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Throughout this period, the global community has seen as the Israeli state has systematically destroyed the Gaza region, killing tens of thousands of Palestinians and maiming an untold number more. Equally alarming, Israeli forces continues to methodically target medical, education, water supply and sewage systems to ensure that daily existence remains impossible in the Gaza Strip.

Western Governments’ Responses

International reactions to Israel’s actions have varied between vocal backing and full endorsement in the opening phase of Israel’s attack on Gaza after that fateful date, followed by voiced apprehensions and handwringing, to, lately, sporadic statements of consternation and unsubstantiated ultimatums that continued Israeli attacks may, at some undefined point, lead to an weapons restrictions or a drop in trade relations. Over recent weeks, there have also been highly publicized announcements of qualified acknowledgment of a sovereign Palestinian entity. The contradiction is stark: tepidly recognizing a state as it, and its people, are being systematically destroyed.

Current Developments

At this moment, ambiguity clouds Donald Trump’s plan to end the war and hope is mounting for a reciprocal release. Although cessation of airstrikes, the release of detainees on the two factions and allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza would bring temporary respite in an exceptionally grim scenario, it would be a mistake to view the plan as a landmark achievement for Palestine. The proposed framework is an additional American-Israeli concoction cooked up without any inclusion of Palestinian voices that would preserve Israel’s perpetual control over what lies ahead for Gaza.

Global powers have consistently ignored to the perspectives of Palestinians or taken seriously the grave danger emanating from Israeli policies to the Palestinian people, and this has not significantly shifted despite the increase in performative angst. On the opposite, For over 75 years, Palestinians have experienced the world telling us that Israeli “security concerns” – as interpreted by Israel – are more important than Palestinian rights and existence.

Parallel Systems of Force

As a result Palestinians live with two omnipresent forms of force: direct Israeli force experienced by our bodies, land and society, and western violence, where only our elimination prompts the world to recognize our existence and acknowledge our basic rights – but minimally.

This perspective emerges from direct personal experience, for a extended duration, how this pattern of international approach and behaving manifests. Even after prolonged violence in Gaza, and all that has been revealed about Israel’s true intentions, that approach is recurring at this very moment, with world leaders lining up behind a plan that does almost nothing to ensure Palestinians gain any say over their future.

Empty statements has been the standard procedure for decades. The cost has been catastrophic.

An Illusory Solution

At the end of September 2000, I became part of the Palestinian delegation as a legal advisor participating in the talks with Israeli counterparts. This marked an important transition for me: I am the daughter of Palestinian parents born before the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine. Our relatives, differently from many of Palestinians, did not flee in 1948 and later gained legal status, making their home in Nazareth, in a state that did not want them. In 1967, they chose to leave to abroad, where I was born, grown and educated. I had not been based there before joining the negotiating team except for a short stays. Then, I had committed to being in Palestine for a extended time. I became involved as a lawyer after a colleague, also a part of the legal division, explained to me that one of the defects of the Oslo negotiations was its vagueness. I had thought, ideally, that the delegation could remedy that.

This was the height of the diplomatic efforts, as it was described then, which began under the Clinton administration in 1993 with the memorable moment between Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister, and Palestinian leader Arafat, the representative. Via multiple accords, the governing body was established and the occupied lands were increasingly fragmented, with more barriers scattered throughout. Fundamental questions such as frontiers, colonies, the rights of millions of refugees and the holy city were deferred without timeline.

The negotiation framework became a illusory solution concealing the reality to the west.

These matters were now direct concerns for the Israeli government and the Palestinians to work out together, with the global actors theoretically standing by as uninvolved parties. But they were taking sides, and the key players were not equals. The US was then and remains Israel’s biggest supplier of weapons and international advocacy and European nations is the primary commercial ally. Prior to joining this peace talks, representatives asked for commitments, mainly from Washington, that the disparity would be considered. Those promises were informally offered but routinely disregarded, during extended diplomatic engagement.

Starting that decade, international praise for negotiations flourished. But what eventually transpired is that continuous demands for a partition plan that evaded explicit realization of Palestinian sovereignty and liberty supplanted calls for an termination of the occupation. The diplomatic process became a magic pill obscuring the situation to the global powers, masking its expansion, omnipresent and ever more violent form. Palestine was now diminished to a bargaining chip needing sacrifices, with the forced expulsion of Palestine swept under the rug to be disregarded.

Territorial Encroachment

Having accepted this narrative, the Israeli government used the cover of the “peace process” to establish and enlarge outposts, accurately thinking that these established realities would improve their standing at the discussions. And along with colonies arrived settlers and checkpoints and an {expanding