#U.N. Charter

[minnesotafollower]

U.N. General Assembly Overwhelmingly Adopts Resolution Condemning U.S. Embargo of Cuba       

On October 30, 2024, the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly passed Cuba’s resolution condemning the U.S. embargo pf the island (187 to 2 with 4 abstentions).The U.S. and Israel again voted against the resolution while the abstentions came from Moldova, Ukraine, Somalia and Venezuela. Here now is a summary of that resolution and the General Assembly proceedings regarding same. [1]  A subsequent…

[nando161mando]

For reference, relevant violated bits of the U.N. Charter

[sgreffenius]

We do have a peace plan right here in front of us. It’s called the Charter of the United Nations. Its principles, which apply to every state, are very simple: Sovereign equality. Territorial integrity. And the non-use of force.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, at the U.N., speaks about the war in Ukraine.

[rivage-seulm]

Israeli-Jewish Terrorists vs. “The Jews of the Jews”

Where have our national “leaders” been all these years? To judge by their statements concerning the current crisis in Israel-Palestine, they haven’t been following the news about Israeli-Jews’ treatment of Palestinians in the territories the former have illegally occupied for decades. Are mainstream politicians unfamiliar with international law, with President Carter’s concept of apartheid in…

[silicacid]

US vetoed ceasefire for Gaza again. UK abstained.

The United States vetoed a resolution at the United Nations Security Council Friday demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, as civilian casualties rise amid Israel’s military campaign against the Palestinian militant group Hamas. The resolution, introduced by the United Arab Emirates, was a priority for U.N. Security General Antonio Guterres, who invoked Article 99 of the U.N. Charter to bring the issue to the immediate attention of the Security Council. Guterres had urged member states to demand an immediate cease-fire in light of an impending “humanitarian catastrophe” in the Gaza Strip.

It was supported by 13 out of the 15 members of the Security Council. The U.S., which holds veto power as a permanent member, voted against the resolution. The United Kingdom, another permanent member, abstained.

[oldgayjew]

Since support for Hamass and the Palestinians and the condemnation of Israel is "freedom of speech" I figured that turn about is fair play ...

(1) Hamass is a murdering, raping lying terrorist organization which has stated (in it's charter) that it's sole intention is the elimination of Israel with the death of all Jews ...

(2) Back in 1947, when the land was divided into Arab lands and Jewish (bought and paid for) lands by the U.N. the Arab League confiscated the Arab Land, divided it among it's members and declared war on Israel ...

(3) Palestine was always a region of the Middle East under Ottoman, Syrian or Jordanian rule but never an actual nation because the Arab states used it as a dumping ground for undesirables and gradually left it as a wasteland ...

(4) Jews have always lived in the Land Beyond the River, as noted in the book of Ezra, and began buying unwanted land from Arabs in the 1880's and turning it into useful land ...

(5) The hills of Jerusalem were bought by King David and became the capitol city of Judea ...

(6) "Palestine" is a later version of "Philestia" which was the name that the Roman general Hadrian called Judea after conquering it ...

(7) Jews have lived in Israel for about 1,000 years before there were Muslims anywhere ...

(8) The so-called "2-State Solution" has been rejected by the Muslim Arabs every time it's been offered ...

(9) Support for Hamass and the Palestinians is the ultimate example of "Preferred Human Stupidity" and the "Go-along-to-get-along" mindset that's been blindly adopted by those who've never had to think and are incapable of independent thought or rational discourse ...

(10) Hamass doesn't give a camel's ass about Gaza civilians, a Palestinian State or any of their professional student supporters on college campuses ...

I apologize if I've repeated this too often but some people don't want to hear it so ...

[mariacallous]

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has rejected a plan for the U.N. Secretary General to visit Kyiv due to António Guterres’s attendance at this week’s BRICS summit in Russia, a Ukrainian official said on Friday.

Kyiv was enraged by Guterres’s appearance at the event in the city of Kazan on Thursday and his handshake with its host, Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose forces invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Guterres – who called for a “just peace” in Ukraine at the BRICS event and has repeatedly condemned the invasion – discussed a visit to Ukraine with Zelenskyy when they met in New York in September, Deputy U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq said. Haq said that since then the U.N. and Ukraine have been trying to work out a “mutually convenient time” for a visit, but that nothing had been decided. The Ukrainian official, who asked not to be named, said Zelenskyy had now rejected the visit because of the BRICS appearance, without going into further detail. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday that Guterres’ acceptance of the invitation to attend the BRICS summit had damaged the U.N.’s reputation. Zelenskyy condemned the decision to turn up. “Even though some of its officials may choose the temptations of Kazan over the substance of the U.N. Charter, the world remains structured in such a way that the rights of nations and the norms of international law will always matter,” he said on Thursday. Russia’s invasion has displaced millions of people, killed thousands and destroyed settlements and energy infrastructure. The summit of BRICS nations, which started on Tuesday, was aimed at showcasing the clout of non-Western countries. Other leaders attending included Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

[eretzyisrael]

The October 7 attack and its aftermath have finally brought the disparate elements of this struggle against Jews to the surface, its participants surging into the streets and onto social media—suggesting that Hamas knew something important about the world that many of us didn’t see, or didn’t want to. 

When I was a reporter for an international news agency at the time of the Hamas takeover in Gaza in 2007,  I discovered that it was impolitic to mention what Hamas clearly announced in its founding charter from 1988: Namely, that “our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious,” and the Jews were “behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions, and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests.” 

This didn’t sound like “Free Palestine.” But as a rule, on the rare occasions that Western news organizations felt compelled to mention the document, they left those parts out. 

The historical examples from the charter suggest that in the war against Judaism, the ideologues of Hamas understand themselves to be operating in a broad coalition and carrying on a long tradition. This is true. “Islam and National Socialism are close to each other in the struggle against Judaism,” Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem and one of the fathers of the Palestinian national movement, said in 1944. This was in a speech to members of an SS division he helped raise, made up of Bosnian Muslims. “Nearly a third of the Qur’an deals with the Jews. It has demanded that all Muslims watch the Jews and fight them wherever they find them,” he said, an idea that would reappear four decades later in the Hamas charter. When the mufti testified before a British commission of inquiry in 1936, he quoted The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Tsarist forgery describing a global Jewish conspiracy, which is also the source for parts of the Hamas charter and remains popular across the Middle East. (I once found the book for sale at a good shop near the American University of Beirut.) The Hamas army, known as the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, is named for one of the mufti’s most famous proteges.

The movement became savvy enough to water down its charter a few years ago, but its leaders have remained honest about their intent. “You have Jews everywhere,” one former Hamas minister, Fathi Hammad, shouted to a crowd in 2019, “and we must attack every Jew on the globe by way of slaughter and killing, with God’s will.” 

In the liberal West, no sane person would own up to believing The Protocols. (At least not yet; things are moving fast.) But an Italian can hold a prominent U.N. job, for example, after saying she believes a “Jewish lobby” controls America, and you can hold a tenured position at the best universities in the West if you believe that the only country on earth that must be eliminated is the Jewish one. 

My experience in the Western press corps was that sympathy for Hamas was not just real but often more substantial than sympathy for Jews. In Europe and North America, as we’ve now seen on the streets and on campuses, many on the progressive left have arrived at an ideology positing that one of the world’s most pressing problems is the State of Israel—a country that has come to be seen as the embodiment of the evils of the racist, capitalist West, if not as the world’s only “apartheid” state, that being a modern synonym for evil. 

Jews could no longer officially be hated because of their ethnicity or religion, but can legitimately be hated as supporters of “apartheid” and as the embodiment of “privilege.” The pretense that this is a critique of Israel’s military tactics, or sincere desire for a two-state solution, has now largely been dropped. 

[justdealingwithsomeissues]

The Avengers who didn't escape take their arguments to the U.N. and Clint threatens to scrap the whole charter if they aren'r allowed to go help... but it isn't obvious that all the other Avengers are in agreement.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Today is the fourth time I've spoken to the UN General Assembly as president. And it will be my last. After over 50 years of public service, I decided it's time for a new generation to take our nation forward. Because some things are more important than staying in power.

[Joe Biden]

+

“Even as we navigate so much change,” he said, “[w]e must never forget who we’re here to represent.”

“‘We the People,’” he said, the first words of the U.S. Constitution, and the words that inspired the opening words of the U.N. Charter, which begins: “We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war….”  

Biden noted that he “made the preservation of democracy the central cause of my presidency.” He recalled the difficulty of deciding to step away, concluding that “as much as I love the job, I love my country more.”

“My fellow leaders, let us never forget, some things are more important than staying in power.  It’s your people…that matter the most. Never forget, we are here to serve the people, not the other way around. Because the future will be…won by those who unleash the full potential of their people to breathe free, to think freely, to innovate, to educate, to live and love openly without fear. That’s the soul of democracy. It does not belong to any one country.”

It lives in “the brave men and women who ended apartheid, brought down the Berlin Wall, fight today for freedom and justice and dignity,” he said. It’s in Venezuela, where millions voted for change; in Uganda, where LGBTQ activists demand safety and recognition of their humanity; in citizens from Ghana to India to South Korea peacefully choosing their leaders. 

“Every age faces its challenges,” Biden said. “I saw it as a young man. I see it today. But we are stronger than we think. We’re stronger together than alone. And what the people call ‘impossible’ is just an illusion. [As] Nelson Mandela taught us…: ‘It always seems impossible until it’s done.’”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[shinekudasaine]

Norway, Ireland and Spain have announced to recognise the State of Palestine. Now 140 countries in the world, out of 193 would officially recognise the State of Palestine (2/3 of countries in the U.N). This is historic and comes with extreme ramifications for Israel. By officially recognising Palestine, Israel becomes officially illegal.

The “State of Israel” was founded after the declaration of Human Rights charter was introduced to the world and the U.N was established. And its arguments for its existence were:

1) There was no such thing as Palestine

2) Palestine was an empty land (terra nullius)

3) Jews are indigenous to the land and are returning after expulsion, while Arabs were invaders and are not indigenous

Points 2 and 3 are just baseless propaganda and easily debunked but point 1 is where Israel uses international law to justify its colonisation.

Because Palestine was not recognised by the U.N, Israel has always maintained that the State rights and rights of a people do not apply to it. Meaning the land in which Israel occupies is not illegal, because Palestine is not an official state recognized by the U.N.

According to Articles 3 and 4 of the Human Rights Charter, indigenous people have the right to self determination, autonomy and self governance on the land to which they own. Article 1 of the international covenant of civil and political rights give indigenous people the right to freely determine their political status, and pursue economic, social and cultural developments.

A State cannot be built upon a State (colonisation) as it violates the previous articles, including Article 1, 2 and 55 of the Human Rights Charter. Not only that, Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and People (UN Resolution 1514) forbids all forms of colonial settlement reaffirming the Human Rights Charter. And then last, but not least, and not the only, the Helsinki Final Act which establishes the right of indigenous people’s sovereignty.

In order to be an official state of the UN, a country must have recognised borders. Palestine has clear and recognizable borders (from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea), while Israel’s official borders also include parts of Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Meaning, for the purposes of its current status, Israel does not have internationally official recognised borders. Israel’s borders including the West Bank and Gaza is rejected by the U.N and international community, and the 1967 borders are rejected by both Palestine and Israel.

Israel argues itself not to be a colonising entity or a State upon another State because Palestine is not recognised, but when Palestine is recognised officially, then Israel will become officially (according to International law) a colonising State. Meaning countries will only face more and more legal international and domestic pressure by supporting Israel, causing the eventual collapse just like apartheid South Africa.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Japan and Brazil vow cooperation in fighting climate change

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Friday agreed that the two countries will cooperate in conserving the Amazon rainforest as a way to fight global warming.

Kishida and Lula, meeting in Brasilia, also agreed to work together to maintain and strengthen the international order based on the rule of law. Brazil is this year's chair of the Group of 20 developed and emerging economies.

Releasing a joint statement, the two leaders emphasized the importance of adhering to the principles and purposes of the U.N. Charter, such as territorial integrity and prohibition of the use of force.

They also expressed "serious concern" about the Middle East situation and "great concern" about Ukraine, which is fighting Russia's military aggression.

Continue reading.

[militantinremission]

As the Palestinian Death Toll in Gaza reaches 36,000 Civilians (69% Women), The Israeli Ambassador 2 the United Nations recently shredded the U.N. Charter in protest 2 Palestine's overwhelming Vote of Inclusion by the General Assembly. He called their decision 'Shameless'. This act, combined w/ the ongoing Pro Palestinian Protests on College Campuses; & the continued claims by Israeli Officials that Palestinians R 'Nazis', has compelled Me 2 Repost this Essay looking @ The [Ethno]State of Israel & Zionism... R they 'Reaching beyond their grasp?'

-U tell Me.

[plethoraworldatlas]

Biden administration officials attempted Monday to downplay the significance of a newly passed United Nations Security Council resolution, drawing ire from human rights advocates who said the U.S. is undercutting international law and stonewalling attempts to bring Israel's devastating military assault on Gaza to an end.

The resolution "demands an immediate cease-fire for the month of Ramadan respected by all parties, leading to a lasting sustainable cease-fire." The U.S., which previously vetoed several cease-fire resolutions, opted to abstain on Monday, allowing the measure to pass.

Shortly after the resolution's approval, several administration officials—including State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield—falsely characterized the measure as "nonbinding."

"It's a nonbinding resolution," Kirby told reporters. "So, there's no impact at all on Israel and Israel's ability to continue to go after Hamas."

Josh Ruebner, an adjunct lecturer at Georgetown University and former policy director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, wrote in response that "there is no such thing as a 'nonbinding' Security Council resolution."

"Israel's failure to abide by this resolution must open the door to the immediate imposition of Chapter VII sanctions," Ruebner wrote.

Beatrice Fihn, the director of Lex International and former executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, condemned what she called the Biden administration's "appalling behavior" in the wake of the resolution's passage. Fihn said the administration's downplaying of the resolution shows how the U.S. works to "openly undermine and sabotage the U.N. Security Council, the 'rules-based order,' and international law."

In a Monday op-ed for Common Dreams, Phyllis Bennis, a senior fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, warned that administration officials' claim that the resolution was "nonbinding" should be seen as "setting the stage for the U.S. government to violate the U.N. Charter by refusing to be bound by the resolution's terms."

While all U.N. Security Council resolutions are legally binding, they're difficult to enforce and regularly ignored by the Israeli government, which responded with outrage to the latest resolution and canceled an Israeli delegation's planned visit to the U.S.

Israel Katz, Israel's foreign minister, wrote on social media Monday that "Israel will not cease fire."

The resolution passed amid growing global alarm over the humanitarian crisis that Israel has inflicted on the Gaza Strip, where most of the population of around 2.2 million is displaced and at increasingly dire risk of starvation.

Amnesty International secretary-general Agnes Callamard said Monday that it was "just plain irresponsible" of U.S. officials to "suggest that a resolution meant to save lives and address massive devastation and suffering can be disregarded."

[rabbitcruiser]

The Old Swiss Confederacy was formed with the signature of the Federal Charter on August 1, 1291.  

Swiss National Day  

Swiss  National Day, celebrated on August 1, is the country’s national  holiday. Although the Swiss Confederacy was founded on this date in 1891  and has been celebrated annually since 1899, it has only been an  official holiday since 1994. Switzerland is a mountainous Central  European country boasting several surreal lakes, villages, and the  majestic Alps peaks. Its cities have medieval quarters and landmarks,  such as the Zytglogge clock tower in Bern and the wooden chapel bridge  in Lucerne. Furthermore, the country is renowned for its excellent ski  resorts and adventurous hiking trails. Banking is an important industry,  and Swiss watches and chocolate are well known around the globe.

History of Switzerland National Day

Every  year on August 1, there are bonfires, paper lantern parades, fireworks,  and Swiss flags swaying in the breeze. Swiss National Day was first  established in 1891, yet it took more than a century for the hardworking  Swiss to decide to hold a vote and give themselves the day off.

Switzerland  is a mountainous landlocked country in South-Central Europe bordered by  Austria, France, Germany, Italy, and Liechtenstein. With a geographic  area of 41,285 square kilometers, the country is slightly smaller than  the Netherlands and nearly twice the size of New Jersey in the United  States.

Switzerland has fewer than 8.7 million people; the capital  city is Bern, and the largest city is Zürich. German, French, Italian,  and Rumantsch are the languages spoken in the country’s several regions,  called cantons. According to the World Happiness Report 2021, the Swiss  Confederation is the third-happiest nation on the planet, trailing only  Finland and Denmark.

Geographically, the country is divided into  three primary regions: the Swiss Alps in the south, the Alps in the  north, and the Alps in the east. The Alps fade into the Swiss Plateau,  which has a panorama of rolling hills, plains, and huge lakes. The Jura,  a sub-alpine mountain range, lies to the northwest along the  French/Swiss border.

Almost the entire country is a vacation  destination. Switzerland features exquisite scenery with snow-capped  mountains and ice-cold mountain lakes, melting glaciers, and mountain  pastures that are ideal for downhill skiing in the winter. The  relatively small country has four official languages as well as the  world’s longest policy of military neutrality. The weather provides four  distinct seasons that dramatically alter the scenery.

Switzerland National Day timeline

1648 Swiss Independence from Roman Rule

The Swiss gain independence from the rule of the Holy Roman Empire.

1848 Constitutional Amendments

Switzerland is established as a federal state under a new constitution.

1971 Women Can Vote

With 66% of the vote, a referendum guaranteeing women the right to vote in federal elections is approved.

2002 U.N. Membership

Switzerland  becomes a member of the United Nations, an intergovernmental  organization dedicated to world peace and economic growth.

Switzerland National Day FAQs

Is English spoken in Switzerland?

English is the most widely spoken non-national language in Switzerland, with over 45% of the population frequently speaking it.

What is Switzerland well known for?

When  we think of Switzerland, we immediately think of ski resorts, lakes,  chocolate, and cheese. The Alps mountains provide the ideal backdrop for  Swiss people to raise cattle and create cheese and chocolate. They also  make excellent ski trails and winter resorts.

What is the reason behind Switzerland's lack of capital?

Switzerland,  unlike many other countries, did not have a genuine capital for many  years. This was because it was a confederation for a long time, an  association of separate cantons gathered together in a bigger body but  without true cohesiveness.

Switzerland National Day Activities

Organize a family reunion

Participate in prayers and singing

Fly the Swiss flag

Celebrate  by organizing large family reunions and barbecues. Communities  throughout Switzerland mark the anniversary with bonfires, fireworks,  and parades.

Prayer  and the singing of the Swiss anthem are part of the official  festivities (the Schweizerpsalm). Church bells sound around the country  at 8:00 p.m.

No Swiss National Day celebration is complete without the Swiss flag. Wear the red and white with pride!

5 Interesting Facts About Switzerland

The Swiss Wed Late

There are 7,000 lakes in Switzerland

The right to bear arms

Diminutive

The Lowest Obesity Rate in Europe

A U.N. survey lists the average marriage age among Swiss people as 29.5 for females and 31.8 for males.

Switzerland's lakes are excellent for swimming and there are plenty to pick from.

Switzerland boasts one of the highest gun ownership rates among industrialized countries.

Switzerland has a land area of 15,942 square miles and a population of 8.67 million people.

Switzerland is a fantastic place to live a healthy lifestyle.

Why We Love Switzerland National Day

Celebrating Swiss culture

Celebrating the fight for independence

Inspiration for the future

Swiss  National Day is a celebration of Swiss achievement and excellence. The  observance is a time to reflect on the country’s contribution to the  global community.

Throughout  the year, different countries all over the world commemorate their  independence days to remind various peoples of the struggles they had to  endure to obtain freedom. These celebrations also have an educational  value for the younger generation.

Often,  achieving independence necessitates the sacrifice of thousands of  lives. Every year, politicians seek to foster peace by commemorating  Independence Day and paying honor to those who have died.

Source

[mariacallous]

The path to Palestinian statehood has been crushed beneath an avalanche of bombs, bullets, smoke, and fire. “After Hamas is destroyed Israel must retain security control over Gaza to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel, a requirement that contradicts the demand for Palestinian sovereignty,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a prepared statement in January.

What little hard-earned trust there was between Israelis and Palestinians has been shattered both by the slaughter of civilians by Hamas in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Oct. 7, 2023—the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust—and the subsequent war between Hamas and Israel. More than 30,000 Palestinians have now died, the majority of whom were civilians. Violent resistance has failed Palestinians—and empowered extremists in Israel.

In the Israeli collective psyche, Oct. 7 was a tremendous violation because of the sneak nature of the attack, the dismembering and burning of corpses, the use of systemic rape as a weapon of war, and the targeting of civilians including children in kibbutzim and attendees at a music festival. There is little appetite for peace with the perpetuators.

In Gaza, meanwhile, Israel is carrying out a brutal and unremitting war that has buried countless children under rubble and seen the destruction of more than half of all houses as well as libraries, court houses, hospitals, and all of the territory’s universities. Many Palestinians view the Israeli military offensive as an attempted genocide. The greater part of the Palestinian political spectrum, including both Fatah and Hamas, broadly support the South African case in the International Court of Justice.

Yet there is little hope of real victory for either side. Even today, parts of Gaza remain under Hamas control, and the top figurehead commanders inside Gaza who oversaw the planning and execution of the Al-Aqsa Flood—Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif—have not been captured or killed. The Hamas political leadership outside Palestine is, for the most part, also still at large—top Hamas political bureau members Ismail Haniyeh, Khaled Meshal, and Mousa Abu Marzook are still alive, while Saleh Al-Arouri was assassinated by Israel in Beirut on Jan. 2.

Both sides have hardened against a two-state solution. In a Jan. 16 interview, Meshal dismissed the possibility of a two-state solution and said the Oct. 7 assault on Israel proved that liberating Palestine “from the river to the sea” is a realistic idea. In November, another Hamas political bureau member Ghazi Hammad pledged that Hamas would “repeat October 7 again and again” until they achieved their goals—the total destruction of Israel and a Palestinian state throughout the entirety of the land.

Strategically, this makes no sense. While occupied people have a right to violently resist military occupation, for relatively disempowered people, trying to assert their cause through advocacy and negotiation is a much more fruitful domain than violence because it relies on force of argument rather than military might.

The Palestinian case for self-determination—like any stateless people—is bulletproof, even if Palestinians themselves are not. The principle of self-determination is enshrined in the U.N. Charter, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Palestinians have an inalienable right to rule themselves in the land on which they live.

The trouble is that Hamas’ demands go far beyond demanding self-governance. What they and Palestinian anti-Zionists demand is the right to extinguish their neighbor’s self-governance, and conquer their neighbor’s territory. It’s the same right that Israeli extremists claim as they prepare new settlements on the West Bank—and even dream of seizing land in Gaza.

This overarching narrative of Palestinian resistance against the existence of any kind of Israel or Zionism has been deeply embedded into the cause since the start of the conflict—and has produced little but tragedy for Palestinians. Since before 1948, the use of force to resist Zionist presence in the land was normalized and glorified. Muslim leaders such as the Grand Mufti Haj Amin Al-Husseini refused to permit the establishment of any kind of Jewish state at the heart of the Arab world on what they held to be Islamic land. This absolute rejectionism fueled the anti-Zionist pogroms of the 1920s and 1930s, and spurred the Arab Palestinian factions to try to extinguish the newly created state of Israel in 1947 to 1948.

It was only in the 1990s that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) renounced the strategy of violence, recognized Israel, and switched toward a strategy of diplomacy and negotiation. But this did not last very long. After the failure to agree upon a negotiated two-state solution at Camp David, Yasser Arafat gave his blessing to armed groups including Hamas to initiate a Second Intifada, perhaps as an attempt to achieve greater negotiating leverage and further Israeli concessions. Hamas’ takeover of Gaza and their war against Israel is simply a continuation of this long history of anti-Zionism.

Of course, this approach has failed to achieve both Hamas’ objective of eradicating Israel, and also failed to grant Palestinians any kind of state. So why is this?

Reliance on violence fuels a cycle of violence. This cycle of violence has led to severe Israeli retaliation, exacerbating the suffering of civilians and leading to deep humanitarian crises, cruelly visible in Gaza today. The use of violence has sabotaged the Palestinian cause on the international stage. Violent tactics have frequently been used to justify the delegitimization of Palestinians, and serve as an excuse to prolong the occupation of the Palestinian Territories by Israel. Horrific acts such as those of Oct. 7 alienate potential allies and supporters, particularly in the Western world.

This is not to mention the internal Palestinian political landscape. The split between Hamas and the PLO over tactics, strategy, and goals has fragmented Palestinians. This has made it more challenging—if not nigh on impossible—to present any kind of united front in negotiations with Israel and the international community.

The Israeli right has used Palestinian fragmentation as a way to prevent the development of a two-state solution. According to the Jerusalem Post, in 2019 Netanyahu admitted as much when he told a private meeting of his Likud party that bolstering Hamas was part of his strategy to help maintain a separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza and prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Yet the use of peaceful protests and strategies has also faced significant challenges. Despite the moral and ethical superiority of nonviolent resistance, its effectiveness in the Palestinian context has been limited due to several factors. Peaceful protests often receive less media attention compared to violent conflicts simply because they are of lower impact and lack the visceral shock of terrorism.

This lack of visibility can limit the impact on the global stage, making it harder to garner any kind of recognition or negotiation leverage. While violence might isolate Palestinians on the world stage, the dramatic and attention-grabbing nature of violent attacks helps to bolster Hamas’ standing on the Palestinian street, where they are seen to be the ones doing something—anything—to fight for the Palestinian cause.

Beyond this, peaceful protests have often been met with heavy-handed responses from Israeli security forces—such as with the Great March of Return in 2018. This suppression not only risks the lives and well-being of protestors and also discourages participation from the broader population. Violent elements including Hamas have also infiltrated these movements, and turned efforts at peaceful protest into acts of aggression.

The ongoing occupation, the blockade of Gaza, and settlement expansions in the West Bank underpin a sense of desperation and frustration among Palestinians. As Frantz Fanon suggested in his anti-colonialist opus The Wretched of the Earth, violence sometimes can be viewed as a cathartic force and as a response to the systemic violence inflicted upon an occupied people by a process of colonization or military occupation, and thus as a means for an occupied or colonized people to reclaim their humanity and agency.

Additionally, Palestinian nonviolent campaigns have been blighted by the same tendency for maximalist demands as Hamas’ violent campaigns. The Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement for example opposes Palestinians having dialogue with Israelis, in what they call “anti-normalization,” and makes maximalist demands about the right of return for all Palestinian refugees to Israel. By making maximalist demands that are never going to be met in a negotiation, nonviolent campaigns can doom themselves to failure through the perception that these demands are not serious or in good faith.

After this war, we must call for a new approach rooted in realism, a renewed commitment to coexistence, and the willingness for both sides to compromise. Both Israelis and Palestinians need to abandon maximalist demands and delegitimization to focus on pragmatic solutions, accepting the fact that neither side is going to disappear, or push one or the other into the sea.

Israelis and Palestinians must both accept that maximalist positions—whether it’s the complete destruction of Israel as a state or the denial of Palestinian statehood —are unattainable, implausible, and only perpetuate the cycle of violence, hatred, and trauma. Moving beyond this demands a culture of coexistence, where both Israelis and Palestinians acknowledge each other’s right to live in peace and security. Education and public discourse—on both sides—must emphasize mutual respect, understanding, and the historical and emotional ties that both groups have to the land.

The focus must shift back to negotiating a pragmatic compromise that can satisfy the core needs of both sides. Palestinians and Israelis need to prepare to head back to the negotiating table and work out our differences. This involves working towards establishing a Palestinian state with agreed borders, preventing the takeover of this state by terrorist groups like Hamas. We need to establish a consensus on Jerusalem’s status, refugee rights, and an end to settlement expansion. On the Palestinian side, trust was lost in previous peace efforts due to settlement expansion. On the Israeli side, trust was lost due to continued violence, leading to a lack of faith in Palestinian leadership’s ability to control extremism and provide security.

The international community, including regional powers and global organizations, must play a constructive role in mediating and supporting this process. This includes ensuring that any agreements reached are respected and providing economic and political support for peace initiatives. This pathway to peace is undoubtedly challenging and requires courage, vision, and perseverance. But it’s the only way toward a future in which two peoples can live side by side in peace, dignity, and safety.