Israel and Hamas have recently “signed off” the first phase of United States (US) president Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza Peace Plan. 

Akwardly, this is seen as a major step towards a permanent end to two years of Zionist mass genocide in the Gaza Strip, an integral part of Palestine. 

A diabolic peacemaker, Trump, and thus his government, are the main sponsor and enabler of the Palestinian genocide.  Trump is labelled as ‘Zionist’ or ‘best friend of Israel’.  The ‘Peace Plan’ – launched earlier this month in Sharm El Sheik, Egypt, without Palestinian representation – is currently highly debated globally – whether it is worth the bravado and fanfare around it.  For, in spite of it, the Zionist regime has blatantly violated it with continued bombardment of Gaza.  In spite of Trump’s ‘opposition’ to Israeli annexation of the West Bank, equally an integral part of Palestine, the West Bank is nonetheless being annexed and ethnically cleansed for Zionist settlements.

Root of the problem

The colonisation of Palestine has its roots in the Balfour Declaration. Issued by the British colonialist government in 1917, the Declaration proclaimed support for the establishment of a ‘national home’ for the European Jews fleeing European countries.  The catastrophic British Mandate for Palestine was established by the League of Nations, lasting from 1922 to 1948, i.e. ending with the birth of Zionist Israel.  

The settlement of Jews in Palestine was driven by the British and American governments’ support for the philosophy of Zionism (‘Zionist Apartheid’), without any consultation with, or consent of, the inhabitant Palestinians, Arabs, Jews and Christians of Palestine at that time. 

The Zionists (European Jews) declared it as their “Land without people for people without land”. 

Oddly, even former leaders of the Zionist state moved to Palestine as related by their Palestinian identification cards at that time. 

Immediately after Balfour, the Zionists embarked on a relentless ethnic cleansing campaign – the mass displacement, ethnic discrimination and segregation as well as dispossession of Palestinians, culminating in the Nakba (The Catastrophe) during the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict.  

The establishment of the Zionist State of Israel by dividing Palestine into the Zionist State of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, was premeditated on the horrors and terror to violently grab land and create a mono-ethnic Zionist Apartheid State of Israel.

 This encompasses primarily the goal to deny other ethnicities their birth rights and cleanse the land of all such ethnicities. Sadly, this has turned the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into one of the longest running military-political conflicts globally – about land, rights and self-determination, illegal and forceful Zionist settlements with illegal borders, the status of Jerusalem, security and water rights, the permit regime regulating Palestinian movements within Palestine, Palestinian freedom of speech and their right to return to their motherland.

Resistance, self-determination 

International Law, which has been vigorously violated by the Zionists with impunity, stipulates that the Palestinians – as people under colonial and foreign domination, have the right to self-determination, including the right to an independent state, as inalienable and a prerequisite for a just and lasting peace. 

Their right is considered jus cogent – that is, “inalienable, permanent and unqualified”.

This means that no deviation from this fundamental principle of international law is permitted. 

In the face of oppression, the Palestinians have staged resistance against the crimes, which continue unabated to this day, without cause and recourse to justice. 

It is, thus, no surprise that Palestine and the Israeli colonisation and genocide have dominated world news and topics at the various global platforms of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), International Criminal Court (ICC) and United Nations (UN). 

World leaders have convened for over 80 years at the General Assembly (UNGA) and Security Council (UNSC) in New York, with Palestine in the main headlines, the latest forum to which the US government denied the Palestinian Authority’s participation by visa denial.  A sovereign State of Palestine is supported by 80% of the United Nations member nations (157 out of 193), with exceptions led by the US. 

This is not surprising to the world at large, because the US and her fellow settler colonial states believe in white supremacy.  Their hegemonic behaviour underlines their racism as well as blind allegiance and commitment to fellow settler colonial Zionist Israel. 

During the UNGA session this year, dozens of countries convened for a summit to push for a two-state solution, seeing several Western states, including Australia, France and the United Kingdom, finally recognising the Palestinian state. 

World leaders, diplomats and analysts emphasised that rhetoric and diplomatic moves alone on the recognition that a Palestinian state is not enough to move the needle on the ground or improve the situation of Palestinians under heavy bombardment, starvation and occupation. 

Indeed, right advocates were seeking an arms embargo and sanctions against Israel to force it to end its abuses.

Eventually, as fate would have it, the announcement of a “ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas” offers no glimmer of hope after two years of unrelenting death, destruction, hunger and famine, ethnic cleansing, displacement and mass genocide in Gaza, which also extends to the West Bank to various degrees.  

The latter is being systematically and bloodily strangled and colonised by Zionist settlements to the point of eliminating the concept of a Palestinian nation state.  Importantly, point-19 of the 20-point Gaza peace plan states that, “while Gaza re-development advances and when the Palestinian Authority (PA) reform programme is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognise as the aspiration of the Palestinian people”. 

Nonetheless, all decks are stacked against a Palestinian state. Israel is now considered as a pariah state.  Thus, Israel, the US and the western imperialist powers, who were complicit in these acts of atrocities and genocide, must now act in good faith and do everything possible to ensure that a truce holds permanently.  Likewise, the Palestinian people must continue their struggle until Palestinian statehood is established, with East Jerusalem as its capital, independent, sovereign and possessing territorial integrity. 

Enduring human spirit 

The Palestinian struggle is a human endeavour for survival.  It is an unrelenting effort and a righteous goal to free themselves from Zionist occupation and establish their own statehood. 

Their day by day globally televised sufferings from oppression, enormous pain and losses as a nation defy the notion of a system of International Laws: their struggle underpins the principle of fundamental human rights and needs – freedom and sovereignty. 

For over 100 years, under hash, brutal and repressive conditions, with rudimentary tools at their disposal to fight occupation forces while lacking firm military support as a counter-balance, such circumstances have not dimmed the Palestinian’s ember and determination to persevere, to stand for what is right and theirs, to fight fiercely in pursuance of their noble cause against Zionist occupation of their motherland. 

In closing, we have seen the worst form of colonialism and the most racist, brutal and repressive regimes of this world.  They are all historic relics at the behest of popular resistance movements and global support. Even without the military power to bring peace to Palestine, the people of the world proudly greet – with heartfelt admiration – the People of Palestine. 

A Luta Continuo! 

*Maj. Gen. (RTD) J. B Tjivikua is a criminal intelligence analyst.