As Hamas and Fateh continue to put the final touches on the new Palestinian national unity government, a time for reflection is truly in order. After months of economic embargo, Israeli military assaults and international boycott, the Palestinians are at the threshold of a new age – an age in which any significant political decision must be sifted through a fine sieve of US and Israeli approval before it can ever see the light.

To a large extent, this has always been the case. For the past 38 years, Palestinians have been made to receive approval from Israeli authorities for just about everything – permits to work, to travel, to buy land, etc. Even after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994 when Palestinians were offered a “civil authority,” these very same things would still require the ultimate approval from Israel – only now the clerk behind the desk spoke Arabic, was a possible neighbor or friend, but one who still answered to the occupying authority.

Since then, power has been shuffled between different hands among the Palestinians, the Israelis and the Americans. Ministries have changed, land has been reoccupied and whole countries invaded while tens of thousands of people have lost their lives. Now with the Hamas-elected government living out its final days before a unity government is created, things seem to be uncannily the same as they have always been.

Hard facts are the easiest to present. Since the formation of the Hamas-led government, the international community, urged on by the United States and Israel, has imposed a strict economic siege on the Palestinians, literally plunging thousands below the poverty line. For the past eight months, some 160,000 civil servants have not been paid their salaries due to the lack of funds flowing directly to the Palestinian Authority and also because of the freeze on the transfer for PA tax revenues being held by Israel.

One main reason behind the pressure to dismantle the Hamas government and form a more moderate national unity government has been to lift the crippling siege and pump money back into the collapsed veins of the PA. However, like everything else in politics, in general, and in Palestinian-Israeli politics in particular, there is a hitch. Any national unity government formed “internally” by the Palestinians must first win the approval of the United States and Israel before the stopper is removed from the imprisoned funds.

Still, let’s assume that the Palestinians heed the warning and hand-pick the next government to suit the palettes of the Americans and even the Israelis. Funding will more than likely be resumed – PA employees will have food on their tables and European and Arab investors will resume projects abandoned after last January’s legislative elections.

Make no mistake – this is not a bad thing. The Palestinians, have unfortunately been transformed into a society almost completely dependent on outside funds and donor assistance. So, if lifting the economic siege means Palestinian families will be saved from the throes of poverty and others will be provided with job opportunities not possible during the Hamas-government period, then this is a definite improvement. It is undoubtedly harder to carry out a national struggle on an empty stomach.

But again, this is putting a bandage on a gaping wound and really a way to placate the Palestinians for a few more years. After the horror – and hunger – of the past few months, odds are the new Palestinian government will push the issue of national liberation to the back burner for some time in exchange for a little peace of mind, a relatively satisfied civil servant sector and an overall feeling of accomplishment that they were able to rescue their people from imminent starvation.

The truth is, the most significant issues and the political manipulations that govern them are still securely in place. Take last week’s US veto of the Security Council resolution condemning the massacre in Beit Hanoun. If an act as heinous as killing men, women and children sleeping in their own beds is still not enough for the United States to reprimand Israel, there seems little short of all-out genocide that may change their position.

The fact is, whether the US government is led by Republicans or Democrats, the Palestinians should never expect any real support from it – not because the US does not recognize what the core problem actually is, but because its interests in the region do not allow it to ostracize Israel and mete out any real justice against it for the crimes it has committed for so many years.

Then there are the Arabs, our brethren who share our history, our religion and our causes. An emergency session of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo concluded on November 12 with a statement vowing that the Arabs would “immediately break the siege on the Palestinians.” This sounds noble, no doubt. But as one Palestinian commentator ingeniously pointed out, the Arabs were only saving face after realizing that the economic siege would be lifted anyway after the formation of the government. If the Arabs were authentic in their offer, they would have actively worked on achieving this goal six months ago.

So, here is the bottom line. The Palestinians, no matter who runs the government or Legislative Council, can never depend on any true support from the United States or from the Arabs because in politics, it is not about who is right or wrong or who can claim the most just cause, but where interests lie. It all boils down to one thing and everyone involved in this hideous conflict knows it – until the Israeli occupation is gone from all land occupied in the 1967 War, that is all of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem – the Palestinians will always be like rats in a cage – futilely bashing their heads on all four sides in a perpetual cycle of violence and negotiation, because while the conditions in the cage may oscillate between unacceptable and satisfactory and even comfortable, at best, the fact remains that there will always be walls imprisoning the rats and a not-so-friendly hand that rations out food and water from between the bars according to how “good” or “bad” their subjects have been.

Yes, things may change in the near future and certain conditions may improve for the Palestinians. But let us not forget that the struggle is not about the amount of dollars received per month but about regaining what is rightfully ours, that piece of Palestine that we will someday declare as our independent state.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Programme at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mip@miftah.org