PODCAST TRANSCRIPT: Where is the PA as Israel annexes the West Bank?

This transcript was generated using an AI transcription service and lightly edited for readability. Please consult the corresponding audio before quoting.

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Ghousoon Bisharat

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Ghousoon Bisharat

For more than half a century, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank was framed as temporary, even as its actions on the ground proved otherwise. But recent government measures have done away with this facade, as legal experts warn that Israel has effectively crossed the threshold of annexation in all but name. 

In the face of these moves, and in the shadow of the genocide in Gaza, the Palestinian Authority has never looked so weak.

To unpack what all of this means and how it is playing out on the ground, I’m speaking today with Dalia Hatuqa, a Palestinian journalist from Ramallah in the West Bank, and now based in Amman, who has been covering Palestinian affairs for over 25 years. 

Thank you, Dalia for joining the +972 Podcast.

 

Dalia Hatuqa

Thank you, Ghousoon, for having me. 

 

Ghousoon Bisharat

On Feb. 8, the Israeli security cabinet approved measures widely described as “de facto annexation” in the West Bank, reshaping the legal and administrative framework to strengthen Israeli control over land, planning, and governance previously partly administered by the Palestinian Authority. What makes these new measures different from the long process of creeping annexation we’ve been seeing for many years? 

 

Dalia Hatuqa

I would say that this moment or the situation stands out less because the annexation itself is new and more because of how openly, structurally, and irreversibly the Israeli state is formalizing control over the West Bank. So we hear a lot of analysts saying, “Oh, it’s de facto annexation.”

That’s because it shifts from the gradual, ambiguous expansion to clearer integration of the territory into Israel’s own governing system. So there are several key differences, for example, that make this phase distinct. We’re seeing a shift from military occupation to civilian governance. For some of the listeners who don’t know this, since 1967, Israel has governed the West Bank primarily through the military, via something called the Israeli Civil Administration, which is technically subordinate to the army. And this maintained the legal fiction of a temporary occupation.

What’s changing now is that the authority over key functions, especially things like planning, land regulation, and settlement management, they’re all being transferred to civilian Israeli ministries and officials, including ministers who openly support annexation. The occupation was supposed to be temporary under international law, but now we’re seeing that the civilian governance is signaling a more permanent integration and not temporary control. Also, more importantly, this reduces the distinction between Israel proper and the settlements. This is one of the clearest structural markers of annexation.

Another thing that’s worth noting is that before, we saw that settlement growth was often incremental — there’s the approval of housing units, there’s retroactive legalizing of outposts, there’s expanding municipal boundaries. But now what we’re seeing is that the legal and administrative framework itself is being redesigned to make settlement expansion faster, easier, less reversible. This shifts from expanding settlements within an occupation to normalizing settlements as part of Israel’s domestic system.

Ghousoon Bisharat

Of the two security cabinet decisions, six in total, the two that are drawing the most attention are the declassification of the West Bank land registry, and the cancellation of the Jordanian law that prohibited the sale of Palestinian land to Israelis and foreigners, moves that many people are saying will make it easier for settlers and the state to acquire land. How should we understand the severity of these changes, these two in specific, and most importantly, how are these bureaucratic measures critical to understanding the big picture?

Dalia Hatuqa

These two decisions, the declassifying of the West Bank land registry and cancelling the Jordanian-era prohibition on land sales to Israelis or foreigners, these are all bureaucratic on the surface, but they’re structurally transformative underneath. They target the deepest layer of territorial control. So not soldiers, not settlements, but the legal infrastructure that determines who owns the land and who can claim it in the future. To understand the severity, it helps to see annexation not as a single declaration: Israel’s not going to come out and say, “I hereby declare the West Bank annexed.”

But it’s a multi-stage process. So we’ve got control. We’ve got settlements, then we’ve got legalization, then we’ve got normalization, then we’ve got a state of permanence. These measures operate in the final stages. Now, the land registry itself is the backbone of sovereignty. The land registry — for those who understand Arabic, it’s often called the tabo — is the authoritative legal record of land ownership. So whoever controls it effectively controls who legally owns the land, who can sell it, develop it, who can challenge ownership claims, how disputes are resolved.

Now declassifying the registry changes who can access and act on this information, because previously much of the registry was restricted or difficult for Israeli civilian actors to access, and it made Palestinian ownership patterns harder for settler organizations or the state to systematically target. But now, with this change in the law, the Israeli state bodies and settler-linked organizations can access detailed ownership data, and this makes it easier to identify land that can be legally contested, acquired, reclassified.

This is not just about transparency — this is operational access. And now, the land control itself determines the political reality more than troop presence, and that’s something that a lot of people don’t know: military control can be temporary, whereas legal ownership tends to be permanent. A military occupation can end quickly, but a transformed land ownership system, it can last generations.

I think canceling the Jordanian law removes a critical structural barrier, because the Jordanian law, like we said, dating from before 1967 when Jordan controlled the West Bank, prohibited land sales to Israelis and foreigners with the purpose of preventing demographic and territorial shifts through land acquisition. But the fact that it’s being canceled does several important things: It legalizes a channel that was previously blocked, so now we have Israeli individuals, companies, or state-linked entities are able to acquire land through legal purchase rather than expropriation. 

This creates a formal legal pathway for territorial transfer, and the process now appears more administrative rather than coercive. It shifts annexation from state-driven to market-driven. It also replaces overt expropriation with legal absorption. Historically, we’ve had controversial land control methods. like military seizure orders or declaring land as state land or retroactively legalizing outposts. These were visible, they were politically explosive. But now the shift is toward these registry based ownership claims. This is a slower but much harder step to challenge internationally. 

Ghousoon Bisharat

But what does that declassification of the West Bank Land Registry mean in simple words? What does it mean for the Palestinian owners of the land? I don’t understand why it was classified? 

 

Dalia Hatuqa

In simple terms, declassifying the West Bank Land Registry means unlocking the official records that shows who owns which pieces of land and allowing Israeli authorities and others much broader access to that information.

Now, as to why the Jordanians restricted it or classified it, when Jordan controlled the West Bank up until 1967, it managed this registry and placed restrictions on access for both political and security reasons. It wanted to prevent land from gradually changing hands in ways that would alter the territory’s demographic and political character. Restricting the access to ownership information made it in fact harder for outside actors to identify landowners and to approach them about buying the land or systematically acquiring the territory. In a way, it was a protective measure.

The second reason was because land ownership in the West Bank is complex and sensitive. So you have family lands held for generations, you have communal lands, you have lands registered under older Ottoman era systems. Making all of this easily accessible could expose vulnerable owners to pressure, disputes, or legal challenges.

Ghousoon Bisharat

You were recently in Ramallah. Can you tell me how all these measures — and there were lots of new decisions — especially in February, like too many to follow up on. How are these measures felt on the ground in the West Bank?

Dalia Hatuqa

I think the cancellation of the Jordanian era prohibition on selling land to Israelis or foreigners is still very recent. This kind of policy tends to reshape reality gradually but deeply. People are scared because it makes it easier to target specific parcels of land for acquisition. The change allows interested buyers to identify specific plots that are close to settlements and their legal owners — they can approach the owners directly or through intermediaries, and they can make offers based on formal ownership data. The process is becoming smoother in an administrative way.

What I sensed was that people with land and with property were worried about the fact that there will be more of a role for private actors, not just the state. For example, historically, settlement expansion, like I said, relied heavily on land classified as state land. But now you have the private individuals, the companies, the organizations, they’re all able to have this kind of legal pathway to acquire land directly. This introduces this new thing, which is the market mechanisms, into territorial change.

It also changes incentives and perceptions among landowners. Even if actual sales remain limited initially, the legal environment has changed. So some landowners are saying, okay, they might now face increased purchase offers, pressures to sell, greater uncertainty about future land status. Some people may refuse to sell, but they might still experience increased legal scrutiny of their ownership claims. They would have to show their tabo, or their ownership claims and this is also causing a lot of psychological and social impact on people as well.

Ghousoon Bisharat

Given that these recent measures seem to point to long-term entrenched control in the West Bank, how does that compare to Israel’s approach to the Gaza Strip? Are these territories being treated according to different or similar Israeli political logics and discourse?

Dalia Hatuqa

I think that Israel’s approach to the West Bank and Gaza Strip has long followed fundamentally different political logics, legal frameworks, and long-term strategies, even though both territories are internationally recognized as occupied Palestinian territory. But the contrast has been especially stark in recent years. 

The simplest way to understand this is that in the West Bank, the Israelis have been increasing territorial consolidation and long-term settlement presence, but in the Gaza Strip there’s more an idea of separation, of pushing for separation, containment, avoidance of permanent Israeli presence. These are the two very different models of control. 

In the Gaza Strip, if you look at Israel’s disengagement in 2005, when Israel removed the Israeli settlements, it focused primarily on controlling and choking the Palestinian population through the border, through the blockades, through military containment. This reflects a logic of separation rather than integration. For example, Israel doesn’t operate a civilian land registration system or settlement planning or property integration mechanisms in Gaza like it does in the West Bank. 

The other visible difference is that now we have more than half a million Israeli settlers living in settlements, and this is excluding East Jerusalem, and the settlements keep expanding. Whereas in Gaza, right now Israel removed the 8,000 or so settlers that lived there, between 2005. So we can see some kind of a reflection of the opposite territorial strategy, so to speak. 

Even the narrative or the political discourse inside Israel is different. The West Bank occupies a unique place in Israeli political discourse. We hear many Israeli political leaders, especially on the right, they all talk about the West Bank as historically Jewish land, as strategically essential, as a part of Israel’s permanent territory. This all supports the idea of settlement expansion and long-term integration. Whereas in Gaza, by contrast, it’s often framed primarily in security terms, if you noticed, not territorial, not historical ones, although there are some issues that pertain to territory and history, it’s mostly in security terms, or militancy, or containment and avoiding a permanent Israeli settlement, even though Israel controls every facet of life in Gaza, but farther than it is in the West Bank. 

Ghousoon Bisharat

But Dalia only this month, on two occasions, dozens of right-wing activists crossed into the Gaza Strip as part of a campaign to renew Jewish settlements inside Gaza. And there’s also public discourse by the extreme right-wing leaders and politicians to resettle in Gaza again. Could that indicate, in your opinion, that there is an attempt by the extreme right-wing to have a long term strategy of resettling, building settlements in Gaza as well? That’s how some people would say even the settlement project in the West Bank started. 

Dalia Hatuqa

I think integrating Gaza territorially would pose enormous demographic and political challenges, and I think this reality is what’s shaping the upper echelon strategic decisions. While there are these echoes of people saying, ’yes, we want to settle Gaza, we want to go back.’ But I mean, think about it. How difficult is it going to be to resettle a place that has been wiped off? It’s been wiped completely. Not only do you have the political and demographic challenges — because we still have two million Palestinians inside a very densely populated area — but also we’re talking about unexploded ordnance, homes that are partially destroyed. Settlement requires a lot, and I don’t think that the circumstances presented right now allow for Israelis to settle. 

I think this might be something that would happen in the future. But as of now, I think the main focus of the Israeli politicians is the West Bank, because it’s easier to gain, to annex, it’s easier to maintain permanent Israeli sovereignty, and to continue with the settlement expansion that’s going on there. 

Ghousoon Bisharat

These recent measures by the Israeli government regarding the West Bank that we discussed at length have been widely condemned internationally. Yet, international pressure has done little to alter Israeli policy. I think the genocide in Gaza shows how insignificant these condemnations are. How do you see the international community’s response to the war as the war on Gaza? As emboldening current Israeli actions, or even providing a distraction?

Dalia Hatuqa

I think the Gaza war has reshaped the diplomatic environment by concentrating global attention, shifting political priorities, and changing the context in which other policies are implemented. Now, this doesn’t automatically determine outcomes, but it can affect the timing, the visibility, the intensity of international responses to developments elsewhere, including the West Bank. So one widely noted dynamic is that Gaza has consumed the overwhelming share of international, diplomatic media and political attention. That’s normal because when a major genocide is underway, you’re looking at large scale civilian casualties, humanitarian crises and things of that nature. 

Because of that, other places like the West Bank may receive less diplomatic focus or a less sustained future, not necessarily because they’re not considered important, but because immediate wartime developments dominate priorities. I think also the fact that the West Bank measures — whatever Israel is doing in the West Bank — it’s doing it incrementally rather than declaring it. This is another factor that goes into why this is happening. Because, Israel hasn’t come out and said, ’I hereby declare that I’m going to take over the West Bank.’ Formal annexation declarations tend to trigger stronger responses because they’re clear, they’re discreet — things of that nature. 

But when you have the issues that we talked about earlier — the administrative and legal changes, such as the land registration, the committees, the property law changes — all of these are incremental and they’re technical. I mean, it’s hard for even me to understand them. It took me a while to understand these kinds of issues. So imagine how it is to explain something this convoluted. It makes it harder to mobilize international responses around it, even if the long term impact is significant. 

Also, it could be a matter of timing or sequencing. When multiple crises occur simultaneously, governments often prioritize based on urgency and perceived escalation risk. The genocide obviously was taking precedent. 

Ghousoon Bisharat

And after covering such intense events over the past two years, how has this affected you and your work, mentally, emotionally?

Dalia Hatuqa

I feel like that’s the hardest question to ask, because I feel like journalists have a hard time talking about themselves, maybe, at least I do. But what I can say is that since the genocide started, it has been a very, very difficult and arduous journey, watching other Palestinians being killed in the most horrendous ways, being starved, being orphaned, being stripped of any dignity, and you try your best from afar to kind of give a voice to the voiceless. But A, you’re not being allowed to go to Gaza, which is a tragedy in itself, but it’s also, it’s very purposeful. That’s something that the Israelis are doing on purpose because they don’t want people to see for themselves the atrocities that have happened on the ground. To not allow journalists in means that you can always cast a doubt on what Palestinians are saying. 

The second thing is the emotional toll. For example, for me, when the genocide started, I was able to work and I was able to do things. But honestly, at some point, I could not do anything. There was a period, I would say, of maybe seven months where I could only do interviews because I couldn’t write. Writing, as you may well know, and a lot of people who work in print and in digital media, writing is a very lonely experience. It’s something that you do alone and it holds you with your own thoughts, it keeps you with your own thoughts, and I wasn’t able to do it. 

Then finally in December, just two months ago, I was able to get back into things and to start writing again and something unlocked. But it’s not because of the fact that I felt better somehow or anything. If anything, now we’re watching Gaza go through a slow kind of genocide, a slower kind of genocide. And it’s harder. But I think at some point, I realized that I owe it to people, to my people, to to say something, to do something instead of just, you know. A lot of us feel like we’re not just as journalists — but as Palestinians in the West Bank or Palestinians inside 1948 — we all feel like we’re so far away from Gaza geographically, and I think it hurts a lot of us to feel this way, and it makes us feel maybe a bit out of touch with what’s going on. But these are all part of a master plan by Israel to divide and rule, I think.

 It was a difficult process, and it still is a difficult process. But I’m hoping that with all of the Palestinian journalists coming together and trying to keep the Palestinian story alive, something will, will happen, at least, in that sense, that’s my hope. 

Ghousoon Bisharat

We’ve been talking about Israeli policy, legal changes, and how people on the ground are experiencing these shifts. But many international listeners are likely asking, where is the Palestinian Authority in all of this? The PA obviously condemned the latest Israeli decisions using the usual rhetoric. President Mahmoud Abbas called for urgent actions to halt Israel’s annexation of the occupied West Bank. The vice president, Hussein al-Sheikh, said that the Palestinian leadership has instructed all civil and security institutions in the State of Palestine not to engage or comply with Israeli occupation measures, to reject them outright and to adhere to Palestinian laws enforced in accordance with international law and signed agreements. What can you say about the PA’s reaction? 

Dalia Hatuqa

The Palestinian Authority’s reaction, which is the usual — the rhetorical condemnation, calls for non-cooperation — it’s consistent with its longstanding approach. The PA has been like this for a very long time. The deeper reality, however, is that the PA faces severe structural constraints that limit its ability to materially stop or reverse Israeli administrative and land policies, especially in the parts of the West Bank where those policies are concentrated. But I think also the PA, at least the upper echelon or the upper administration, they’re not interested in this kind of move beyond the condemnations. Not only are they unable to do anything, but I don’t think that they want to do anything, because in a way, these people are benefiting from the status quo, and they’re very much happy to remain in that status quo. 

But to understand the PA’s response, I think we have to look at the fact that the PA doesn’t control most of the land affected. I mean, most people listening to us are aware of the Oslo framework administrative zones: Area A, B and C. Now, most land registration and state land classification and settlement related policies occur in Area C, which is under full Israeli civil and security control, and this is about 60 percent of the West Bank. The PA has no administrative authority there — it can’t stop land confiscations, it can’t prevent land classification decisions, it can’t control planning or zoning. Its authority is geographically limited. 

But also the PA lacks enforcement power against these Israeli administrative systems. For example, the PA can’t physically prevent the military authorities or courts from carrying out land registration or classification processes. It can’t enforce its own legal rulings in areas under Israeli control. This creates a fundamental asymmetry. So yes, the PA can reject policies legally and politically, but it can’t enforce that rejection on the ground. Especially with Mahmoud Abbas at the helm, its strategy has mostly relied heavily on international diplomacy rather than direct confrontation. From the beginning, Mahmoud Abbas has said that the PA is not going to focus on anything apart from diplomatic engagement, or appeals to international law, or cooperation with international institutions. 

But also the PA was built as an interim governing authority. It’s not a sovereign state with full territorial control, which is ironic, considering that the PA has gone on for years trying to make people recognize a State of Palestine, despite the fact that there is no State of Palestine. Finally, I would say that the PA’s reaction to things, to the statement that you mentioned earlier, reflects both opposition and structural constraints. So, yes, it consistently opposes Israeli changes, diplomatically and legally. But it operates within a system where its territorial, administrative, and enforcement powers are limited. 

We have to remember that the PA also is implementing something called security coordination. Abbas himself to him, security coordination with the Israelis is not something that can be touched. All these issues have caused a major internal dilemma: do we resist or do we survive as an institution? I think the PA has chosen survival rather than resistance. 

Ghousoon Bisharat

But also, under these constraints, politically, internally, Abbas and the PA are trying to impose their political program on all Palestinians. A few weeks ago, I think the day after the Israeli decision on the West Bank, President Mahmoud Abbas issued a presidential decree ordering the publication of the first draft of the interim constitution for the State of Palestine, and he also declared that elections for the Palestinian National Council, the PNC, will be held on November 26. He also amended the local elections laws by introducing a new requirement obliging all candidates to sign a written pledge recognizing the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and committing to its political and national program. As you know, that program includes recognition of Israel, adherence to a negotiated two-state framework, and the rejection of armed resistance. These are positions that have been long rejected by Hamas and several other Palestinian factions. What do you think about all this talk about the constitution? Is there a public discourse about it? Is it the right time to discuss a constitution when there is no state and there is no unified Palestinian leadership? 

Dalia Hatuqa

Exactly that: in short, the public discourse about the interim constitution is very limited. It’s mostly confined to elite political and legal circles. The draft interim constitution was published and people can read it and they can make notes about it or write their thoughts about it online, there’s a website for it. But honestly, there is no real interest in what people have to say. Several factors limit meaningful public discourse. Like you said, the Palestinian political system has been largely frozen for nearly two decades. 

We haven’t had any presidential elections since 2005, no legislative elections since 2006. The Palestinian Legislative Council or Parliament has effectively been suspended. This has weakened all the political parties and the culture — the legislative culture — and public expectations that institutional reforms will translate into actual public change. That’s why these constitutional discussions often feel very abstract to many Palestinians. For these Palestinians, the immediate concerns are not the constitution, they’re physical safety, economic survival, movement restrictions, land and property security. There’s also the skepticism about whether these elections will genuinely occur, as scheduled. Because how many times have we been told that there’s going to be elections and then they don’t happen because Mahmoud Abbas comes up with some sort of excuse not to hold them?

Now, with regards to the elections that you mentioned, the planned local elections in April, and then the PNC elections in November 2026, the local elections are important, but obviously they’re more about like municipalities and public services. They can provide some degree of political renewal at the grassroots level, but they don’t change the national leadership structures directly. Now the PNC is part of the Palestine Liberation Organization and they would be politically consequential, and they could potentially reshape the national leadership structures. But the thing is, how do you carry out these elections when you have geographical fragmentation? You have the West Bank, Gaza, and the Diaspora. You have political divisions between the Palestinian factions. You have Israeli restrictions on political activity in many parts of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. So honestly, I’m not even sure if the PNC is going to be able to hold its elections. 

This is an important question: Is meaningful reform possible while security coordination with Israel continues? Like I said, for the PA, security coordination is very important because all in all, it preserves the PA itself. But if you ask the average Palestinian, the security coordination not only limits the Palestinian political autonomy, but it undermines resistance to the occupation. This creates a fundamental structural tension. 

Ghousoon Bisharat

Beyond the PA and the other Palestinian political factions, do you see Palestinians finding ways to organize and push for change? Are there local civil society initiatives? Is there some sort of alternative political activity at the local leadership or the national leadership levels? 

Dalia Hatuqa

I think this is one of the most important and often overlooked parts of the Palestinian political landscape right now. Yes, we have formal institutions, we have the PA and major factions like Fatah and Hamas still dominating the national politics. But much of the most dynamic political activity today is happening outside the traditional party structures, at the local, grassroots, civil society levels. Now, these forms of organizing are shaped, unfortunately, by fragmentation and the occupation, for example, really tries to go after people who are organized at this level. But they tend to be much stronger than people give them credit for, and they tend to be more decentralized, locally rooted, less hierarchical than older faction-based politics. 

They’re emerging in several arenas. For example, you have the local grassroots organizing around land and community defense. So we have many village-level popular committees that are trying to help residents, farmers, etc., against settlement and settler — I don’t want to call it violence, it’s settler terrorism, basically, settler terror. They’re not really affiliated with major political factions, and they organize protests, they coordinate legal challenges, they provide mutual aid to affected families. It reflects a shift towards more community-based leadership rather than a centralized party leadership. 

Then we’ve got the youth-led political activism and the informal networks whereby a younger generation of Palestinians is operating also outside the traditional factional structures. We’ve got civil society organizations who are engaged in legal advocacy and human rights documentation. We have municipal governments, I would say they focus on infrastructure and services, things of that nature. There’s also the professional associations and unions. They’re very important, like the lawyers’ unions, the journalists’ unions, the engineers. They play an important political and civic role. We also have women’s organizations and feminist political initiatives. 

There’s also political engagement from the diaspora — they are also working through advocacy organizations, academic networks, community organizations, and political campaigns abroad. Even culture — we have to talk about that — the cultural and intellectual spaces as political arenas. So universities, for example, like Birzeit University, are constantly being attacked by the Israeli occupation because of the space that was created as a political arena. They serve as an important space for political discussion and expression. 

And then finally, I would say that many younger Palestinians don’t identify strongly with the traditional faction structures, and that’s why you see these new, younger organizations that are popping up, because their political identity is shaped more by the immediate lived experiences, by the local community concerns, and the digital political engagement rather than the formal party membership. I think this is reshaping the broader political landscape. 

Ghousoon Bisharat

But do you think these initiatives and these young people who are not affiliated with the traditional party system — they’re neither Hamas nor Fatah — do you think that they’re coming with a different operational plan on how to resist the occupation focusing on popular resistance or something else? To me, sometimes it feels that all these initiatives, each in its place, are amazing, but they’re not united into a political program, into a third alternative way for Palestinians. 

Dalia Hatuqa

If it’s not in a third way, it’s only because Israel is working very hard on ensuring that nothing comes out of these initiatives. When you have students being attacked, when you have even theaters in Jerusalem being closed for showing something that is about Palestine, when you have all these attempts by the Israelis occupation leadership to stop people from making an effort, you understand more how their duty or how their work is actually more difficult than we thought. I think that the war in Gaza has kind of unified people in many ways. I think there is like a collective identification where people feel like they are a whole nation, not just one enclave. 

But the truth of the matter is, is that we, as Palestinians, we’re politically fractured and we are also geographically fractured. I think Gaza has raised a lot of important questions, which is what role, if any, should resistance play? Or who has the right to decide strategy when the costs are borne unevenly? Because Gaza has borne so much of Israel’s military might, let’s say, in terms of deaths, in terms of starvation, in terms of all these issues that we saw during the genocide. I think that the genocide has made these disputes sharper and not softer, because the stakes are existential. 

But honestly, I feel like the local solidarity and sumud networks you’re seeing more of, even if it doesn’t rise to the level that we want. I think that it’s producing unity through urgency, but also through despair. You’ve got all these village committees, legal defense networks, land documentation efforts, protection of farmers during the harvest, all of these are unity mechanisms built for endurance rather than politics. So yes, it’s not a third party per say, but I think that these are really important ways of resistance. I think we should give them the props that they deserve. 

Ghousoon Bisharat

Thank you very much, Dalia. I may not be more optimistic after this conversation, but I definitely feel wiser. Thank you.

Dalia Hatuqa

Thank you. 

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Ghousoon Bisharat

This episode was produced by Jennifer Cutler, with help from the +972 Editorial Team. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and leave us a review. It really helps new listeners find the show. Visit 972Mag.com for in-depth reporting, analysis, and opinions from the ground in Israel-Palestine, and don’t forget to download the +972 app and subscribe to our newsletters. 

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