How Liberation Struggles Lose Their Way

Par Samah Jabr

Liberation struggles are not only fought on the battlefield or against an external oppressor. They unfold in the mind, in relationships, and in the internal dynamics of liberation movements themselves, writes Samah Jabr.

The Last Outpost

Under the relentless bombardment, two fighters stood watch, their rifles slung over their shoulders, their eyes scanning the horizon. The enemy was near, but their battle had already turned inward.

“Before we advance,” one said, “I need to know—are you truly committed? Have you never wavered?”

The other exhaled, weary. “I have stumbled, I have questioned, I have learned. But I am here.”

“That may not be enough,” the first replied.

And so, instead of watching for the enemy, they scrutinized each other. When the attack came, they were too consumed by doubt to fight back. The outpost fell—not for lack of courage, but because they mistook interrogation for resistance.

Liberation struggles are not only fought on the battlefield or against an external oppressor. They unfold in the mind, in relationships, and in the internal dynamics of liberation movements themselves. The history of decolonization is filled with resistance movements that, in their quest for purity, turned against their own—purging, policing, and exiling those deemed insufficiently loyal.

In Palestine, where existence itself is an act of resistance, one of the greatest threats we face is not just the violence of the occupier but the divisions we internalize. When a struggle begins to revolve around ideological gatekeeping rather than collective emancipation, it weakens from within. It is no accident that colonial regimes rely on the tactic of fragmentation. The question is: Why do we sometimes carry out their work for them?

Divide and Rule: A Colonial Legacy

The British Mandate did not only impose foreign rule; it cultivated Palestinian fragmentation, elevating certain elites, fostering rivalries, and manipulating local leaders. The Zionist project refined this strategy—co-opting, infiltrating, and setting factions against one another. The result was the emergence of informants, village leagues, and the deep geographical and political divisions that persist today.

But colonialism does not only divide from the outside. It implants division within. When people live under surveillance, suspicion takes root. When dissent is met with denunciation rather than debate, resistance becomes an exercise in exclusion. The struggle, instead of expanding to include as many voices as possible, contracts into a narrow test of ideological conformity.

The Palestine Liberation Organization, once envisioned as a broad umbrella for the national movement, does not represent all Palestinian factions. Instead of uniting around liberation, Palestinians are too often forced to choose sides in internal conflicts—between political parties, between leadership in the occupied territories and the diaspora, between armed resistance and diplomatic engagement. In every camp, the pressure to prove loyalty becomes stronger than the drive to build real solidarity.

The Trap of Purity Politics

Movements for national liberation are most vulnerable when they fall into the trap of purity politics—the belief that there is only one correct way to resist, and that any deviation is a betrayal.

We have seen this before:

In the First Intifada, when grassroots leaders and independent activists were sidelined by hierarchical structures that sought to monopolize resistance.

In the Oslo era, when those who opposed the so-called “peace process” were dismissed as obstructionists—only for history to prove them right.

In intellectual spaces, where Palestinian scholars, like Abdul Sattar Qasem, who challenged dominant narratives—whether those imposed by the occupation or by local authorities—were treated as threats rather than as necessary voices of critique.

When movements prioritize enforcing discipline over fostering debate, they become rigid, authoritarian, and intolerant of difference. They begin to mirror the very forces they oppose.

The Consequences of Internal Policing

Purity politics does not strengthen a movement; it replaces strategy with surveillance. It diverts time and energy away from confronting the true oppressor and redirects them toward controlling one another.

This is precisely what the occupation wants. The Israeli state benefits when Palestinian energies are spent on ideological policing rather than on resistance. It benefits when Palestinian intellectuals are silenced—not by Israeli censors, but by their own peers. It benefits when those who think critically and speak courageously are ostracized, leaving only those who conform.

But history teaches us that true liberation movements are those that reject authoritarian impulses even in moments of crisis. The greatest Palestinian leaders—whether political, intellectual, or spiritual—were not those who demanded obedience, but those who called for revolutionary consciousness, encouraged debate, and embraced complexity.

Towards a Politics of Liberation

A free Palestine cannot be one where silencing replaces debate, where centralized authority dictates thought and action, where loyalty is measured not by a commitment to justice but by submission to power.

A revolutionary movement that cannot tolerate internal difference is not revolutionary enough to liberate Palestine. A national struggle that demands obedience rather than engagement is not national but sectarian. A decolonial project that replicates the surveillance, exclusion, and erasure of the colonial state has already lost its way.

True liberation is the ability to think, speak, and act freely in pursuit of justice. It is the capacity to hold contradictions without collapsing into division. It is the refusal to become what we resist.

The road to freedom is not paved with denunciations but with dialogue among the oppressed. It is not built by eliminating difference but by understanding it as a source of strength. If we are to build a truly liberated Palestine, we must first liberate ourselves from the colonizer’s most insidious weapon: the impulse to turn against one another.

* Dr. Samah Jabr is a consulting psychiatrist practicing in Palestine, serving the communities of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and former head of the mental health unit within the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
She is an associate clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at George Washington University in Washington, DC.
She is also a member of the scientific committee of the Global Initiative against Impunity (GIAI) for International Crimes and Serious Human Rights Violations, a program co-financed by the European Union.

March, 5, 2025 – Transmitted by the author