by Bashir Abu-Manneh; July 16, 2007 

...It is worth repeating that the closest Palestinians ever came to decolonizing the West Bank and Gaza was in the first Intifada. A whole nation struggled together then in what Edward Said called 'one of the most extraordinary anti-colonial and unarmed mass insurrections in the whole history of the modern period'. It is clear that conditions are now much more difficult than they were in the 1980s. Palestinians are cut off, fragmented, politically divided, and made dispensable by Israel's closure policy, which has diminished their political leverage and capacity to force Israeli society to pay the price of its brutal occupation. Palestinian bantustans are clearly Oslo's doing, leaving most Palestinians stranded and demobilized. Only 5% of Palestinians actively participated in resistance against the occupation from the beginning of the second Intifada in 2000 to 2005, a measure of severe crisis and political disengagement if ever there was one.[6] This is why it has long been imperative to rebuild Palestinian self-capacity for collective resistance and mass mobilization. Struggles against the Wall have testified to the political efficacy of popular mobilization, as Palestinians invited and led both international solidarity and support from Israel's meager yet important anti-occupation groups, like Tayyush and Anarchists Against the Wall...

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