The Palestinians' worst nightmare is coming true — they are becoming irrelevant in the eyes of regional and global power players.
For decades, the Palestinian leadership and other Muslim groups exploiting their cause have managed to keep the Palestinian "struggle" front and center.
So successful have they been that the so-called Palestinian "refugee crisis," dubious as it may be, is the only refugee community in the world to have a dedicated United Nations body and permanent agenda item.
But all that started to change when Donald Trump entered the White House.
President Trump's initial interactions with the Palestinian leadership have been rough, to say the least, while the US-Israel relationship has entered a second honeymoon under his leadership. Whispers out of Washington indicate that Trump doesn't expect much to come of the current land-for-peace process, and certainly isn't going to screw Israel just to get a bad deal signed.
Combined with numerous other factors — such as ISIS and the Iran nuclear threat — that has, in turn, resulted in leading Arab states dropping the Palestinians from the top of their own lists of priorities.
And with that has come a drastic decrease in financial aid.
A Channel 2 News report last week revealed that donations from the Arab world to the Palestinian Authority have been slashed by 50 percent over the past four years.
A mere quarter of the Palestinian Authority's 2017 budget of approximately $3.7 billion has come from her Arab neighbors. The bulk was provided primarily by the European Union, the United States and Canada.
Those feeling the pinch hardest are the residents of the Gaza Strip. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has cut off almost all government funding to Gaza, which has since 2007 been under the direct control of his Hamas rivals.