[This short opinion piece was originally commissioned by Chatham House, also known as the Royal Institute of International Affairs. Chatham House is the UK’s leading international affairs think-tank and advertises itself as an “independent voice.” It is the second most influential international affairs think-tank in the world after the Brookings Institution.
I was asked, as an expert on the topic, to explain why the “peace” between Israel and the Palestinians had been shattered. I made the argument that the “peace” which had been shattered was one-sided and explained factually what it meant for Palestinians to live under the conditions created by Israel’s settler colonialism and apartheid.
I was unhappy with the edits that Chatham House’s editorial team were insisting upon, so I withdrew my article. I will spare the reader from recounting the entire narrative of what happened, but my argument was altered in ways that I was not willing to accept. I have excised all contributions, however minimal, by a co-author who had to withdraw their co-authorship.]
The one-sided peace has been punctured in the Middle East. To ensure justice and stability for all, Israel’s apartheid system over Palestinians should be dismantled
Israel has announced it is in a state of war after dozens of Palestinian fighters from Hamas breached the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel on 7 October, killing over a thousand Israelis and abducting dozens of hostages. But a declaration of war assumes there was a peace to shatter.
The Israeli population, currently in shock and mourning the biggest loss of life it has experienced since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, has been fed the illusion that its government can control and displace Palestinians forever with relative stability and without fear or response. This is the peace that has been shattered.
But for Palestinians, there has been no peace: they have experienced the longest military occupation in modern history administered through extreme levels of violence.
The Gaza Strip is home to 2.3 million Palestinians, three-quarters of which are refugees from what is now Israel, crammed into 140 square miles. In September 2007, Israel defined the Gaza Strip as “hostile territory”and imposed a land and sea blockade. The United Nation has called this an act of collective punishment, which is a serious breach of international humanitarian law and constitutes a war crime. Israel controls imports and exports into Gaza through “crossings” in the perimeter fence. Cut off from the outside world, the Gaza Strip has some of the worst economic indicators globally: over half of its population falls below the poverty line, nearly 80 percent depend on food aid to survive, and nearly 80 percent of its youth are unemployed. The poor quality of water, limits on medical supplies, and restrictions on permits to access medical treatment outside Gaza further compounds the dire living conditions.
Palestinians living in Gaza are also subjected to frequent extreme levels of Israeli military violence which has destroyed billions of dollars-worth of infrastructure, killed thousands, and displaced hundreds of thousands. Attempts to “build back” Gaza have become an all-too frequent necessity. Israel’s current bombardment is the most extreme that Gaza has ever experienced.
Meanwhile, in the West Bank, over three million Palestinians live inside disjointed enclaves controlled by over 645 movement obstacles, including checkpoints, roadblocks, barriers, and trenches, while experiencing daily Israeli military incursions, land confiscations, and ever-increasing levels of Israeli settler violence.
Since 1967, Israel has jailed approximately a million Palestinians and killed countless numbers. It seems unimaginable that this has been going on for over half a century.
Ignoring all these forms of Israel’s violence against Palestinians, which constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, has created a false sense of stability in the region.
Some narratives define the Israel-Palestine “conflict” as one predominantly over religion – and, of course, this has come to play more of a role, particularly over control of the holy sites in East Jerusalem. However, the ongoing “conflict” is fundamentally over land and resources; Israel controls access to both and has gained ownership over more and more by confiscating land and displacing thousands of Palestinians. This is all in pursuit of a “Greater Israel” over the whole area from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Why else would Israel transfer over 700,000 of its citizens into the West Bank in contravention of international law?