Populism: The Invisible Weapon That Devours the Possible and the Impossible
When ambitions fueled by populist rhetoric exceed the ceiling of what is possible, they do not merely shatter the boundaries of reality; they consume both the possible and the impossible alike. The dream turns into a hammer, the slogan into a pickaxe, and the future becomes raw material for experimentation rather than a project built with deliberation and responsibility.
In politics, as in physics, every energy has a viable limit. If that limit is not respected, it turns into an explosion. Populism, by its very nature, does not recognize limits. It whets the appetite of the masses with promises that exceed their capacities, convincing them that willpower alone can break the laws of geography, history, and balances of power—while forgetting, or deliberately ignoring, that when will detaches from reason, it becomes a shortcut to catastrophe.
In the Palestinian case, populism was not a passing discourse; it became a mode of governance and a logic of conflict. It accumulated promises disproportionate to available capabilities and raised ceilings unsupported by realistic pillars—until the ceiling collapsed on those beneath it. We were told that time was on our side, that the world would suddenly change when we decided it should, and that force alone was sufficient to impose equations. But time did not wait for us, the world did not transform around us, and force—when misused—turned into a catastrophe for all.
Gaza today is not merely a collection of destroyed cities; it is a concentrated image of what happens when conflict is managed with the logic of oratory rather than the logic of the state, with a mobilization mindset rather than a political one. It became a testing ground for everything loud in voice and poor in calculation, everything sharp in phrasing and empty of alternatives.
Populism does not err in diagnosing pain; it commits a crime when it sells illusion as a solution. It speaks fluently about dignity, yet lacks a plan to protect it. It repeatedly summons history, yet fails to read the present. And when it fails, it does not acknowledge failure—it demands more sacrifice… always from the simple people.
What the Palestinian situation has become is not solely the product of the enemy’s strength, but the result of accumulated internal mistakes—foremost among them the transformation of politics into theater, the public into fuel, and decision-making into a hostage of the loudest slogan. A politics that does not know when to stop does not know how to win, and a resistance that fails to assess what is possible squanders whatever remains of the impossible as well.
At pivotal moments, Palestinian populist discourse exceeded the ceiling of the possible—not to press against it, but to leap over it. And whoever leaps over reality does not fall outside it; they fall onto it with all their weight. Thus the Palestinian found himself trapped between an enemy that shows no mercy, leaderships that do not hold themselves accountable, and discourses that refuse to acknowledge that politics is the art of managing losses before manufacturing victories.
The deeper tragedy is that when populism fails, it leaves behind a lethal vacuum—a vacuum of trust, leadership, and meaning. In this vacuum, society becomes more fragile, more prone to fragmentation, and less capable of long-term endurance. What we need today is not louder rhetoric, but a courageous descent toward truth; not the denial of ambition, but its discipline; not the killing of the dream, but saving it from political suicide.
The Palestinian cause is too great to be reduced to a slogan, too deep to be managed by the logic of the moment, and too dangerous to be left to ambitions that see no farther than their immediate audience.
When ambition exceeds the ceiling of the possible, it does not become revolutionary; it turns into a blind force that devours what remains of the capacity to survive and endure.
Amid the rubble, the heaviest question remains: have we finally learned that politics is not a race to raise the ceiling, but the art of living beneath it without having it collapse on all our heads?
How the Enemy Raises Its Opponents
The enemy does not always work directly to break its opponents. Sometimes it acts with greater cunning: it lets them grow—but in the way it desires. In prolonged conflicts, causes are not defeated by tanks and aircraft alone, but by nurturing discourse and supplying it with everything it needs to grow and flourish—most notably by reinforcing populism within the opponent, not as an accidental error but as a strategic choice, one of the most dangerous tools of modern domination.
Populism is not born of a vacuum; it is the legitimate child of fear, a means of humiliation, and the twin of inevitable defeat. Yet the enemy masters the art of transforming these emotions into a clamorous discourse that promises much, explains little, and produces applause far more than awareness.
In the Palestinian case, populist discourse was not always merely the result of occupation, but also of how the conflict was managed. The more emotional and less organized the Palestinian voice became, the less comprehensible it appeared to the world—and the more consumable. Here, the enemy wins the most important battle: the narrative. The enemy knows that rational discourse unsettles, and that intelligent questions are more dangerous than loud slogans. Therefore, it does not always seek to silence its opponent, but to present them in their worst version—one that simplifies tragedy until it loses depth, turns the victim into a preacher, and right into a chant.
When a discourse dominates that sees politics only as treason, criticism only as betrayal, and plurality only as weakness, doors close to alliances and the gray spaces where solutions are forged are suffocated. In such a climate, the Palestinian cause becomes a hostage to its own discourse—not only to its enemy’s. A discourse that vents anger but confuses the mind, grants a sense of cohesion but deepens isolation, and closely resembles what the enemy desires: a cause loud in voice, weak in impact.
Not everyone who shouts louder resists more, and not everyone who simplifies the conflict serves it. When populism becomes the prevailing language, it creates an audience rather than a project, and produces internal divisions that spare the enemy much effort.
Perhaps the Palestinian cannot choose his enemy, but he can choose his means. The difference between a discourse that mobilizes and one that builds is like the difference between a discourse that exhausts and a cause that endures. In one of the most complex conflicts on earth—between the radiant Palestinian right and the Jewish question, the world’s most sensitive issue—the great late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish succinctly captured the complexity of managing this struggle on land riddled with mines: the mines of history, religion, and narrative. In an interview with a Jewish journalist, he said:
“Do you know why we Palestinians are famous? Because you are our enemies, and interest in us stems from interest in the Jewish question—yes, interest in you, not in me. We are unlucky that Israel is our enemy, because it has countless supporters around the world. And we are also lucky that Israel is our enemy, because Jews are the center of the world’s attention. Thus you inflicted defeat upon us and granted us fame. You inflicted defeat upon us, but you gave us fame.”
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