Abandoned by governments, Palestinians rely on the kindness of strangers | Nesrine Malik

The fight for justice has been left to individuals to champion - but we're growing in number

There was a time when support for the Palestinian cause was fed to Arabs with their mothers' milk. I am of a generation that grew up in the shadow of the Camp David agreement and the assassination of the president of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, for what was seen as a betrayal of the Palestinians. Until Camp David in 1978, Egypt had been Palestine's main ally and the strongest military power in the region after Israel. The peace treaty returned Sinai to Egypt in exchange for recognition of Israel. With that normalisation, Egypt closed the door to any sort of Arab military assistance to the Palestinians for ever.

We inherited that era's bitter disappointment. Palestine had been such an integral part of Arab identity for so long that it came to be known as the case" or the file" - an urgent unresolved issue at the heart of our world. After the Camp David agreement, the case" went from being a rousing call for solidarity to something more melancholy and scattered.