Phalapoem editor, 3/11/25
For more than seven decades, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict has been one of the most painful and unresolved struggles in modern history. At its heart lies a simple, haunting question: How can the Israeli nation expect peace while denying it to the Palestinians?
The world has watched as Palestinians have lost their homes, lands, hospitals, universities, schools and freedom — not through natural misfortune but through racist policies of Israeli occupation, illegal settlement expansion, and brutal Israeli military force. Entire neighborhoods in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have been demolished by Israeli occupation forces to make way for settlements declared illegal under international law. Palestinian families who have lived on the same land for generations are displaced overnight, told their ancestral homes were “promised” to Jews by divine right.
The moral contradiction is staggering. Israel presents itself as a victim — a nation under constant threat — while exercising brutal military power over a stateless, occupied Palestinian population. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed or injured by Israeli occupation forces , and millions more are confined behind walls, checkpoints, and blockades that control their movement, access to work, healthcare, and even water.
This is not self-defense. It is systemic domination, what many human rights organizations — including Israeli ones — have called Israeli apartheid. The creation of hundreds of settlements and the building of separation barriers on Palestinian land carve the West Bank into disconnected fragments, preventing Palestinians from building a viable state or even living normal lives.
Israeli nation must understand that it cannot build peace through walls and weapons while creating despair on the Palestinian side. Peace requires empathy, justice, and recognition of shared humanity — values that cannot coexist with illegal occupation or collective punishment.
To feel safe, Israelis must allow Palestinians to feel safe. To find peace, they must recognize the Palestinians’ equal right to live freely, securely, and with dignity on their own land. No amount of military strength or theological justification or endless American support can substitute for moral responsibility.
Until justice is done, there can be no real peace — not for Palestine, and not for Israel.