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Throughout this period, the world at large has observed as the Israeli state has systematically destroyed the Gaza region, claiming the lives of many thousands of Palestinian people and maiming an untold number more. Equally alarming, Israeli forces continues to methodically target medical, education, water supply and sewage systems to ensure that normalcy cannot return in the Gaza Strip.

Western Governments’ Responses

Global stances to the ongoing situation have ranged from enthusiastic support and full endorsement in the opening phase of the military campaign on the Gaza Strip after that fateful date, subsequently shifting to statements of concern and anguished deliberation, to, more recently, sporadic statements of dismay and empty threats that ongoing military actions may, at some undefined point, lead to an arms embargo or a weakening of economic links. More recently, there have also been widely touted declarations of qualified acknowledgment of a Palestinian state. The paradox is deeply troubling: hesitantly accepting a political entity as it, and its people, are being erased without mercy.

Ongoing Situations

Currently, confusion swirls around the outlined strategy to bring about peace and expectations are rising for a reciprocal release. While an end to the bombing, the liberation of prisoners on the two factions and enabling assistance into Gaza would bring some relief in an profoundly dismal situation, it would be a error to consider the proposal as a monumental step for the Palestinian cause. Trump’s vision is yet another collaborative effort formulated without any inclusion of Palestinian voices that would retain continuous Israeli authority over Gaza’s future.

The world has never listened to what Palestinians have to say or taken seriously the survival risk emanating from Israeli policies to Palestinian life, and this has not significantly shifted despite the increase in performative angst. Conversely, Through multiple generations, Palestinians have experienced the world insisting that Israeli “security concerns” – according to Israeli parameters – are more important than our rights and lives.

Dual Manifestations of Aggression

As a result Palestinians face two constant manifestations of aggression: physical aggression imposed on our bodies, land and community, and global indifference, where only our elimination prompts the world to acknowledge our presence and recognize our human dignity – but only barely.

This perspective emerges from observing up close, for a 25-year period, how this framework of global diplomacy and functioning manifests. Notwithstanding extensive destruction in Gaza, and all that has been revealed about Israel’s true intentions, that pattern is happening again as I write this, with world leaders supporting a proposal that does little to guarantee inclusion of Palestinian voices over their destiny.

Unenforced declarations has been the west’s modus operandi for many years. The cost has been catastrophic.

A Magic Pill

At the end of September 2000, I joined the negotiating committee as a attorney engaged with the talks with Israeli counterparts. This represented a significant step for me: I am the daughter of Palestinian parents born before the Nakba, the forced expulsion of Palestine. My parents’ families, unlike the vast majority of Palestinians, did not leave in the time of Nakba and later gained legal status, residing in Nazareth, in a nation that rejected them. In 1967, they opted to relocate to Canada, where I was born and raised, raised and schooled. I had not been based there before becoming part of the delegation except for a short stays. Now, I had decided to being in the region for a extended time. I joined the team as a attorney after a acquaintance, also a part of the legal division, told me that one of the defects of the peace talks was its vagueness. I had believed, optimistically, that the committee could correct that problem.

This marked the culmination of the negotiation period, as it was called, which started during the U.S. leadership in the early 1990s with the symbolic gesture between the Israeli leader, the Israeli prime minister, and Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader. Through a series of agreements, the administrative structure was established and the occupied lands were increasingly fragmented, with more barriers established around. Critical matters such as borders, colonies, the rights of millions of refugees and the holy city were deferred without timeline.

The ‘peace process’ transformed into a illusory solution rendering the occupation invisible to the west.

These issues were now direct concerns for the Israeli government and the Palestinian leadership to work out together, with the rest of the world theoretically standing by as uninvolved parties. But they were not impartial, and the two main actors were disproportionate. The America was then and remains the primary source of military equipment and political backing and Europe is the primary commercial ally. Before entering into this peace talks, the Palestinian side requested guarantees, mainly from Washington, that the power imbalance would be considered. Those promises were informally offered but never honored, during extended diplomatic engagement.

From the early 1990s, international praise for negotiations abounded. But what ultimately happened is that continuous demands for a two-state framework that circumvented actual establishment of independent statehood and freedom replaced calls for an termination of the occupation. The negotiation framework became a illusory solution obscuring the situation to the international community, masking its expansion, omnipresent and increasingly brutal form. Palestine was now limited to a topic for discussion needing sacrifices, with the historical displacement of Palestine concealed to be forgotten.

Settlement Expansion

With this magic pill swallowed, Israel used the guise of diplomacy to establish and enlarge colonies, correctly believing that these facts on the ground would enhance their leverage at the bargaining table. And with the settlements came residents and barriers and an {expanding