The invasion of Britain
You may not know this *story: in 1948, the French crossed the English Channel in a bloody campaign, indiscriminately killing thousands of Britons.
As part of their colonisation, which was supported and funded by the European powers, they drove more than 700,000 Britons from their homes without the right to return, burnt hundreds of towns, and built an apartheid architecture that relegated Britons to a sanctioned second-class existence.
Decades of oppression followed: violence and murder, enforced segregation, children slaughtered, others seized without charge, and a daily, relentless humiliation.
Unsurprisingly, and justifiably, Britons rose in resistance. It is the reflex of the caged: an occupied people grasp at any of the tools at their disposal to strive for their freedom.
The world, seeing clearly, denounced the French occupation as illegitimate and oppressive. Yet no one came to their aid.
Then one day, on October 7, one faction of the British resistance mounted a meticulously planned operation to capture prisoners of war and force the release of illegally detained Britons.
Chaos intervened. And, according to French military sources long accused of disinformation and even lethal “friendly fire” under official directives, hundreds of civilians were killed.
Typical of the colonial mind, the French seized the moment as pretext to complete its illegal occupation and tighten its grip on the British public: it carpet-bombed more than sixty per cent of London, deliberately targeted civilians, killing hundreds of thousands.
They deployed AI-guided killer drones, as well as trained snipers to target children, medics, journalists, and aid workers. They destroyed hospitals and places of worship. They orchestrated forced displacement, blocked relief from entering the capital, and weaponised hunger, starvation by design, as an instrument of tyranny.
Then the French rebranded the carnage as “self-defence”. However, scholars, international lawyers, human rights organisations (French ones included), and international legal bodies, called it for what it was: a genocide.
The world answered: an oppressor cannot hide slaughter with a slogan. France’s actions, as an occupying power, were universally condemned as barbaric and unjustifiable. The European Union’s support for tyranny and evil was categorically denounced.
Enough of the story
Oppression is not legitimised by the resistance it provokes. Genocide is never warranted. It is never justified.
So why, then, has the Zionist state of Israel been met with support when it has done precisely the above to the Palestinians?
Why do so many echo the empty slogan:
But what about October 7?”
When the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, genocide scholars, and leading human rights organisations (yes, including Israeli ones) call what’s happening in Palestine genocide, how do Zionist advocates and Western politicians still justify it?
Their line of argument is neither moral nor logical. It is a fallacy, a crude form of whataboutism. It seeks to excuse the crime of genocide by pointing to the wrongdoing of others. More dangerously, it conceals the roots of the conflict, erasing history and obscuring the central fact: that the oppression stems from Zionist colonisation, not from Palestinian existence.
To claim that the conflict began on October 7 or that October 7 is where our moral reasoning should start, is either ignorance or ideological deceit. It is to begin the story in the middle, discarding decades of occupation, dispossession, murder, illegal imprisonment, and apartheid.
Such framing is not only dishonest; it is an attempt to legitimise the mass killing of civilians under the guise of self-defence.
Let us be clear: when the narrative of October 7 is wielded to justify genocide, it is not only historically false, it is morally obscene. It reveals the moral and historical amnesia that enables crimes against humanity to be reframed as acts of justice.
This article aims to pierce that amnesia, to dismantle the excuses, answer common Zionist objections and to remind us of the enduring truth: the reaction of the oppressed never sanctifies the crime. Genocide is beyond justification.
Considering the above thought experiment, one can argue that the Palestinian resistance, in analogous terms, is justified and ought to command the full support of the international community. There is no essential difference between the hypothetical British response and the lived reality of Palestinians, who have endured relentless assaults on both their material existence and their identity. This is not to justify the events of October 7, nor to endorse any particular faction of resistance. Rather, it is to advance a moral argument that forces us to radically reframe the Israel–Palestine question.
The claim that Israel is “defending itself” collapses under scrutiny. As a nuclear power with one of the most advanced military arsenals in the world, Israel enjoys unchallenged hegemony in the region and possesses the capacity to suppress Palestinian aspirations at will. An occupying force, by definition, is already in an illegal and aggressive posture; international law grants no legitimacy to its claim of self-defence against those it occupies. To suggest otherwise is as illogical, and as morally perverse, as a murderer claiming self-defence because the victim fought back.
There have been other October 7s
Selected massacres
To be candid, there have been over ten October 7s inflicted on the Palestinian people since 1948.
If Zionists and their supporters want to be morally consistent, they need to support the Palestinian struggle for liberation.
There are too many incidents of death and destruction to mention. However, a few can be cited to substantiate the point:
Sabra and Shatila Massacre (16 and 18 September 1982)
Residents of the Sabra and Shatila camps, mostly Palestinian refugees as well as Lebanese civilians, were massacred by a right-wing Lebanese militia operating with the support and co-ordination of Israeli forces.
In the space of two days, an estimated 2,000 to 3,500 people were killed. [1]
Kafr Qasim massacre (29 October 1956)
Israeli border police opened fire on returning Arab villagers who were unaware that a new curfew had been imposed.
The attack left at least 49 civilians dead, including women, children, and even unborn infants. [2]
Qibya massacre (14 October 1953)
In response to prior attacks, Israeli troops entered the village of Qibya, setting off explosives, setting homes ablaze, and firing indiscriminately.
The assault resulted in approximately 67 civilian deaths among Palestinians, numerous injuries, and widespread destruction of property. [3]
Khan Yunis massacre (3 November 1956)
During the Suez Crisis, Israeli troops swept through Khan Yunis in Gaza in house-to-house operations aimed ostensibly at rooting out militants, but civilians were also caught in the dragnet.
According to an UNRWA report, 275 Palestinians were killed; other accounts, especially among local sources, suggest the death toll may have been as high as 415 or more. [4]
Rafah massacre (12 November 1956)
Following the events in Khan Yunis, Israeli forces launched further operations in Rafah.
Contemporary reports describe large-scale civilian casualties, with some accounts recording that around 111 Palestinians were killed there, in connection with the wider Khan Yunis campaign. [5]
Massacres during the 1948 war
Historians estimate that during the 1948 war, anywhere between ten and seventy massacres took place.
Benny Morris records that Zionist forces were responsible for approximately twenty-four of these incidents, in which around 800 Arab civilians and prisoners of war were killed. [6]
Murder of Palestinian children (2000 to 2022)
From 2000 to 2022, more than 2,240 Palestinian children lost their lives as a result of Israeli military actions and settler violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. These figures do not include children directly engaged in hostilities.[7]
The conservative numbers based on the examples provided already amount to 5,542 killed. Just based on these selected examples, that is more than four times the number of deaths from October 7.
The Nakba: a catastrophe without end[8]
In Arabic, Nakba means catastrophe. For Palestinians, it marks 1948, when over 400 villages were destroyed, wells poisoned, and entire communities expelled by Zionist militias such as the Irgun and Lehi.
More than 700,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes and denied return.[9] This was not random violence; it was orchestrated by Israel’s founding leadership.[10] As historian Ilan Pappé explains, this shift to “systematic operations of take-over, occupation and expulsion”[11] was calculated, taking advantage of global indifference and weak Arab resistance.
But the Nakba did not end in 1948; its effects are still felt today.
Jan Selby, Gabrielle Daoust, and Clemens Hoffmann explain:
[There were] around 751,000 [Palestinians] displaced during the war of 1948-9… several hundred thousand more displaced in 1967… [and] over 5 million Palestinians who decades later still have refugee status.”[12]
Palestinians call this al-Nakba al-Mustamera, the ongoing Nakba.
Pappé puts it starkly:
The original Nakba… occurred in 1948 when Israel ethnically cleansed half of the Palestinian population and demolished half of their villages… Since then, the settler-colonial state of Israel has attempted to complete the ethnic cleansing of 1948.”[13]
Even Israelis have drawn chilling comparisons. In 2016, IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Yair Golan warned:
If there is one thing that frightens me about the memory of the Holocaust, it is identifying the revolting trends that occurred in Europe as a whole, and in Germany in particular, some 70, 80 and 90 years ago, and finding evidence of those trends here, among us, in 2016.”[14]
The Nakba is not history. It is a continuing project of erasure, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing.
Zionists acknowledge Israel’s ethnic cleansing
It is perhaps most shocking to find that some officials and Zionists gleefully acknowledge that their state is guilty of ethnic cleansing.
A key example of such an admission is highlighted by the famous investigative journalist Antony Loewenstein, who highlights the following account in his book The Palestine Laboratory:
A rare moment of Israeli political honesty came in October 2021 when far-right Israeli parliamentarian Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionist Party and ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said in the Knesset to the Arab members, ‘You’re only here by mistake, because [founding prime minister David] Ben-Gurion didn’t finish the job, didn’t throw you out in ’48.’ It was an acknowledgement that ethnic cleansing took place in 1948…”[15]
The author notes how the senior Israeli military officer and state administrator Yehoshua Verbin admitted that his fellow soldiers and fighters committed horrendous war crimes against the indigenous Arab population during the 1948 War of Independence.
Verbin acknowledged that ethnic cleansing of Arabs was a prevalent theme of the war, by stating:
We expelled around half a million Arabs, we burnt homes, we looted their land – from their point of view – we didn’t give it back, we took land…”[16]
Loewenstein further demonstrates that ethnic cleansing has always been a cornerstone of the Israeli state since, without it, a state firmly based on Jewish roots could not be established:
It is not a new point of view; in fact, it’s been state ideology since 1948. Declassified documents from the Israel State Archives in 2021 revealed that attitudes toward the Palestinians have not changed much since the 1940s.
It has been official policy, at least among some of the nation’s senior military and political elites, to forcibly expel Arabs to neighbouring countries for the entire period of the country’s existence.”[17]
The Israelis have always seen the Nakba as a progressive and linear process that ultimately culminates with the complete expulsion of Arabs from the Palestinian territories. This upshot would then allow the former to annex both the West Bank and Gaza Strip in toto without the slightest level of opposition.[18]
What paved the way for the Nakba?
Two decisive variables paved the way for the Nakba and the creation of apartheid Zionist state.
Britain’s first decisive step was yielding to pressure from the World Zionist Organisation and other Jewish political groups that demanded a state in Palestine. The turning point came with the 1917 Balfour Declaration, in which London pledged support for a “national home for the Jewish people”.
This promise was made without consulting the Palestinians, who formed the overwhelming majority of the land’s population. Their rights and future were negotiated away as if they were irrelevant. Arthur Balfour, the declaration’s author, knew Palestine was largely Arab but chose to disregard their voices.
His stance reflected not oversight but a deliberate policy: treating Palestinians as an impediment rather than a people entitled to dignity and sovereignty:
For in Palestine, we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country… And Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in the present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit the ancient land.”[19]
To prevent any backlash, Balfour added a clause claiming that,
nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”[20]
In practice, this was an empty assurance. The declaration encouraged large-scale Jewish migration from Europe to Palestine, unsettling the region’s demographics and paving the way for settlements. Rather than preserving stability, it deepened unrest, as outside powers worked with Zionist groups to impose a one-sided partition that ignored the will of the indigenous population.
This point was eloquently expressed by Ilan Pappé, who noted that the Declaration “erased [Palestinians] as a national movement and reduced [them] to the category of ‘a non-Jewish’ group that should be tolerated by the Zionist newcomers (who had first arrived in 1882). Zionism on the other hand was treated as a proper and modern national movement.”[21]
The second decisive factor was the systematic use of violence by Zionist militias to drive Palestinians from their homeland, reaching its most extreme form in 1948. Once again, this did not occur in a vacuum, for this process was also facilitated by the British colonial menace.
During their occupation of mandatory Palestine — as a mandate — from 1918 to 1948, the British rulers exerted their best efforts to weaken the military and political strength of the beleaguered Arab population while ignoring the terrorism meted out by Zionist gangs. The turning point could be found in 1937, when the British Army brutally suppressed the Arab Revolt led by the Arab Higher Committee.
In the aftermath of this failed popular struggle, “The British exiled the Palestinian leadership, and Palestinian military units were forced to disband.”[22] However, the pivotal defining moment that marked the violent dispossession of the Palestinian people is none other than the Nakba, an event so dark and sinister in the history of the region that it cannot even be uttered in Israel.
Decades of oppression
For decades, Palestinians have been dispossessed through land theft, oppressed with discriminatory laws and systematic violence, and thousands of Palestinian children have been unjustly detained, many of whom have been tortured.
At a United Nations Human Rights Council side event in Geneva on 12 July 2023 — convened by Defence for Children International, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, and Amnesty International — UN experts and civil society organisations drew attention to serious violations affecting Palestinian children under prolonged occupation. Together, they outlined a pattern in which the everyday realities of occupation expose children to systemic rights infringements.[23]
A central concern raised was the scale and character of child arrests and prosecutions. Each year, an estimated 500–700 Palestinian minors are detained and tried in Israeli military courts. These proceedings, the speakers argued, fall short of basic fair-trial guarantees. Accounts from the ground describe arrests frequently occurring during night raids and being accompanied by harsh treatment from security forces, with children reporting ill-treatment, torture and other violations from the moment of apprehension.[24]
Human Rights Watch’s A Threshold Crossed (2021) left no doubt that throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory Palestinians face subjugation and apartheid:
“…Israel is the sole governing power; in the remainder, it exercises primary authority alongside limited Palestinian self-rule. Across these areas and in most aspects of life, Israeli authorities methodically privilege Jewish Israelis and discriminate against Palestinians. Laws, policies, and statements by leading Israeli officials make plain that the objective of maintaining Jewish Israeli control over demographics, political power, and land has long guided government policy. In pursuit of this goal, authorities have dispossessed, confined, forcibly separated, and subjugated Palestinians by virtue of their identity to varying degrees of intensity. In certain areas, as described in this report, these deprivations are so severe that they amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.” [25]
Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians is not a recent phenomenon. In 2010, UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk warned:
It is the opinion of the current Special Rapporteur that the nature of the occupation as of 2010 substantiates earlier allegations of colonialism and apartheid in evidence and law to a greater extent than was the case even three years ago. The entrenching of colonialist and apartheid features of the Israeli occupation has been a cumulative process. The longer it continues, the more difficult it is to overcome, and the more serious is the abridgement of fundamental Palestinian rights.”[26]
By 2013, legal scholars John Dugard and John Reynolds concluded:
On the basis of the systemic and institutionalised nature of the racial domination that exists, there are indeed strong grounds to conclude that a system of apartheid has developed in the occupied Palestinian territory. Israeli practices in the occupied territory are not only reminiscent of – and, in some cases, worse than – apartheid as it existed in South Africa, but are in breach of the legal prohibition of apartheid.”[27]
Desmond Tutu, the South African Anglican bishop and theologian celebrated for his leadership against apartheid and his defence of human rights, wrote after a 2014 visit to the West Bank:
I know first-hand that Israel has created an apartheid reality… The parallels to my own beloved South Africa are painfully stark indeed.”[28]
The pattern has only deepened. Amnesty International’s State of the World’s Human Rights (2023) observed:
Israel maintained an extreme form of discrimination – a system of apartheid – through oppression and domination over Palestinians through territorial fragmentation, segregation and control, dispossession of land and property, and denial of economic and social rights. Israel committed a wide range of human rights violations against Palestinians to entrench this system, including forcible transfers, administrative detention, torture, unlawful killings, denial of basic rights and freedoms, and persecution, which constituted the crime against humanity of apartheid.”[29]
This is not a conflict between equals
The story is clear. What has unfolded over the past seventy-five years is not a cycle of “tit-for-tat” violence, nor a tragedy of two equal sides failing to coexist. It is the systematic dispossession of a people.
The record shows a consistent pattern: massacres that turned villages into graveyards, expulsions that rendered millions stateless, discriminatory laws that institutionalised apartheid, and the continual tightening of a colonial grip on land and life.
At this point, any fair-minded observer must acknowledge that to begin the moral calculus on October 7 is itself an act of erasure. It erases decades of massacres, the killing of thousands of Palestinian children, the Nakba, and the entrenchment of an apartheid system.
The Palestinian cause is not a marginal grievance, nor can it be reduced to Hamas or any single faction. It is the collective struggle of a people systematically denied dignity, justice, and sovereignty for generations. To ignore this truth is complicity.
Responding to common objections
Notwithstanding the force of what has been mentioned above, there are some common objections that are usually raised by Zionists or Zionist sympathisers that need to be addressed.
“Palestinians do not have a right to armed struggle”
Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad are proscribed groups among Western governments.[30] However, this does not entail that the political ambitions of the Palestinian people must be curtailed. Denying the Palestinian right to statehood simply because Hamas rules Gaza, a section of Palestine, is, without a doubt, a short-sighted and hasty conclusion. The indigenous inhabitants of a given land or territory enjoy the legal right to assert their independence and be freed from external interference.
Just like another human society or group, the Palestinians have a right to form and rule their independent state. A myriad of General Assembly resolutions passed under the auspices of the United Nations permits national liberation movements to achieve their independence, even via utilisation of force.
Ihsan Adel, a prominent lawyer and the founder of the non-governmental organisation Law for Palestine, adamantly states:
Dozens of resolutions by the UNGA support national liberation movements in their struggle for independence and self-determination, including armed struggle.”[31]
For instance, United Nations General Assembly Resolution No. 2105 of 1965 condemned all manifestations of colonialism and prescribed the provision of material support for people being targeted in such imperial settlements.[32]
A significant 1970 General Assembly Resolution similarly recognised the right of colonised people to determine their political destiny and have their self-determination unfettered from any foreign exploits.
One key provision states:
Every State has the duty to refrain from any forcible action which deprives peoples referred to above in the elaboration of the present principle of their right to self-determination and freedom and independence. In their actions against, and resistance to, such forcible action in pursuit of exercising their right to self-determination, such peoples are entitled to seek and receive support in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter.”[33]
The same fundamental concept is found and reiterated in the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, ratified and adopted in 1977.[34] Stanley Cohen, a prominent lawyer, human rights activist, argued that according to international law “wars of national liberation have been expressly embraced…as a protected and essential right of occupied people everywhere.”[35]
Perhaps the most explicit international legal instrument that affords the Palestinians the right to self-determination and national liberation is General Assembly Resolution No. 38/17 of 1983; this was passed against the backdrop of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which culminated in several massacres against Palestinian refugees.
Besides condemning these atrocities, the Resolution in question acknowledges the “denial of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, sovereignty, independence and return to Palestine and the repeated acts of aggression by Israel against the people of the region constitute a serious threat to international peace and security”; as a suitable remedy, it “[re]affirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for their independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial domination, apartheid and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle”.[36]
Taking the above resolutions into consideration, it becomes evident that the Palestinian people deserve the collective right to enjoy equal rights and privileges just like any other civic or ethnic nation and establish their independent political state.
There are myriad other political Palestinian entities and factions – of varying political demarcations – resisting the occupation through their respective efforts. As a political nation in its own right, Palestinian people en masse enjoy the right to resist the oppressive state of physical occupation that they face and pursue their political and economic ambitions by having their independent state. Any critic or interlocutor who directs their analysis merely towards Hamas without acknowledging the collective right of the Palestinian people to attain independence is a partner in oppression.
“Israel has a right to defend itself”
A common argument that is invoked as an axiom to justify Israel’s use of indiscriminate and unrestrained force against the Palestinian people is the dictum above.
Whenever Israel proceeds to carpet bomb Gaza, Western politicians often assert that the former enjoys the right to defend itself. The right to self-defence from external threats can be traced to Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which entrenches the concept with the following proviso:
Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.”[37]
When applied to the case of Israel, the reasoning often espoused by its supporters is that since it is often subject to violent attacks on the part of militant groups like Hamas, it enjoys the right to defend itself by mounting an appropriate response.
Despite the widespread appeal of this argument in academic and mainstream circles, it is fallacious. For this argument to work, the conflict in question must involve two sovereign entities with their own defined land borders, whereby one interrupts the territorial integrity of the other. However, this type of inter-state friction is absent in the military hostilities between Israel and Gaza, since the latter remains effectively occupied by the former and is deprived of the constituent elements that allow it to exercise statehood at a basic level.
In its public statements, Israel often attempts to obscure this reality and presents Gaza as an independent state that bears full responsibility for its actions. As former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon puts it, this tactic is nothing more than a crafty act of deception; such a malicious framing act distorts the fact that as long as it imposes a blockade on Gaza, Israel is always the wrongful belligerent party:
The Palestinian Territory has been occupied for so long…that there is a tendency in certain quarters to overlook this reality and to treat the Occupied Palestinian Territory as an ‘unoccupied’ entity. This leads to the perception of Israel and Palestine as two States poised against each other, with Israel as the victim and Palestine as a neighbouring aggressive, terrorist State…Insofar as there is a ‘victim’ party, it is Palestine as inevitably an occupied party has such a status vis-à-vis the occupier.”[38]
In a parallel fashion, Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian Territories, rejected Israel’s claim of self-defence by noting the status of Gaza as an occupied territory:
Israel cannot claim the right of self-defence against a threat that emanates from a territory it occupies, from a territory that is under belligerent occupation.”[39]
Simply put, Israel cannot invoke any legal provisions or statutes mentioning the principle of self-defence to justify its strikes in Gaza since, under international law, it is considered to be an illegal occupier of all the Palestinian Territories. This is an important point, given that the right to self-defence can only be invoked against a foreign belligerent state, not a geographical entity illegally incorporated by a power-hungry state aiming to boost its political and economic fortunes. Put in more simple terms, the notion that a state is allowed to wage a war against a territory that it occupies is an absurd proposition.
Israel’s claimed right to defend itself vis-à-vis the occupied Palestinian Territories – which ipso facto includes Gaza – has been rejected by several international bodies that are acknowledged as neutral arbiters. For instance, one may consider Israel’s illegal construction of an ever-expanding separation wall in the West Bank, which has been erect for almost two decades. To justify this aberrant action, Israel invoked the right to self-defence found in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. It argued that the wall was needed in order to protect itself from potential acts of terrorism. However, this mode of reasoning was swiftly rejected by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its advisory opinion, which said the right to defence had no bearing at all when applied to the context of an occupied territory:
Article 51 of the Charter…recognises the existence of an inherent right of self-defence in the case of armed attack by one State against another State. However, Israel does not claim that the attacks against it are imputable to a foreign State. The Court also notes that Israel exercises control in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and that, as Israel itself states, the threat which it regards as justifying the construction of the wall originates within, and not outside, that territory. The situation is thus different from that contemplated by Security Council resolutions 1368 (2001) and 1373 (2001), and therefore Israel could not in any event invoke those resolutions in support of its claim to be exercising a right of self-defence. Consequently, the Court concludes that Article 51 of the Charter has no relevance in this case.”[40]
In light of this scholarly opinion, Israel’s oft-recited claim to self-defence does not withstand critical scrutiny. It cannot be envisioned in an asymmetrical relationship like that of the occupier and the occupied. The chief reason why Article 51 lacks any applicability to the Palestinian case is that the provision was intended to apply to the realm of inter-state relations, not where a power incorporates another territory in a neo-colonial fashion. The logical implications of this argument apply analogously to the case of Gaza, which is, for all intents and purposes, considered an occupied enclave which has its inter-border affairs severely curtailed by the Israeli security apparatus.[41]
Likewise, Israel cannot claim that it is entitled to the right to bombard Gaza because Hamas attacked its territory and seeks refuge in the enclave. Such an argument is flawed because Hamas is “a militant group that, as a political party, currently leads the government in Gaza but is not itself the Palestinian government”. As a result, Hamas’s actions on October 7 are “distinct from an attack perpetrated by a state or territory”.[42] Thus, the self-defence argument cannot be sustained legally or logically.
The mechanics of the self-defence argument invite a consistency test. Should Israel’s asserted right to self-defence be acknowledged, even where it has resulted in the killing of 20,000 children, then, by the same principle, Palestinians would also possess a right to defend themselves, potentially through armed means.
As Norman Finkelstein observes:
If Hamas has to be dismantled because of what it did on October 7th…then the Israeli government has to be dismantled 10 times over. It’s called keeping a single standard.”[43]
This is not to suggest that the events of 7 October were morally permissible. Rather, as a rhetorical point, the logic of “self-defence” cuts both ways.
It is arbitrary to characterise virtually all Israeli military action as self-defence while dismissing Palestinian resistance as terrorism; such asymmetry strains moral intuition and invites charges of inconsistency or ideological bias. If, for the sake of argument, Israel’s right to self-defence extends to actions that have resulted in the deaths of roughly 20,000 children, then using the same reasoning, Hamas could claim its attack was a defensive response to decades of occupation practices: unlawful land seizures, settlement expansion, blockade, and systematic violence that undermined Palestinians’ right to self-determination and a dignified life. This does not endorse either course of action; it highlights the need for a consistent moral framework.
One does not have to be an expert in international law or jurisprudence to grasp the weakness of the “Israel has the right to defend itself” claim. At a more fundamental and philosophical level, there is a fatal flaw in the assertion that Israel is in a defensive posture. This is because Israel is the original cause and determinant of the oppression that has engulfed the region and has benefited in both territorial and monetary terms at the direct expense of the oppressed Palestinians. Such an entity – which depends on this uneven and asymmetrical relationship to maintain its existence and prosper – can never be a victim since it is always unleashing violence against the entity that it has dehumanised and subjugated.
This point was eloquently articulated by the great Brazilian philosopher Paulo Freire in their seminal work entitled The Pedagogy of the Oppressed:
“With the establishment of a relationship of oppression, violence has already begun. Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed. How could they be the initiators, if they themselves are the result of violence? How could they be the sponsors of something whose objective inauguration called forth their existence as oppressed?
There would be no oppressed had there been no prior situation of violence to establish their subjugation. Violence is initiated by those who oppress, who exploit, who fail to recognise others as persons — not by those who are oppressed, exploited, and unrecognised.
It is not the unloved who initiate disaffection, but those who cannot love because they love only themselves. It is not the helpless, subject to terror, who initiate terror, but the violent, who with their power create the concrete situation which begets the ‘rejects of life’. It is not the tyrannised who initiate despotism, but the tyrants. It is not the despised who initiate hatred, but those who despise. It is not those whose humanity is denied them who negate humankind, but those who denied that humanity (thus negating their own as well).”[44]
Oppressors live at the expense of the people they subjugate and dehumanise daily. By being victims of an oppressive apartheid system, the Palestinians have, in effect, been consistently subjected to violence, whether in physical or ideological forms. This vicious structure of oppression functions like a multi-layered chain or thick knot that cannot be unfettered except through resistance. Only by overthrowing the tyrannical order can the Palestinians finally enjoy and claim the basic rights that all humans deserve.
“Gaza is not an occupied territory”
Defenders of the Israeli state often claim that Palestine is, for all intents and purposes, a free state, and as such it alone bears responsibility for its decades-long problems with political turmoil and economic stagnation.
Proponents of this view often cite the fact that former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon unilaterally opted to withdraw all forces and settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005, which allegedly allowed the inhabitants of Gaza to enjoy full autonomy and determine their own political path.
According to this narrative, the present plight of the Palestinians is squarely their responsibility, since they opted to trek a path of violence by electing radical political leaders and parties that lack the know-how to spark genuine political and economic development. Hamas was elected in 2006, which displaced the Palestinian Authority and marked a dark spiral towards radicalism. In fact, it is not hard to find many supporters of this position stating that Gaza had the potential to become a flourishing, trade-oriented, and economically prosperous city-state like Singapore. However, it turned away from that opportunity to become “a terrorist dystopia like the benighted lands formerly under ISIS”.[45]
This argument is fallacious and ignores several realities on the ground. The claim that Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza marks an end to the occupation is a hasty conclusion. Almost every authoritative international body that enjoys standing in global affairs affirms that the Gaza Strip has been under Israeli occupation ever since 1967. It would be taxing to enumerate the names of all the bodies and non-governmental organisations that uphold such a view.
However, some of the most vocal backers of this position include the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the United Nations, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. Several official agencies, such as the United States Department of State, express the same view.[46] While it is true that Israel ended its settler and military presence in Gaza in 2005, it still exercises effective control over the enclave through its choking land and naval blockade, countless border checkpoints, and almost Orwellian surveillance techniques used against the Palestinians.
Against these odds, Palestinians have very little economic and political freedom, with their mobility rights also being severely limited. In its socio-political study of how Israel has interfered with the day-to-day operations of the Gaza Strip, the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights concluded that notwithstanding its military withdrawal and eviction of Jewish settlers, Israel still met the “effective control” threshold needed for being an occupying power:
An occupation may continue after the withdrawal of troops from the territory under certain conditions: if the occupying power continues to exercise effective control the law of occupation will apply…the majority of international opinion considers that Israel has retained effective control over the Gaza Strip by the control exercised over, inter alia, its airspace and territorial waters, land crossings at the borders, supply of civilian infrastructure, and key governmental functions such as the management of the Palestinian population registry.”[47]
Under such circumstances, the suggestion that Gaza enjoys any significant degree of autonomy in its day-to-day affairs is frankly absurd. For this reason, John Dugard, who presided as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, vehemently denied Israel’s claim that its occupation of Gaza had effectively ended in 2005, by stating:
In August 2005, Israel withdrew its settlers and armed forces from Gaza. Statements by the Government of Israel that the withdrawal ended the occupation of Gaza are grossly inaccurate…Israel retained control of Gaza’s air space, sea space and external borders, and the border crossings of Rafah (for persons) and Karni (for goods) were ultimately under Israeli control and remained closed for lengthy periods. In effect, following Israel’s withdrawal, Gaza became a sealed off, imprisoned and occupied territory.”[48]
Ban Ki-moon echoed this assessment in 2007 when he said:
Israel remains an occupying Power in respect of Gaza. Arguments that Israel ceased its occupation of Gaza in 2005 following the evacuation of its settlements and the withdrawal of its troops take no account of the fact that Israel retains effective control over Gaza by means of its control over Gaza’s external borders, airspace, territorial waters, population registry, tax revenues and governmental functions.”[49]
Gaza has been considered occupied territory from 1967 until the present. However, the present crisis suggests that the status quo might shift from its already deplorable state to an even greater low. The greatest danger is that the scale of Israel’s administration of the Gaza Strip will reach the level of full-blown annexation in the aftermath of the 2023 operation. Owing to the deep incursions in the 2023-2024 operation, it appears that the occupation will only further intensify and assume – just as it did from 1967 to 2005 – a military character. This was an option that the Israelis had always put on the table. In 2006, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert threatened that the country’s forces were always ready to re-occupy Gaza if needed or desired: “We will operate, enter and pull out as needed.”[50] It seems that Israel has never had the intention to free Gaza from the shackles of political and economic dependency.
“If Hamas disappeared, peace would be possible”
Zionists and backers of Israel frequently attempt to absolve Israel of all blame by arguing that the Jewish state’s belligerent posture stems from the existence of Hamas. This is what forces Israel to take a harsh and belligerent stance. The backers of Israel argue that the solution to solving the crisis is quite simple: without Hamas, peace is possible.
Obviously, this is a naive and unfounded claim that rejects or ignores the most basic of facts. Decades before Hamas even existed, Israel was heavily invested in committing a myriad of crimes against the Palestinian people, with its oppression reaching a critical threshold after it illegally occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza after the 1967 Six-Day War.[51] In a 1986 poll, a significant proportion (often more than 50 per cent) of Palestinians reported that due to the Israeli occupation, they had been subjected to political arrests, beatings and threats of physical violence from Israeli soldiers, harassment at Israeli checkpoints, and curfews.[52] These shocking figures are significant since during this entire 20-year timeframe, Hamas never existed as an entity, as it would only be formed in 1988. This all points to the fact that the actual cause of violence is not Hamas but rather the occupying force of Israel.
Even when considering the post-1988 era, it becomes evident that Hamas is not the effective cause or driver of Israeli crimes. For one thing, Hamas was established and remains a political force in Gaza and does not rule the West Bank. Despite this, for almost 50 years, Israel has been constructing illegal settlements in the West Bank by importing Jewish settlers into traditional Palestinian lands and arbitrarily evicting members of the indigenous population. Settlements are growing so quickly that what was Palestinian land is now turning into a string of isolated pockets. Human Rights Watch succinctly outlines the range of Israeli wrongdoings in the area during the last 50 years by stating:
In 1967, Israel established two settlements in the West Bank: Kfar Etzion and East Talpiot; by 2017, Israel had established 237 settlements there, housing approximately 580,000 settlers. Israel applies Israeli civil law to settlers, affording them legal protections, rights, and benefits that are not extended to Palestinians living in the same territory who are subjected to Israeli military law. Israel provides settlers with infrastructure, services, and subsidies that it denies to Palestinians, creating and sustaining a separate and unequal system of law, rules, and services.”[53]
In the past few years, the rate of settler violence in the West Bank has intensified. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, since October 2023 the West Bank has seen at least 870 Palestinian deaths, including 177 children, and more than 6,700 injuries linked to Israeli military operations and settler violence. During this time, Israeli authorities have arrested at least 13,500 Palestinians and demolished more than 2,100 buildings, displacing over 6,700 residents.[54]
Secondly, even when it laid its foundations in the Gazan frontier, Hamas did not begin as a militant movement. Instead, it positioned itself as an organisation in the charity sector and provided necessary welfare assistance and social services for the Gaza population. Hamas only attained a militant character against the backdrop of the First Intifada (1987), which was sparked after an Israeli soldier killed several civilians in Gaza with their military truck.
This traumatic event had a ripple effect on the entire Gaza Strip, and the Hamas movement was no exception to this. Members of the movement began to adopt a far more belligerent tone and sought to represent the security interests of the Gaza Strip. This was cemented with the development of a charter formally known as the Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement. The charter did not recognise Israel and called for full resistance against the plundering Israeli government.
However, it is interesting to note that while the Hamas leadership adopted harsh and uncompromising rhetoric, in reality, they were open to reaching a pragmatic compromise with Israel as long as the latter ended its rule of tyranny. For instance, in 1988, Mahmoud al-Zahar — one of the co-founders of Hamas — penned a formal peace resolution process and had it submitted to the Israeli authorities.
According to the plan, a peace deal could be reached if Israel withdrew from the territories it had occupied in 1967, granted a general amnesty to all political prisoners, and provided the Palestinians the right to self-determination without any interference. Despite the deal “reflect[ing] moderation”, it was rejected by the Israeli authorities.[55] Similar long-term deals, even relatively temporary ones lasting for 10 years, were proposed by the Hamas leadership, but the Israelis have always rejected them.
In its foreign policy outlook and attempted engagement with Israel, Hamas has adopted an open and accommodating approach. It has stressed that it seeks to develop a durable peace agreement. However, it is adamant that there can be no peace without having justice first, which entails the permanent end of the occupation and political freedom for the Palestinians. Israel has flatly refused to accede to these demands since it would have to forfeit all the Palestinian territories that it has illegally annexed.
In his thoughtful analysis of Hamas’ development and evolution, Zachary Foster argues that Israel is to blame for the failure of any meaningful peace process, not the militant group:
Israel’s leadership would have the world believe that Hamas has committed itself to unrelenting terror since its founding, a narrative soothing for the grieving Israeli public, but also one at odds with Hamas’s complex evolution. A closer look at Hamas’s history suggests that it sought a truce with Israel in 1988, 2006, 2008, 2012, and 2017. Alas, Israel has preferred war to peace if peace means a challenge to Jewish demographic domination in Israel or a full withdrawal from the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”[56]
Everyone desires peace, but such an aspiration is meaningless if one side is an unrepentant usurper that fails to realise its lengthy trail of wrongdoings against an occupied population. Put another way, there can be no peace without the guarantee of justice.
This golden principle can and must be implemented within the Palestinian context. In its false narrative and misplaced public relations agenda, Israel would want the world to believe that if Hamas simply laid down its weapons, peace would be possible. Such a claim is entirely absurd and is belied by basic historical facts which confirm that Israel is pursuing its neo-colonial and expansionist state project in an unabated fashion.
If Hamas were to disappear today, Israel would continue expanding the sphere of its occupation, which is the effective cause that spurred the development of the militant group in the first place. Even if Hamas were to be removed from power, with the occupation still in place, other Palestinian militant groups would emerge to challenge the Zionist usurper. The efficient cause of the spiral of violence in the region is none other than Israel itself. Its illegal occupation, illicit settlements, and immoral apartheid structure all constitute solid barriers to a lasting peace resolution in the region. An undeniable fact that every reasonable person would agree with is the following: “One need only look at maps of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory to conclude that ‘peace on equitable terms’ is not going to be offered willingly by a power engaged in a decades-long land theft.”[57]
When an apartheid force refuses to submit to international legal standards and continues to expropriate territories with complete impunity illegally, one can appreciate why militant groups arise in the occupied territories and can enlist many resistance fighters in their squadrons. These Palestinian fighters have not adopted the path of violence for its own sake but as a necessary means to support the little that remains of their homeland.
Empathy is the only thing required to understand the impetus of the Palestinian resistance. It was this inner quality that caused former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to issue the following remark in 1998 during a live interview with journalist Gideon Levy:
If I was [a Palestinian] at the right age, at some stage, I would have entered one of the terror organisations and have fought from there, and later would have certainly tried to influence from within the political system.”[58]
The resistance will continue as long as this unjust status quo remains in place. The door to peace can only be opened once the illegal occupation and its constituent elements – which include the unjust apartheid regime and illegal settlement structure – are removed.
“Arab representation in Israel refutes the apartheid claim”
Zionist apologists often point to the presence of Arab judges in Israel’s courts or Arab members of the Knesset as proof that the state cannot be an apartheid regime. But such claims crumble under scrutiny. As legal scholar John Quigley observed:
Under the Apartheid Convention, Israel’s discriminatory practices qualify as apartheid policy. The discriminatory practices are not isolated phenomena, but part of a whole whose purpose is to keep the Palestinian Arabs in a subordinate status…Israel’s self-definition as Jewish shows the intent to make a state for Jews and indicates that the various acts of discrimination are carried out with the purpose to maintain domination by one racial group over another.”[59]
Pointing to a few Arab judges or Knesset members is optics, not evidence: tokens don’t dissolve a system built to dominate.
Indeed, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel – which is colloquially known as Adalah – has carefully scrutinised these Israeli laws, and has come to the determination that Israel has legitimised discrimination against its Arab population in virtually every dimension of the public sphere, whether in the areas of social, economic, or political life. To carefully study this disturbing phenomenon, Adalah has developed the Discriminatory Laws Database (DLD), which outlines 65 Israeli statutes which shockingly limit or undermine the rights of non-Jewish minorities, particularly Arab Israelis and Palestinians living in the occupied territories. The legal centre further explains the nature of these legal regulations by stating, “The discrimination in these laws is either explicit – ‘discrimination on its face’ – or, more often, the laws are worded in a seemingly neutral manner, but have or will likely have a disparate impact on Palestinians in their implementation.”[60]
Although the Palestinian Arabs, because of their numbers, have no possibility of controlling the Knesset, Israel’s government has moved administratively to keep them from playing an important political role.
For example, in the 1950s, using its martial law powers, Israel’s government prevented Arab political organising.”[61] The same policy of political tokenisation, co-option, and dilution continues to endure in the present age, whereby a few marginal Arab parties are present in the parliamentary setting, but have no influence or power in the decision-making front.
The main reason why the Arab vote has failed to enact any meaningful legislative changes for the oppressed minority is that “all mainstream Jewish parties, regardless of their ideological backgrounds, refused to include Arab parties in their potential coalitions.”[62] In sum, Arab representatives of the Israeli state apparatus are nothing more than pawns of the apartheid system and validating instruments of its unjust model. A seat in the gallery does not equal a voice at the table. Apartheid is measured in laws, structures, and lived reality — not photo ops.
Conclusion
“But what about October 7?” is the refuge of amnesia. The graves were dug long before that day.
Start the moral story where the pain began, or stop pretending this is justice. If your ethics begin on October 7, they begin too late. Memory edited to fit power is not morality; it is permission for tyranny.
The record is plain: decades of dispossession, occupation, apartheid laws, and mass civilian death cannot be washed away by a slogan about “self-defence”. An occupying power cannot claim the moral high ground against the people it cages.
If one condemns violence, then moral consistency demands they condemn it wherever it is wielded — whether by non-state actors on one bloody day or by a state machinery over generations. To start the story in the middle is to excuse the beginning; to excuse the beginning is to justify the present. The Nakba is not a memory but a mechanism still in motion.
Peace without justice is no peace at all. And justice requires clarity and courage. Clarity to name what the evidence shows: colonisation, apartheid, and systemic dehumanisation. Courage to insist on the only terms that can produce a just peace: an end to occupation and siege; accountability for crimes, past and present; and the full recognition of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination. Anything less perpetuates the cycle and rewards impunity. If we truly seek a future without more graves and more grief, we must refuse the amnesia, reject the double standards, and stand, openly, consistently, and unambiguously, on the side of truth and justice.
Why should you not fight in God’s cause and for those oppressed men, women, and children who cry out, ‘Lord, rescue us from this town whose people are oppressors! By Your grace, give us a protector and give us a helper!’?”[63]
You who believe, uphold justice and bear witness to God, even if it is against yourselves, your parents, or your close relatives. Whether the person is rich or poor, God can best take care of both. Refrain from following your own desire, so that you can act justly- if you distort or neglect justice, God is fully aware of what you do.”[64]
Source: Islam21c
Notes
*This story was fiction and yet non-fiction, with France and Britain taking the place of Israel and Palestine.
[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/16/sabra-and-shatila-massacre-40-years-on-explainer
[2] https://archive.org/details/israelsborderwar0000morr/page/458/mode/2up.
[3] Ibid.
[4] United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Special Report of the Director, Covering the Period 1 November 1956 to Mid-December 1956, December 15, 1956, https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-188371/; Nabila Masalha, “The 1956-57 Occupation of the Gaza Strip,” Birzeit University / FADA (1996), pdf, https://fada.birzeit.edu/bitstream/20.500.11889/8300/1/The%201956-57%20occupation%20of%20the%20Gaza%20Strip%20Israeli%20proposals%20to%20resettle%20the%20Palestinian%20refugees.pdf.
[5] United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Special Report of the Director, Covering the Period 1 November 1956 to Mid-December 1956, December 15, 1956, https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-188371/.
[6] See: Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
[7] https://www.dci-palestine.org/child_fatalities_by_month
[8] This section onwards has been taken and adapted from H. Tzortzis and M. Vahedi, “Unveiling Tyranny: The Genocide in Gaza and False Zionist Narratives on Palestine,” Sapience Institute, revised ed., 2025, https://www.sapienceinstitute.org/unveiling-tyranny/
[9] https://www.newarab.com/news/israel-forces-poisoned-palestine-wells-during-1948-nakba
[10] Ilan Pappé, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oxford: Oneworld Publications Limited, 2007), 69.
[11] Ibid, 70.
[12] Jan Selby, Gabrielle Daoust, and Clemens Hoffmann, Divided Environments An International Political Ecology of Climate Change, Water and Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), p. 219.
[13] Ilan Pappé, “Everyday Evil in Palestine: The View from Lucifer’s Hill,” Janus Unbound: Journal of Critical Studies 1, no. 1: 80.
[15] Antony Loewenstein, The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World (Croydon: Verso Books, 2023), 70.
[16] Ibid, 70-71.
[17] Ibid, 70.
[19] Ernest Llewellyn Woodward and Rohan Butler, Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919-1939 (London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1952), vol. 4, 345.
[20] Ibid, 430.
[22] https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/05/britain-is-complicit-in-israels-violence-against-palestinians
[24] Ibid.
[25] Omar Shakir, A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2021), 2.
[26] Richard A. Falk, “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied Since 1967,” 65th Session, UN Doc. A/65/331, 30 August 2010, 4.
[27] Ibid.
[28] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/presbyterian-general-assembly_b_5499395
[30] It is important to state, however, that the majority of nation-states in the world – a hefty list which includes Norway, Switzerland, China, Russia, and Brazil – do not classify Hamas as a terrorist entity. As British investigative journalist Kit Klarenberg notes, “Hamas is not recognised as a terrorist entity by the majority of countries, and even the BBC – which has relentlessly manufactured consent for genocide in Gaza since the violence erupted – rejects the use of that loaded, politicized designation.” See Kit Klarenberg, “The Mask Has Fallen: King Charles Supports Israel,” MintPress News, 2 November 2023, https://www.mintpressnews.com/is-zionist-king-charles-behind-israel-genocide-in-gaza/286185/; Sergio García Magariño, “What is Hamas? Seven Key Questions Answered,” The Conversion, 11 October 2023, https://theconversation.com/what-is-hamas-seven-key-questions-answered-215391.
[32] United Nations General Assembly Resolution No. 2105 (20 December 1965), Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, UN GAOR, 20th Session, Supp. No. 14, UN Doc. A/6014 (1966).
[33] United Nations General Assembly Resolution No. 2625 (24 October 1970), Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, UN GAOR, 25th Session, UN Doc. A/RES/25/2625 (1970).
[34] United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, Protocol Additional (Protocol 1) to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (adopted 8 June 1977).
[35] https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2017/7/20/palestinians-have-a-legal-right-to-armed-struggle
[36] United Nations General Assembly Resolution No. 38/17 (22 November 1983), Importance of the Universal Realization of the Right of Peoples to Self-Determination and of the Speedy granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples for the Effective Guarantee and Observance of Human Rights, UN GAOR, 38th Session, UN Doc. A/RES/38/17 (1983).
[37] Charter of the United Nations, 1 UNTS XVI (1945), art 51.
[38] Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, “Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied Since 1967: Note by the Secretary-General” (A/63/326), United Nations General Assembly, 62nd Session, Item 72 (c) of the Provisional Agenda, 25 August 2008, 6-7.
[40] Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion, para. 139 (International Court of Justice, 9 July 2004), 43 ILM 1009 (2004).
[41] Using a functional mode of analysis, Safaa Sadi Jaber and Ilias Bantekas argue that notwithstanding the military withdrawal from Gaza, in legal terms the enclave still remains an occupied territory due to Israel’s sophisticated surveillance techniques and stiff border controls. See Safaa Sadi Jaber and Ilias Bantekas, “The Status of Gaza as Occupied Territory under International Law,” International and Comparative Law Quarterly 72, no. 4 (2023): 1:20.
[42] https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/gaza-israel-occupied-international-law/
[43] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzjicdi3O0o
[44] Paulo Freire, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Continuum, 2001), 55
[45] https://www.newsweek.com/gaza-could-have-been-singapore-hamas-turned-it-isis-opinion-1833145
[46] For a full list of the various international agencies and bodies that subscribe to this view, see Celeste Kmiotek, “Israel Claims it is No Longer Occupying the Gaza Strip. What does International Law Say?” Atlantic Council, 31 October 2023, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/gaza-israel-occupied-international-law/
[47] https://www.rulac.org/browse/conflicts/military-occupation-of-palestine-by-israel#collapse2accord
[48] John Dugard, Implementation of General Assembly Resolution 60/251 of 15 March 2006 Entitled “Human Rights Council”: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied Since 1967, Human Rights Council, Fourth Session, Item 2 of the Provisional Agenda, 29 January 2007, 2
[49] Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, “Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied Since 1967: Note by the Secretary-General” (A/63/326), United Nations General Assembly, 62nd Session, Item 72 (c) of the Provisional Agenda, 25 August 2008, 2
[50] https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/world/africa/09iht-mideast.2153892.html
[51] Neve Gordon, Israel’s Occupation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), xvii.
[52] https://merip.org/1988/05/israel-and-the-palestinians-1948-1988
[53] https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/06/04/israel-50-years-occupation-abuses
[54] AJLabs, “Mapping 1,800 Israeli Settler Attacks in the West Bank since October 2023,” Al Jazeera, January 22, 2025, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/22/mapping-1800-israeli-settler-attacks-in-the-occupied-west-bank-since-october-7; Julia Frankel, “UN Reports Says West Bank settler Violence Has Displaced More Than 1,100 Palestinians Since 2022,” CTV News, 21 September 2023, https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/un-reports-says-west-bank-settler-violence-has-displaced-more-than-1-100-palestinians-since-2022-1.6571721.
[55] Ziad Abu-Amr, Islamic Fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza: Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Jihad (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994) 76.
[56] https://inkstickmedia.com/israel-rejected-peace-with-hamas-on-five-occasions/.
[57] https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/02/snappy-responses-to-israeli-hasbara.
[58] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-mar-11-mn-27709-story.html.
[59] John Quigley, “Apartheid Outside Africa: The Case of Israel,” Indiana International and Comparative Law Review 2, no. 1 (1992): 250.
[60] https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/7771.
[61] Quigley, “Apartheid Outside Africa: The Case of Israel,” 239-240.
[62] https://jordantimes.com/opinion/ramzy-baroud/how-israeli-arab-parties-validate-israeli-apartheid.
[63] al-Qur’ān, 4:57
[64] al-Qur’ān, 4:135
