Phalapoem editor, 24/10/26
They lie to steal land. They lie to justify occupation. They lie to destroy homes, hospitals and schools. They lie to justify the killing of children, women and men. They lie to win the votes of those who thirst for blood. They lie to secure financial and military support from America. They lie to dominate, control and manipulate. They lie to conceal their crimes and escape accountability. They lie to rewrite history and silence the truth.
This is the machinery of oppression: take the land, control the narrative, dehumanise the people, and then convince the world that the victims are to blame.
For decades, Palestinians have endured dispossession, military occupation, displacement, restrictions on movement, home demolitions and the systematic denial of fundamental rights. The Israeli apartheid system has been sustained not only through laws, checkpoints, settlements and military force, but also through a relentless battle over language, history and truth.
When Palestinian homes are demolished by the Israeli occupation, the destruction is dressed up in the language of security, planning regulations or military necessity. When land is taken and Israeli settlements expand, the language of biblical entitlement, historical claims and security is used to normalise dispossession. When Palestinians resist their oppression, their actions are presented without the context of occupation, while the overwhelming power of the Israeli occupying regime is too often obscured behind claims of self-defence. When civilians are killed and entire neighbourhoods reduced to rubble, official explanations demand trust before accountability, while Palestinian testimony is questioned, dismissed or treated as inherently suspect.
The same pattern appears in the treatment of humanitarian suffering. Hospitals, schools, refugee camps and civilian infrastructure are not merely buildings. They are places where people seek treatment, education, shelter and safety. Their destruction demands credible evidence, independent investigation and accountability. Invoking security cannot provide a blank cheque for the destruction of civilian life, nor can allegations against individuals justify collective punishment of an entire population.
The double standards are unmistakable. Governments that proclaim their commitment to human rights, democracy and international law have continued to provide Israel with substantial military and diplomatic support. Palestinian lives are too often subjected to a different standard of concern, their suffering reduced to statistics, their deaths explained away, and their demands for freedom postponed in the name of political convenience. The language of universal human rights becomes hollow when it is applied selectively.
This is how Israeli racism and domination operates. Control the land, control movement, control resources, control the borders, control the narrative, and then accuse the oppressed of creating the crisis. Demand that Palestinians prove their humanity while allowing the powerful to evade the same moral scrutiny. Repeat the official explanation often enough, and hope that repetition will replace evidence.
But propaganda cannot erase documented realities. International human rights organisations, United Nations bodies and independent investigators have documented extensive violations affecting Palestinians. In 2024, the International Court of Justice concluded in its advisory opinion that Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful and that its policies and practices obstruct Palestinian self-determination. The Court’s findings cannot be dismissed simply because they challenge the claims of a powerful state. Nor can allegations of grave violations be answered with slogans. They require evidence, independent scrutiny and the application of international law without fear or favour.
Criticism of Israeli regume policies, occupation and apartheid is not hatred of Jewish people. Jewish people are not collectively responsible for the actions of the Israeli government, just as no population should be judged by the conduct of its leaders. The demand is for equal rights, dignity, freedom and justice for Palestinians, and for accountability for those responsible for violations, regardless of their nationality, identity or political power.
The greatest threat to an unjust system is not anger alone. It is the persistence of truth. It is the testimony of families who refuse to forget their homes, the memories of refugees who preserve the names of their villages, the photographs of destroyed streets, the records of Gaza genocide, demolished buildings, and the voices of those who continue to demand freedom despite decades of dispossession.
They lie because the truth threatens their power. They lie because the truth exposes their injustice. They lie again and again, believing that repetition will turn lies into truth.
But no lie can erase a people’s history, steal their identity or silence their cries for justice.
Palestinians are not a footnote in somebody else’s history. They are a people with roots, memories, rights and a future. Their freedom is not a favour to be granted by an occupying power. It is a fundamental right.
The world must stop confusing the power to impose a narrative with the right to define the truth. It must stop treating accountability as optional and human rights as negotiable. Until Palestinian freedom and equality are recognised in practice, the lies will continue to serve the system that depends on them.
And the truth will continue to expose it.