ABSTRACT
Given the absence of progress in the bilateral negotiations between Israel and Palestinians, at the end of 2010 the population of the West Bank and the Gaza strip was still paying for the multiple denials to allow the Islamist movement Hamas to carry out the mandate received through the elections of the Palestinian legislative council in January 2006: refusal from the president of the Palestinian interim Authority (AP) Mahmoud Abbas (whose mandate constitutionally expired in January 2010), refusal from his movement Fath, from the Israeli government and from the international community. After contributing in 2006–2007 to the metamorphosis of an already long-standing chaos into a civil war through intermediary armed groups, each at their level has participated in the deconstruction of the mechanisms established over the last thirty years to defend the political ideals and identity of ‘Palestinity’. More than 60 years after the nakba (expulsion of most of the Palestinians from what was then to become the state of Israel) and 40 years after the military occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza strip, Palestinians are currently confronted with the consequences of the failure of the project of liberation and state construction undertaken by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a challenge that is undoubtedly going to leave its mark in coming years.
