By refusing to be Israel’s direct interlocutor, and by turning instead to third parties in the hope of cornering Israel into submission, while also demanding that it be prosecuted for “war crimes,” the PLO manifests inordinate duplicity vis-à-vis Israel. It disqualifies itself entirely from the trust of the Jewish state. The PLO will have to face the consequences of its actions: for, short of imperiling its own legitimacy, no “honest broker” could abet the PLO’s double dealings much longer.

From the 1920s to the present, Palestinian elites have called for Muslim, Arab, and other forms of international support in order to situate their cause at the head of emerging trends and movements. Internationalization has also served as a means to nationalize the Palestinian masses. But in the process, Palestinians have repeatedly ceded control to outside forces and interests, from Arab, pan-Arab, and revolutionary nationalists, to today’s anti-globalization red-green alliance, which have manipulated Palestinian nationalism for their own ends. The root cause of this process is weak Palestinian national identity.