the lack of practical links between them and the mass of the people, their laziness, and, let it be said, their cowardice at the decisive moment of the struggle will give rise to tragic mishaps." Clearly cognizant of their deviation from the anti-imperialist struggle, Arab Spring intellectuals attempt to reconcile this disconnect between liberal freedoms and liberationist freedom by arguing that liberation from western hegemony and Israeli occupation can only be achieved once freedom from internal tyranny is won. Andoni contends that "combating internal injustice -- whether practiced by Fatah or Hamas -- is a prerequisite for the struggle to end Israeli occupation and not something to be endured for the sake of that struggle." But this logic operates in a geo-political intellectual void which elides any kind of world systems analysis' recognition of the hegemony exercised by core nations over peripheral ones. In a world order characterized by an uneven division of labour, the notion of achieving any kind of comprehensive and far-reaching internal change without a commensurate change in the global balance of power, is futile. If there cannot be genuine revolutionary change from within, given prevailing power disparities on the international level, then the expectation that domestic change will inevitably balance out global power asymmetries is nothing short of liberal self-delusion. It is precisely this reasoning which undergirds mumanaists' claim that liberation from foreign domination is a prerequisite to genuine democratic change. Furthermore, resistance intellectuals and activists maintain that there can be no progress or democracy in