The Palestinian people have largely been disinfranchized by their own leaders because in part their leaders never have been given any real power to begin with... the Ottomans kept all the power to themselves... the British played the time honored divide and conquor game by playing all sides against the other, especially in the lead up to the 47 partition and the Israelis have never had a real vested interest in any form of Palestinian power block either and the United States as Israel's puppet doesn't either.

Cases in point when Fatwa took over the west bank and gaza they so mismanaged the place and provided so little that it all but guarenteed a Hamas win in the general elections. Why? Because Hamas, like Hezbullah are more than paramilitary "terrorist" organizations... they provide social, economic and medical services to the population as well which is far more than Fatwa ever did.

Besides all of that Israel (and by extension the United States) shot itself in the proverbial foot by refusing to engage Hamas when they won the elections in 06. Like them or not they were chosen by the people and consequently were soverign... by refusing to engage them, terrorist activities or not, we basically gave them a carte blanc to continue as they had, which they did. If we had held our noses and engaged them like a duely elected party, which they were we would have in essence forced them to behave as such and could have possibly gotten them to acknowledge Israel and give up their paramilitary activities and become a truly legitmate political force.

In short arrogance blew it.

We used to think that an historian is a profession detached from politics, not dependent on nationality, race, or religion.
We used to think an historian's most important quality is being objective.

Today we realize an historian is no more than a tobacco company's researcher- Picked out for their ideologies and opinions and paid for by people with those same ideologies and opinions.

What's worse is when you start to think of it you can't really know for sure anything we know about history is really any accurate.

So the biggest problem we have is we know almost nothing about the real history of the middle east, and every question raises more and more questions-
Yes, there has never been an independent Palestinian state, but is that enough?
Who are the "Palestinians"?
Who are their ancestors?
Did they migrate to this land?
How do they differ from Jordanians and Syrians?
How do they differ, if any, from any of the Arabic Jews?
Why didn't Palestine remain a part of Jordan?

The more we look into those periods the more questions arise the more and more people try to explain them through some kind of political goggle..

Personally I'm frustrated, don't know what to think anymore about the history that I know, the history I'm finding out about, one sided researches and political historians..

Before the rise of Moses Palestine was a soveriegn and independant nation. Palestinian soveriegnty was erradicated in 1947.

The real historical question is "has there ever been a sovereign Israel that has not been under the boot or paying tribute to another kingdom?" I don't believe so. If Israel's right to exist is based on the UN charter then they need to go to the borders established. All organizations that fight against Israel are freedom fighters. How can the world even justify the creation of a racist country that openly promotes apartheid?