A ‘Miraculous Solution’ That Made Israeli Violence Invisible: Why We Must Stop Swallowing It

For two years, the international audience has witnessed as Israel has methodically devastated the Gaza region, claiming the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians and harming an unknown quantity more. In a similarly perilous move, Israel continues to systematically attack healthcare, educational, water and sanitation infrastructure to make certain that life cannot resume in the Gaza Strip.

Global Stances

Global stances to the ongoing situation have included cheerleading and complete alignment in the initial 12 months of Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip after the events of October 2023, subsequently shifting to statements of concern and handwringing, to, more recently, occasional expressions of dismay and unsubstantiated ultimatums that persistent assaults may, at some undefined point, lead to an military supply halt or a reduction in commercial ties. More recently, there have also been highly publicized announcements of conditional recognition of a sovereign Palestinian entity. The irony cannot be more profound: hesitantly accepting a political entity as it, and its citizens, are being systematically destroyed.

Ongoing Situations

Currently, uncertainty surrounds the proposed initiative to bring about peace and expectations are rising for a exchange of captives. While an end to the bombing, the freedom of captives on the two factions and allowing humanitarian aid into the territory would bring a degree of solace in an exceptionally grim scenario, it would be a misjudgment to consider the proposal as a historic breakthrough for Palestine. The proposed framework is once more collaborative effort developed without any Palestinian participation that would retain ongoing Israeli dominance over Gaza’s future.

Global powers have consistently ignored to what Palestinians have to say or adequately considered the existential threat presented by Israel to the Palestinian people, and this has not significantly shifted despite the rise in superficial worry. To the contrary, Through multiple generations, Palestinians have endured the world asserting that Israel’s safety considerations – as interpreted by Israel – are more important than fundamental human rights.

Parallel Systems of Force

Therefore Palestinians live with two constant manifestations of violence: physical aggression experienced by our bodies, land and society, and western violence, where only our destruction leads international actors to notice us and acknowledge our basic rights – but just marginally.

This perspective emerges from direct personal experience, for a 25-year period, how this mode of western thinking and behaving plays out. Notwithstanding extensive destruction in Gaza, and all that has been revealed about underlying Israeli objectives, that mode is recurring as I write this, with world leaders endorsing a plan that does little to guarantee inclusion of Palestinian voices over their future.

Rhetoric without consequence has been the west’s modus operandi for a long time. The cost has been catastrophic.

A Deceptive Remedy

During the final days of September 2000, I entered the Palestinian delegation as a legal advisor participating in the talks with Israeli counterparts. This marked an important transition for me: I am the child of Palestinian parents born preceding the displacement, the forced expulsion of historic Palestine. My parents’ families, in contrast to most of Palestinians, did not flee in 1948 and later became Israeli citizens, making their home in Nazareth, in a state that excluded them. In 1967, they opted to relocate to Canada, where I was born and raised, raised and trained. I had not resided in the region before becoming part of the delegation except for a short stays. Then, I had chosen to being in the region for a extended time. I became involved as a lawyer after a friend, also a legal representative, explained to me that one of the defects of the “Oslo peace process” was its lack of clarity. I had believed, optimistically, that the delegation could address that issue.

This was the height of the peace process, as it was described then, which began under President Bill Clinton in the early 1990s with the memorable moment between the Israeli leader, the national leader, and the PLO chairman, the Palestinian leader. Via multiple accords, the administrative structure was established and the Palestinian territories were additional partitioned, with new Israeli checkpoints established around. Critical matters such as boundaries, outposts, the claims of displaced people and the holy city were postponed permanently.

The diplomatic efforts evolved into a illusory solution making the occupation disappear to the international community.

All of these were now matters between two parties for the Israeli government and the Palestinians to address directly, with the international community nominally present as impartial monitors. But they were not neutral, and the two main actors were disproportionate. The United States was historically and currently the primary source of weapons and diplomatic support and Europe is Israel’s largest trading partner. Before entering into this diplomatic efforts, Palestinians sought assurances, mainly from Washington, that the disparity would be considered. These commitments were informally offered but routinely disregarded, during extended diplomatic engagement.

Beginning in the 1990s, global applause for negotiations flourished. But what finally occurred is that endless calls for a “two-state solution” that avoided concrete implementation of independent statehood and autonomy supplanted calls for an end to Israel’s military occupation. The negotiation framework evolved into a illusory solution obscuring the situation to the global powers, hiding its growth, ever-present and increasingly brutal form. The Palestinian cause was now diminished to a topic for discussion demanding compromises, with the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine swept under the rug to be forgotten.

Colonial Growth

Having accepted this narrative, Israel used the pretext of negotiations to establish and enlarge outposts, correctly believing that these territorial changes would strengthen their position at the negotiating table. And along with colonies arrived residents and checkpoints and an {expanding