The strength of our cause lies in unity.

Palestinian Territories

Elias Khoury

Al-Quds al-Arabi

Listen to the prisoners, said Elias Khoury in the Palestinian-run, pan-Arab Al-Quds al-Arabi. “The Palestinians held in the prisons of the Israeli occupation are our national conscience.” While Hamas and Fatah fight among themselves, losing sight of the common enemy and the common goal, five prominent prisoners, including Fatah Secretary-General Marwan Barghouti and Abdel Halek Natshe of Hamas, have envisioned a way toward peace. Their National Reconciliation Document, known as the prisoners’ letter, calls for all Palestinians to agree to a state alongside Israel, within the 1967 borders. It says the Palestine Liberation Organization is the only true representative of the people, and calls on all factions to support the PLO. The most important aspect of the plan, though, lies not in its details, but in its authorship. The prisoners’ letter is a reminder that the Palestinian national cause “belongs to Palestinians,” and not to other Arab regimes. And it is a reminder of the imperative to avoid internecine conflict. Palestinian civil war is “an American-Israeli trap to annihilate the very idea of Palestine.” The prisoners have given us a needed dose of reason. Let us now “put an end to the time of indecision” and come together not as members of Hamas or Fatah, but as Palestinians.

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