If Palestinian leaders only knew how extraneous their endless rounds of unity talks have become, they might cease their enthusiastic declaration to world media about yet another scheduled meeting.

At this point, few Palestinians are left with hope that their leadership has their best interests in mind. Factional interests reign supreme and personal agendas continue to define Palestine’s political landscape.

Fateh and Hamas are the two major Palestinian political factions. Despite Hamas’ election victory in 2006, Fateh is the chief contender. Both parties continue to play the numbers game, flexing their muscles in frivolous rallies where Palestinian flags are overshadowed by green and yellow banners, symbols of Hamas and Fateh, respectively.

Historically, there has been a leadership deficit in Palestine and it is not because Palestinians are incapable of producing upright men and women capable of guiding the decades-long resistance towards victory against military occupation and apartheid. It is because for a Palestinian leadership to be acknowledged as such by regional and international players, it has to excel in the art of compromise.

These carefully moulded leaders often cater to the interests of their Arab and Western benefactors, at the expense of their own people. Not a single popular faction has escaped this generalisation.

Such reality has permeated Palestinian politics for decades. However, in the last two decades, the distance between Palestinian leadership and people has grown to a once unimaginable scale, where Palestinian has become a jailor and a peddling politician, or a security coordinator working hand in hand with Israel. The perks of the Oslo culture have sprouted over the years, creating the Palestinian elite whose interest and that of the very Israeli occupation overlap beyond recognition of where the first starts and the other ends.

While Hamas remained largely immune from the Oslo disease — while Mahmoud Abbas and his men enjoyed its numerous political and economic perks — it, too, is becoming enthralled by the prospect of regional acceptance and international validation. Its strictly factional agenda and closeness to some corrupt Arab countries raise more than question marks and there is the prospect of heading in the same direction as Fateh leaders did over two decades ago.

The unity charade continues. After a period of ambiguity, Hamas chief Khaled Mishaal and PA leader Mahmoud Abbas reportedly held meetings in Cairo to “expedite” the dead reconciliation.

Considering that adjournment of any real progress has in fact been the status quo, the word expedite is likely to mean and change very little on the ground.

If one is to judge by rhetoric and rival claims, the chasm continues to grow, despite the fact that Hamas allowed Fateh to celebrate the anniversary of its birth in Gaza and the latter did the same in the West Bank.

Supporters of both parties brazenly used their parades — which took place under the watchful eyes of Israeli drones — to exhibit their strengths. This was not in relations to the Israeli military occupation, but to their own pitiful factional propaganda.

Oddly enough, if the calculations of Palestinian factions are accurate regarding the attendees at their rallies, the population of Gaza may have suddenly morphed to exceed four million, a remarkable jump from the 1.6 million of few weeks ago, the actual number of the Gaza population per United Nations statistics.

This miserable legacy of Palestinian factionalism is taking place against the backdrop of a slowly brewing movement in Israeli jails. Palestinian political prisoners continue to place their faith in their own ability to endure hunger, gaining international solidarity with their cause.

Samer Issawi, a Palestinian prisoner who as on January 10 completed 168 days of hunger strike in protest against his unlawful detention by Israel, is hardly a unique phenomenon. He is an expression of the very much present, but snubbed, Palestinian collective whose fate does not fall into the political agenda of any faction.

Issawi is one of seven brothers, six of whom spent time in Israeli prisons for their political beliefs. One of the brothers, Fadi, was killed by Israeli soldiers in 1994, a few days after celebrating his 16th birthday.

Even their sister, Shireen, was arrested by Israeli soldiers during a hearing concerning her brother Samer, on December 18. On that day, “Samer was publicly beaten in the Jerusalem magistrates court after he tried to greet his family”, reported the Palestine Monitor.

“He was dragged from his wheelchair and carried away, repeatedly crying out as he was hit on his chest by the guards around him.”

The Issawi family, like the entire neighbourhood of Issawiya, in East Jerusalem, is now a target of the Israeli army and police. The hope is to break the will of a single man that presently is incapable to stand on his own feet.

Maybe it is legendary, but Samer Issawi’s will of steel is not an alien notion to the Palestinians.

According to the Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association Adameer, over 650,000 Palestinians have been detained by the Israeli military and police since its occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in 1967.

“Considering the fact that the majority of those detained are male, the number of Palestinians detained forms approximately 40 per cent of the total male Palestinian population in the OPT,” Adameer says.

Yet, Palestinian resistance is yet to be quelled.

Moreover, “it is estimated that around 10,000 Palestinian women have been arrested by Israel since 1967. They include young girls and the elderly; some ... were the mothers of male long-term prisoners”, wrote Nabil Sahli in the Middle East Monitor, also calling for the internationalisation of the prisoners’ issue.

In a special session on January 6, held to discuss the plight of Palestinian and Arab prisoners in Israeli jails, the Arab League echoed similar demands. It called, in a statement, for the treatment of detainees as Prisoners of War and called for active international efforts to secure their release. However, serious efforts are seriously lacking despite the repeated cries for attention by Palestinian prisoners.

On April 17, 2012, at least 1,200 prisoners participated in a hunger strike to alert the world to their plight and maltreatment in Israeli jails. Despite the fact that the collective strike ended on May 14, Palestinian prisoners continue to stage hunger strikes of their own, breaking records of steadfastness, unprecedented not just in Palestine but also the world over.

While calls for a change of tactics are warranted, if not urgent, there is another pressing change that must be effected. There ought to be a change of Palestinian political culture, away from the repellent factional manipulation and coupled with a simultaneous return to the basic values of the Palestinian struggle. It is the likes of Issawi, not Abbas, that must define the new era of Palestinian resistance.

An Intifada has already been started by thousands of Palestinian prisoners, some of whom are shackled to their hospital beds. It offers little perks aside from a chance at dignity and a leap of faith towards freedom.

This is the dichotomy with which Palestinians must now wrangle. The path they will finally seek shall define this generation and delineate the nature of the Palestinian struggle for generations to follow.