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Throughout this period, the global community has witnessed as Israel has methodically devastated the Gaza Strip, claiming the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinian people and harming an untold number more. In a similarly perilous move, Israel continues to methodically target medical, education, water supply and sewage systems to make certain that normalcy cannot return in the Gaza Strip.

Global Stances

Global stances to Israeli operations have varied between vocal backing and full endorsement in the initial 12 months of the military campaign on the Gaza Strip after 7 October 2023, then came expressions of worry and handwringing, to, lately, intermittent declarations of alarm and hollow warnings that ongoing military actions may, at some unspecified time, lead to an military supply halt or a drop in trade relations. More recently, there have also been widely touted declarations of qualified acknowledgment of a sovereign Palestinian entity. The paradox is deeply troubling: tepidly recognizing a nation as it, and its citizens, are being erased without mercy.

Ongoing Situations

Currently, ambiguity clouds the outlined strategy to conclude hostilities and hope is mounting for a reciprocal release. Though stopping the attacks, the release of detainees on both sides and permitting relief supplies into Gaza would bring a degree of solace in an exceptionally grim scenario, it would be a error to regard the initiative as a monumental step for the Palestinian cause. This approach is an additional American-Israeli concoction formulated without any input from Palestinians that would retain Israel’s perpetual control over what lies ahead for Gaza.

Global powers have consistently ignored to what Palestinians have to say or taken seriously the existential threat emanating from Israeli policies to Palestinian life, and this has not materially changed despite the increase in performative angst. Conversely, Palestinians have for three-quarters of a century, Palestinians have experienced the world asserting that security priorities – as interpreted by Israel – are of greater significance than our rights and lives.

Two Forms of Violence

Therefore Palestinians face two omnipresent forms of violence: direct Israeli force experienced by our bodies, land and community, and international complicity, where only our erasure leads international actors to recognize our existence and recognize our human dignity – but only barely.

This understanding comes from firsthand observation, for a extended duration, how this pattern of international approach and behaving manifests. Notwithstanding extensive destruction in Gaza, and all that has been revealed about Israel’s true intentions, that mode is recurring currently, with world leaders endorsing a plan that does very little to make certain inclusion of Palestinian voices over their future.

Unenforced declarations has been the prevailing approach for decades. The impact has been ruinous.

A Deceptive Remedy

At the end of September 2000, I joined the negotiating committee as a attorney participating in the negotiations with Israel. This marked an important transition for me: I am the child of Palestinian parents born preceding the displacement, the systematic removal of Palestine. My family, unlike the vast majority of Palestinian people, did not leave in the time of Nakba and later acquired Israeli citizenship, living in Nazareth, in a nation that rejected them. In that year, they chose to leave to abroad, where I was born and raised, educated and educated. I had not resided in the region before joining the negotiating team except for a few months at a time. At that point, I had chosen to being in Palestine for a extended time. I joined the team as a attorney after a colleague, also a legal representative, informed me that one of the flaws of the peace talks was its ambiguity. I had assumed, ideally, that the team could address that issue.

This marked the culmination of the negotiation period, as it was labelled at the time, which was initiated by the Clinton administration in 1993 with the memorable moment between Yitzhak Rabin, the head of government, and Yasser Arafat, the representative. By means of various understandings, the Palestinian Authority was created and the Palestinian territories were additional partitioned, with more barriers established around. Major issues such as frontiers, settlements, the rights of millions of refugees and Jerusalem were postponed permanently.

The diplomatic efforts transformed into a illusory solution concealing the reality to the global powers.

All of these were now direct concerns for Israel and the Palestinians to address directly, with the international community nominally present as neutral observers. But they were not impartial, and the key players were disproportionate. The US was historically and currently the main provider of military equipment and diplomatic support and Europe is Israel’s largest trading partner. Before entering into this peace talks, Palestinians sought assurances, especially from America, that the disparity would be addressed. These commitments were informally offered but routinely disregarded, over years of talks.

Starting that decade, worldwide approval for diplomatic efforts abounded. But what finally occurred is that endless calls for a “two-state solution” that avoided concrete implementation of Palestinian sovereignty and autonomy supplanted calls for an end to Israeli control. The diplomatic process transformed into a deceptive remedy concealing the reality to the global powers, masking its expansion, ever-present and increasingly brutal form. Palestine was now reduced to a topic for discussion needing sacrifices, with the 1948 ethnic cleansing of the land ignored to be forgotten.

Colonial Growth

Once this framework was embraced, the Israeli government used the pretext of negotiations to build and expand Israeli settlements, correctly believing that these territorial changes would strengthen their position at the negotiating table. And with the settlements came colonists and obstacles and an {expanding