Inadvertently, Israel has pressed the reset button on its war with the Palestinian people, taking back the so-called conflict to square one.

Save a few self-serving Palestinian officials affiliated with the Palestinian Authority (PA), most Palestinians do not seem consumed with the return to the peace process, or even engaged in discussions about two state solutions.

The conversation among Palestinians is now mostly concerned with all aspects of the Palestinian struggle, starting with the ethnic cleansing of Palestine 76 years ago, an event known as the Nakba, or Catastrophe.

The Nakba is commemorated on May 15 of each year. The nature of the annual event, however, changes from one stage of the Palestinian struggle to the next. Indeed, the Nakba anniversary acquires its meaning from the political context of the time – it is elevated during times of hope, demoted during times of despair, defeat and infighting.

In the early phases of the Palestinian struggle, immediately following the expulsion of nearly 80 percent of the total Arab population of Palestine, the Right of Return was not a slogan or symbol. It was, at least in the minds of most refugees, a real possibility.

That right is enshrined in international law under United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 of December 1948. At the time, Palestinian exile was perceived to be temporary – thus, the term 'temporary shelters' associated with the humble dwellings of refugee encampments immediately after the war. These refugee camps extended from Palestine itself to other countries throughout the Middle East.

Back then, Arab nationalism was a powerful political notion that defined a pan-Arab political discourse, which centered in Egypt, Syria and Iraq. With the passage of time, however, it became clear that Arab liberators were not coming to free Palestine, and that UN resolutions on Palestine were not meant to be implemented. They were mere ‘ink on paper’, Palestinians would often utter.

Experience taught Palestinians to be cynical about lofty promises, especially when the UN-supplied 'temporary shelters' became a permanent, everyday reality.

The Palestinians continued to commemorate the Nakba anyway, because their collective memory became their main weapon of fighting back against Israeli erasure.

The rise of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the 1960s, its emphasis on the liberation of all of Palestine and its use of revolutionary slogans and armed struggle resurrected hopes among ordinary Palestinians that the Right of Return was still possible.

These hopes were dashed, however, after the PLO's forced exile from Lebanon in 1982, and the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and increasingly irrelevant Palestinian leadership in 1993.

Oslo and its fraudulent US-led peace process allowed Israel to conclude what it started during the Palestinian Nakba. Israel's greatest achievement was creating a Palestinian entity that would help it manage its final victory over the Palestinian........

© Common Dreams