It’s time for a new approach – The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians

A Palestinian man sits on the rubble of a building destroyed by recent Israeli air strikes in Gaza City on 15 June 2021 (AFP)

The situation for Palestinians seems more dire than ever. Parliamentarians around the world have spoken up on this issue for decades, calling for a historic compromise to heal this running sore, which brutally exposes western liberal double standards on the Islamic and Arab world.

Yet, today, the prospect of a two-state solution appears inconceivable amid the proliferation of illegal settlements, with many Israelis seemingly opposed to compromise, leaving Palestinians to deal with the wretchedness of an apartheid existence.  Their polity seems shattered; those who have not escaped to the global diaspora are dependent on international humanitarian support; and many have become vulnerable to the lure of violence as the only response to oppressive control, living in an environment where even obtaining sufficient clean water is a constant struggle.

They face a future indefinite prospect of statelessness. For those of us, like me, who see this as an injustice at the centre of regional instability, it is time to try something else. Violence won’t work; the political and diplomatic route seems frozen. We must instead turn to the moral and legal authority of the historic and current Palestinian cause.

It is not for a lack of trying that the parliamentary campaign for justice has largely failed. The process and attitudes that led us to where we are today were long in the making – perhaps to some extent the result of Orientalism, the false or inaccurate perceptions of the Middle East that Edward Said described in his classic work.

Losing moral authority

We have been shaped by the events that occurred since 1967, the moment that some Israelis believe their great moral project to provide a homeland for a people who had suffered more than most – bar those extinguished completely – started to lose its moral and legal authority.

This period culminated in the hope and optimism of the Oslo peace process. But that has proved an ugly mirage. Hammered by extremist violence on both sides, the final blow to Oslo was the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the former prime minister and Israeli architect of peace, by a Jewish rejectionist.

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