to secular nationalists. This led to the formation of Hamas in Gaza, a group that participated in the Intifada but soon took a more radical, violent path. Even after the Oslo Accords were signed, Hamas worked to undermine the peace process.
When intimidation failed, Israel turned to a different colonial tactic — pitting rural Palestinians against the urban leadership.
Daoud Kuttab
That process unraveled entirely in 1995, when a right-wing Israeli extremist assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Benjamin Netanyahu, who opposed Oslo, was narrowly elected shortly thereafter. With Rabin gone and Israeli politics turning sharply rightward, the peace process ground to a halt.
In the post-Arafat era, Israel’s right-wing governments — dominated by religious nationalists — have shown little interest in engaging with legitimate Palestinian leaders. This has been true under both Arafat and his more moderate successor, Mahmoud Abbas. Following the brutal Hamas attack in October 2023, the Israeli government used the violence not only to wage war on Hamas and the Palestinian people in Gaza, but also to further marginalize the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, as well as refugee camps in the West Bank.
Despite quietly relying on the PA for security coordination, Netanyahu and his far-right ministers — such as Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich — have consistently denied the PA any respect or political legitimacy. Their scorched-earth approach has extended even to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, which they have sought to dismantle in the false hope that doing so will erase the Palestinian right of return.
Now, with international support for Palestinian self-determination growing — and as France and ֱ prepare to co-chair a high-level UN conference on the two-state solution — Israel is doubling down on its efforts to delegitimize Palestinian nationalism. The latest twist in this decades-old playbook? Reviving the old village leagues tactic. Some tribal and local figures are again being courted to normalize relations with Israel in exchange for economic incentives, such as work permits. This new scheme, like its predecessors, is designed to bypass the PLO and weaken the Ramallah-based leadership.
But such efforts are doomed to fail.
There is no path to peace that avoids direct negotiations with the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people. Abbas, for all his critics, remains a committed advocate of nonviolence and coexistence. If Israel and the international community are truly interested in peace, they must engage with Abbas and the PLO in good faith — and work toward a permanent agreement that includes the creation of a viable, independent and contiguous Palestinian state alongside Israel.
The time to act is now.
- Daoud Kuttab is an award-winning Palestinian journalist and former Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University. He is the author of “State of Palestine NOW: Practical and Logical Arguments for the Best Way to Bring Peace to the Middle East.” X: @daoudkuttab