are to surreptitiously induce Palestinians to think in isolation, instead of as part of a Palestinian collective.385 At the same time, the deliberate deterioration of the socio-economic situation of the city through the lack of political will and action distracts from the structural oppression imposed on the Palestinian people as a whole. If “[…] weak connectedness and social cohesion affects [their] identity and [their] common destiny,”386 political activism in Umm al-Fahm keeps the Palestinian struggle alive. […] This struggle is an identity struggle and [Israeli] political elites will not succeed at reconstructing it as a struggle over citizenship within the Zionist entity. […] we are the Palestinian people who have been expelled, enslaved, and colonized and we have the right to resist by all means, as guaranteed by the United Nations. Loai al-Khatib, member of Abnaa al-Balad Interview: Umm al-Fahm, 7 November 2019 385 Fahmawi Youth Movement, supra 301. 386 Ibid. 95