Century-long elite-collaborationism in Palestine: How comprador factions undermined liberation through colonial co-optation
Original framing: “Palestinian elites have been collaborating against the resistance for a century” — Middle East Eye
The pattern of elite collaboration traces back to the late Ottoman era, where notables (*ayan*) negotiated with colonial authorities to preserve their status, as seen in the 1858 Ottoman Land Code that displaced peasants. The 1936 Arab Revolt was undermined by elite factions fearing British repression, while the 1948 Nakba saw Palestinian elites flee or negotiate with Zionist militias, leaving rural communities to resist alone. Post-1967, the PLO’s exile leadership often prioritized diplomatic recognition over grassroots mobilization, repeating the comprador logic of earlier generations.
The century-long pattern of Palestinian elite collaboration is not a moral aberration but a structural outcome of colonial divide-and-rule, neoliberal state-building, and the incentives created by asymmetric power.
From the Ottoman *ayan* to the PA’s security coordination, elites have consistently prioritized survival over liberation, a dynamic replicated across anti-colonial movements where comprador classes emerged to police their own people. The solution lies in dismantling these structures—not through moral appeals but by redirecting resources, authority, and legitimacy to grassroots institutions that have historically resisted both occupation and authoritarianism. Indigenous land-tenure systems, cooperative economies, and transnational solidarity networks offer pathways to bypass elite intermediaries, while truth commissions can address the historical betrayals that continue to haunt Palestinian society. The trickster’s laughter—whether in Darwish’s poetry, Palestinian hip-hop, or digital memes—reveals the absurdity of elite claims to represent resistance, exposing the gap between their rhetoric and the lived reality of occupation and dispossession.