The following article is centered around the question as to what the conditions are, or under what extreme situation, might a human group voluntarily renounce some of its national rights. Taking in to consideration the unique case of the Palestinians of east Jerusalem who for the past 50 years have been living under Israeli occupation, this article analyzes the mechanisms employed by the Jerusalem municipality in order to co-opt or discipline the Palestinian population, and the psychological processes that lead them to resign themselves to the fact of the occupation, or at least, to draw from the occupation some benefit. Furthermore, the article raises the question whether the parameters developed by post-colonial studies are at all adequate in the Jerusalem context, and explores how to approach a situation in which the occupied population denies their own condition as an occupied people.