The social, economic, political and geo-strategic situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

The Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) is an exceptional case study in that the Palestinians inhabit an occupied territory and the project of state-building is still in the making. One cannot appreciate the extent of the dire situation in the OPT without bearing this in mind. Since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 and the Arab-Israeli war of 1967, Palestinians have undergone massively destabilising and profound uncertainties about their political identities. The Palestinian dilemma goes back to 1945 when Zionist leaders initiated a campaign for a homeland of their own, demanding all of historic
Palestine. Ignoring Arab protests, Washington and Moscow backed a UN resolution calling for Palestine to be divided between Palestinians and Israelis. A war ensured between Israeli and Arab forces (the Arab League threw its support behind the Palestinian resistance). As a nation-in-the-making, Palestine was
erased from the map and Israel was created. Many Palestinians were forced out of their homes to make way for the new state of Israel. The six-day war of 1967 drove another wave of Palestinian refugees from their land. These lost lands of Palestine fuelled Palestinian nationalism. The Palestinian struggle against
the occupation has been considered as a key explanatory factor behind the emergence of the Islamist-secularist dialectic in the Occupied Territory. The two most significant political factions in the Palestinian arena are Fatah (meaning ‘Opening’ or ‘Conquest’ and a reverse acronym from the Arabic
name Harakat al-Tahrir al-Watani al-Filastini, literally: Palestinian National Liberation Movement), a secular movement and Hamas (Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya, meaning ‘zeal’), the Islamic Resistance Movement.