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For two years, the international audience has witnessed as Israel has systematically destroyed the Gaza Strip, claiming the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians and injuring an unknown quantity more. Just as dangerously, Israel continues to methodically target healthcare, education, water supply and sewage systems to ensure that life cannot resume in the Gaza Strip.

International Reactions

Global stances to the ongoing situation have varied between cheerleading and full endorsement in the opening phase of the military campaign on Gaza after 7 October 2023, followed by expressions of worry and public consternation, to, lately, sporadic statements of consternation and unsubstantiated ultimatums that continued Israeli attacks may, at some unspecified time, lead to an military supply halt or a weakening of economic links. Over recent weeks, there have also been highly publicized announcements of provisional acceptance of a Palestinian state. The paradox is deeply troubling: tepidly recognizing a political entity as it, and its population, are being erased without mercy.

Current Developments

Currently, uncertainty surrounds Donald Trump’s plan to bring about peace and hope is mounting for a hostile and prisoner swap. While an end to the bombing, the release of detainees on the two factions and allowing humanitarian aid into the territory would bring temporary respite in an profoundly dismal situation, it would be a error to consider the proposal as a monumental step for Palestine. This approach is an additional joint U.S.-Israel creation cooked up without any input from Palestinians that would preserve Israel’s perpetual control over the territory’s destiny.

The world has never listened to Palestinian voices or given due weight the grave danger Israel poses to Palestinian existence, and this has not substantively altered despite the rise in superficial worry. On the opposite, Palestinians have for three-quarters of a century, Palestinians have endured the world asserting that Israel’s safety considerations – however defined by Israel – are of greater significance than Palestinian rights and existence.

Dual Manifestations of Aggression

Consequently Palestinians face two constant manifestations of violence: direct Israeli force experienced by our persons, territory and society, and international complicity, where only our destruction causes global powers to acknowledge our presence and recognize our human dignity – but only barely.

I reach this conclusion from observing up close, for a extended duration, how this pattern of international approach and operating plays out. Even after prolonged violence in the Gaza Strip, and all that has been revealed about Israel’s true intentions, that approach is happening again as I write this, with global powers lining up behind a proposal that does almost nothing to guarantee Palestinian participation over their future.

Empty statements has been the standard procedure for decades. The consequences have been devastating.

A Magic Pill

In late September 2000, I became part of the negotiating committee as a legal advisor involved in the talks with Israeli counterparts. This was a big journey for me: I am the child of Palestinian parents born preceding the displacement, the forced expulsion of historic Palestine. My family, unlike the vast majority of Palestinian people, did not leave in 1948 and later became Israeli citizens, making their home in Nazareth, in a state that rejected them. In that year, they decided to emigrate to Canada, where I was brought up, raised and educated. I had not lived in Palestine before joining the negotiating team except for a few months at a time. At that point, I had chosen to being in the region for a twelve-month period. I entered the process as a legal expert after a friend, also a part of the legal division, explained to me that one of the shortcomings of the peace talks was its vagueness. I had believed, optimistically, that the committee could remedy that.

This marked the culmination of the diplomatic efforts, as it was described then, which started during President Bill Clinton in the early 1990s with the memorable moment between the Israeli leader, the head of government, and Palestinian leader Arafat, the head of the PLO. Via multiple accords, the administrative structure was created and the West Bank and Gaza Strip were further subdivided, with new Israeli checkpoints scattered throughout. Fundamental questions such as boundaries, settlements, the rights of millions of refugees and the holy city were postponed permanently.

The negotiation framework evolved into a deceptive remedy rendering the occupation invisible to the west.

These matters were now matters between two parties for Israel and the Palestinians to work out together, with the global actors theoretically standing by as neutral observers. But they were not impartial, and the two main actors were disproportionate. The America was at that time and continues the main provider of arms and international advocacy and the EU is the main economic partner. Before entering into this peace talks, the Palestinian side requested guarantees, mainly from Washington, that the power imbalance would be considered. Those promises were implicitly given but routinely disregarded, over years of talks.

From the early 1990s, international praise for diplomatic efforts flourished. But what ultimately happened is that endless calls for a two-state framework that evaded explicit realization of Palestinian sovereignty and liberty replaced calls for an cessation of Israel’s military occupation. The “peace process” evolved into a magic pill concealing the reality to the international community, masking its expansion, ever-present and increasingly brutal form. The Palestinian cause was now limited to a topic for discussion requiring concessions, with the 1948 ethnic cleansing of the land ignored to be overlooked.

Settlement Expansion

Having accepted this narrative, the Israeli government used the guise of diplomacy to establish and enlarge outposts, accurately thinking that these territorial changes would enhance their leverage at the bargaining table. And with the settlements came settlers and obstacles and an {expanding