When Fatah Day is celebrated on Jan. 1, it will be marked with a procession of several hundred mercenaries at the Muqata in Ramallah. However, by the time the procession reaches the end of the street, it will learn that the next generation is no longer there. Nor is the Arab world.
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In the past, the Palestinian issue was of greater concern to certain Arab sectors than their own country's domestic affairs. This is the reason the Palestinian umbrella organization known as the Palestine Liberation Organization was the recipient of a great deal of money from individual donors, international organizations, and both Arab and non-Arab states. This financial support was accompanied by such great moral support that in some Arab states, cries of "We are all Palestine" were commonplace.
No more. The lack of motivation among Palestinian youths to launch a third Intifada is just one symptom of this phenomenon. Saudi, Moroccan, Emirati, and even Palestinian yuppies have had enough of the empty "Palestine First" slogan. In recent years, it has become evident that they have chosen to adhere to a new outlook, to the regret of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, the PLO, Fatah, and Hamas. This outlook is one of contempt for the Palestinian leadership, which is perceived as corrupt, anemic, and one whose time is up.
What brought about this change? The atrocities perpetrated by Arab rulers in Arab states led these people to rethink their perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For decades, they were educated to hate "child-killing" Israel. From watching what transpired in Iraq and Syria, they realized this was incitement, and there was no truth behind the propaganda. They discovered Israel was entirely different from their misconceptions.
The Arab Spring was also exposed as a lie. The younger generation had great hopes that the revolutions would remove Arab tyrants from their seats of power and corrupt and immoral regimes would collapse with a loud thump. Yet they watched with obvious discomfort and disappointment as they learned that what is past is prologue. They were also disappointed by the Palestinians who encouraged revolutions in their countries in the Arab Gulf, Lebanon, and North Africa not to rectify a wrong but purely for anarchy's sake. Those harmed by the Palestinians began to look differently at the Zionist state. To some, Israel became an ally.
One issue that has been raised in the past but has been met with a whimper and yet continues to concern the world's Arabs is the refugee camps. After over 70 years of suffering, insult, and misery, many in the Arab world, whether they be street merchants or the CEOs of high-tech firms, ask: Will we ever see the end of these camps? The PLO heads, who declared the need for the camps' "appearance" as representations of the Palestinian tragedy forgot that these are not merely display windows but miles of poverty, slime, and sewage. They identified with the residents of these camps only by throwing them a few empty words. They acquired luxurious homes for themselves, sent their children to prestigious schools, and kept funds to rehabilitate the camps to themselves. And then they shamelessly told the camps' residents to hold on just a little longer because "liberation is near."
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