State of Play in US-Israel’s Land-Grab 

Bid

by Stuart Littlewood / October 7th, 2025

Trump, impatient to claim a Nobel Peace prize, bullies everyone into accepting a madcap peace plan that gives little or no consideration to the Palestinians’ future.

Who gave him authority to decide such matters, and where are the United Nations in all this? And what about international law and the raft of UN resolutions on these matters that are waiting to be implemented? This looks like an attempt to bury them.

The other day we saw Trump and Netanyahu holding hands and smirking as they launched their 20-point so-called peace plan which the war criminal and pro-Israel freak Tony Blair also had a hand in. Trump said Netanyahu had agreed it and Arab countries were onboard, but many will doubt that.

Trump then issued a blood-curdling threat to Hamas that if they didn’t accept his plan within 3 days he would give Israel the green light to carry on with the genocide while he himself, presumably, would continue supplying the ammunition. “All HELL, like no one has ever seen before”, would be let loose, he snarled.

His grand plan is so vague that it can be interpreted in different ways, provides no clear pathway to Palestinian freedom and self-determination, completely bypasses the United Nations, and puts two fingers up to international law. No sane person would agree to it. When Netanyahu got home he pretty well disowned it, repeating that Israel would never allow a Palestinian state to emerge. “It’s not written in the agreement. We said we would strongly oppose a Palestinian state,” he announced. Of course, this has been the Zionist position since Day 1 in 1948. Domination of Palestine from the river to the sea is the very raison-d’etre of the Israel Project and they won’t be deflected. They’ve pursued their criminal ambition for 7 decades, with the US and UK providing diplomatic cover and much more, and they now smell victory.

Hamas have sensibly signalled acceptance in principle of some aspects, subject to more work on the detail. But they are at odds with Trump’s plan in several respects.

In particular, they object to foreign involvement in Gaza’s interim governance. The plan does not identify any Palestinian individual or group by name as being involved in the transition. Instead it says the panel would be supervised by a new international transitional body headed by Trump himself and which would include other members, including former UK prime minister Blair. Hamas said it would agree to hand over Gaza’s administration “to a Palestinian body of independents (technocrats) based on Palestinian national consensus and supported by Arab and Islamic backing”‘

As for Hamas playing no part in Gaza’s future, the Trump plan says they must “agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form,” and that there will be a “process of demilitarisation of Gaza”. Hamas’s response is that they are part of a “comprehensive Palestinian national framework” and “tied to a collective national position in accordance with relevant international laws and resolutions”. The future of Gaza and the rights of Palestinian people are to be discussed within that national framework, in which Hamas will be included and “will contribute with full responsibility”.

So there’s a considerable gulf. Hamas’s statement did not specifically accept Trump’s 20-point plan although Trump, for his own reasons, pretends it did.

What does the UN say?

Meanwhile the United Nations has savaged the half-baked and, let’s face it, dishonest plan.

A team of 28 independent human rights experts, appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council, warn that any peace plan must absolutely safeguard the human rights of Palestinians, and not create further conditions of oppression. “We welcome parts of the peace plan announced by the United States to end the war in Gaza, including a permanent ceasefire, rapid release of unlawfully detained persons, an influx of humanitarian aid under United Nations supervision, no forced displacement from Gaza, the withdrawal of Israeli forces and the non-annexation of territory. These are broadly requirements of international law that should not depend on a formal peace plan.”

But they warn that other key elements of the plan are inconsistent with fundamental rules of international law and the 2024 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice which demands that Israel ends its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. “Imposing an immediate peace at any price, regardless of or brazenly against law and justice, is a recipe for further injustice, future violence and instability.”

The experts’ objections include the following:

• The plan does not guarantee the Palestinian right of self-determination as international law requires, and it is subject to vague pre-conditions concerning Gaza’s redevelopment, Palestinian Authority reform, and a “dialogue” between Israel and Palestine. Palestine’s future would thus be at the mercy of decisions by outsiders, not in the hands of Palestinians as international law commands.

• The plan also preserves the failed status quo of requiring more negotiations with Israel, when the Israeli Prime Minister has already declared that Israel would “forcibly resist” statehood. This is blatantly against the International Court of Justice (ICJ) finding that fulfilling the right of self-determination cannot be conditional on negotiations.

• The “temporary transitional government” is not representative of Palestinians and even excludes the Palestinian Authority, which further violates self-determination and lacks legitimacy.

• There are no concrete benchmarks or timeframes for a transition to representative governance, which belongs to the Palestinians only, without foreign interference.

• Oversight by a “Board of Peace” chaired by the US President is not under United Nations authority or transparent multilateral control, while the US is a deeply partisan supporter of Israel and not an “honest broker”. This proposal is reminiscent of colonial practices and must be rejected.

• An “International Stabilisation Force”, outside the control of the Palestinian people and the United Nations as a guarantor, would replace Israeli occupation with a US-led occupation, contrary to Palestinian self-determination.

• Partial Israeli occupation could continue indefinitely through a “security perimeter” inside Gaza’s borders, which is absolutely unacceptable.

• The demilitarisation of Gaza has no end date and, if permanent, could leave it vulnerable to Israeli aggression.

• Nothing is said regarding the demilitarisation of Israel, which has committed international crimes against the Palestinians and threatened peace and security in the region through aggression against other countries.

• De-radicalisation is imposed on Gaza only, while anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab sentiments, radicalisation and public incitement to genocide have been hallmarks of dominant rhetoric in Israel over the past two years.

• The plan largely treats Gaza in isolation from the West Bank including East Jerusalem, when these areas must be regarded as a unified Palestinian territory and State.

• An “economic development plan” and “special economic zone” could result in illegal foreign exploitation of resources without Palestinian consent.

• There is no duty on Israel and those who have sustained its illegal attacks in Gaza to compensate Palestinians for illegal war damage.

• The plan provides for the release of all Israeli hostages but only some of the many arbitrarily detained Palestinians.

• Amnesties offered to Hamas seem to be unconditional, even if they committed international crimes, denying justice for victims of international crimes. And the plan does not address accountability at all for Israeli international crimes and human rights violations against the Palestinian people. There is no commitment to transitional justice, historical truth-telling or genuine reconciliation. There is also no guaranteed access for independent journalists.

• Accountability and justice are integral to sustainable peace.

• The plan does not address other fundamental issues such as ending illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank including East Jerusalem, borders, compensation, and refugees.

• The plan does not provide a leading role for the United Nations, General Assembly or Security Council, or specifically for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which is vital to assisting and protecting Palestinians.

• Any peace plan must respect the ground rules of international law. The future of Palestine must be in the hands of the Palestinian people – not imposed by outsiders under extreme conditions of duress in yet another scheme to control their destiny.

• The International Court of Justice has been crystal clear: Conditions cannot be placed on the Palestinian right of self-determination. The Israeli occupation must end immediately, totally and unconditionally, with due reparation made to the Palestinians.

• Finally, the United Nations – not Israel or its closest ally – has been identified by the ICJ as the legitimate authority to oversee the end of the occupation and the transition towards a political solution in which the Palestinians’ right of self-determination is fully realised.

Which leaves us in no doubt. Trump is ignorant of international law (or he regards it as a huge inconvenience to his private agenda) and his plan has little to do with lasting peace. He must be persuaded to stand aside and leave all this to the UN. Imperfect though it is, the UN the best we’ve got.

Gaza: “Eternal Peace” Plan or Licence to Plunder?

How not to set up a Palestinian state, and ensure eternal strife

by Stuart Littlewood / October 4th, 2025

There can be no peace without justice, yet this simple truth still hasn’t penetrated at UKgov and USgov levels. Or is it ignored because it squelches the West’s lawless policies in the Middle East?

Statehood means self-determination with no outside interference. In Palestine’s case international law and relevant UN resolutions must finally be implemented and no longer contemptuously waved aside. Justice must be done and seen to be done. A UN commission of inquiry now confirms what many already knew – that Israel seeks to establish permanent control over Gaza and a Jewish majority in the occupied West Bank. UKGov and others therefore must persuade the UN General Assembly to use the tools available to circumvent the US veto and intervene militarily with a protection force, sending the Israeli war machine, and its settler thugs, back behind the internationally recognised ‘Green Line’ border.

A reformed Palestinian Authority must be allowed to govern its territories with whatever help they choose, possibly under UN supervision. None of that is acknowledged although it’s the Palestinians’ inalienable right.

Starmer et al. insist that Hamas, who were democratically elected under the scrutiny of international observers, shall play no part in future governance without explaining how they can legally interfere and dictate who may (and may not) rule the Palestinian state. That is a matter entirely for the Palestinians. They would do better to sanction Netanyahu’s party, Likud, for its decades-long war crimes, crimes against humanity, and now genocide.

Then there’s the question of Israel’s brazen failure since inception to honour its obligations under the UN Charter and its frequently stated refusal to allow Palestinian statehood to become a reality.

Now the three most loathsome and discredited creatures on the planet are trying to force on us a one-sided “eternal peace” plan that’s short on detail, ignores international law, bypasses the United Nations, lacks any kind of authorisation from the global community, reeks of sleaze, reads more like a plunder plan and refuses to answer questions. And they claim the Arab nations are ‘on board’. Starmer, having just announced he recognises the Palestinian state, tells the Labour Conference he backs the plan…. but backs what exactly? How does any of it respect Palestinian rights to self-determination or the rights of the Palestinian Authority to run things?

As for Tony Blair becoming Gaza’s governor, he’s a notorious warmonger and pro-Israel freak who should be behind bars and caused Palestinians much anguish on previous occasions he meddled in the Middle East. Trump shamelessly advertises his complicity in the ongoing genocide by threatening the government in Gaza to accept this abomination of a scheme or he’ll give Israel the OK (and presumably the weapons) to carry on with its extermination programme – which it is doing anyway.

This vile trio are not aiming to deliver justice for the Palestinians, whose land this is. Theirs is a private club that’s in it for greed and self-aggrandisement. How legally valid is any of that? And is the international community really going to sit back and allow such a preposterous scheme to go ahead with Blair in charge? If so the world is hurtling towards hell with brake failure.

Stuart Littlewood, after working on jet fighters in the RAF, became an industrial marketeer in oil, electronics and manufacturing, and with innovation and product development consultancies. He also served as a Cambridgeshire county councillor and a member of the Police Authority. He is an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society and has produced two photo-documentary books including Radio Free Palestine (with foreword by Jeff Halper). Now retired, he campaigns on various issues, especially the Palestinians' struggle for freedom. Read other articles by Stuart, or visit Stuart's website.

Urgent Next Steps for Palestine at the UN

by Nicolas J.S. Davies / October 8th, 2025

As U.S. President Donald Trump surely intended, his “20-point Gaza plan” succeeded in upstaging calls by many other world leaders at the UN General Assembly for concrete, coordinated UN-led measures to force Israel to end its criminal genocide in Gaza and the illegal occupation of Palestine.

Trump’s White House meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyah on September 29 coincided with the last day of the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York, where Trump had met with eight Arab and Muslim leaders at the UN and won their support for a proposed plan for Gaza. In a textbook bait-and-switch, Trump then allowed the Israelis to significantly alter his plan before he unveiled it to the world at his meeting with Netanyahu, but pretended it was the same plan that the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and other countries had endorsed.

Trump’s plan is based on cornering Hamas into a series of steps it hasn’t agreed to: freeing all the Israeli prisoners in Gaza without a full Israeli withdrawal; surrendering its weapons and its role in Palestinian politics; and handing Gaza over to a new phase of Israeli occupation. Gaza would be governed by a “board” headed by Trump and former U.K. prime minister Tony Blair, who not only invaded Iraq alongside the U.S. in 2003, but at the same time masterminded a dirty war against Hamas that led to the isolation and blockade of Gaza, and ultimately to the current crisis.

Under Trump’s plan, Israel would agree to end its genocidal assault on Gaza and partially withdraw its forces, but nothing in his plan would prevent it relaunching the genocide once the Israeli prisoners in Gaza were safely back in Israel. It would also retain control of Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt, allowing it to keep restricting the entry of food, medicine and rebuilding materials.

In response to Trump’s proposal, Hamas agreed to release all its Israeli prisoners in return for an Israeli release of Palestinian prisoners, but only after a permanent Israeli ceasefire and withdrawal from Gaza. Prime minister Netanyahu said publicly that Israel will not withdraw its forces from Gaza until Hamas and other Palestinian forces have been removed from power and disarmed, while Hamas insists it will not disarm until the occupation of Palestine ends and its fighters can hand over their weapons to the new armed forces of the sovereign nation of Palestine.

Hamas also responded that it has no authority to act as the sole negotiator in talks on the future of Palestine. It said Palestine must be governed by Palestinians, not Trump or Blair, and that its future must be negotiated between representatives of all Palestinian factions.

So Trump’s plan is rife with conditions that one side or the other won’t agree to, and it seems unlikely to end the genocide. But in any case, it is clearly designed to perpetuate, not to end, Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. As the Progressive International said in a statement on October 7:

Far from paving a path to peace, it offers a blueprint for the further colonisation and subjugation of the Palestinian people — the culmination of decades of dispossession and destruction that reached its dark zenith in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

The current negotiations may collapse quickly or drag on for weeks or months, but the UN and the world’s governments should not sit idly by as passive observers. The UN should urgently prepare to take the concrete steps that leaders from around the world called for at the General Assembly in September, to give force to UN General Assembly resolutions calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, the unrestricted restoration of life-saving humanitarian aid, and a final end to the brutal Israeli occupation of Palestine.

In July 2025, the UN General Assembly organized a “High-level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution.” The conference was chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, and its goal was “not only to reaffirm international consensus on the peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine but to catalyze concrete, timebound and coordinated international action toward the implementation of the two-State solution.”

The conference produced a lengthy “New York Declaration,” which was endorsed by the General Assembly in a resolution on September 12, by a vote of 142 to 10, with 12 abstentions.

But this was a plan for the “day after,” which, by itself, failed to bring that day any closer, because it deliberately avoided taking the “concrete, timebound and coordinated international action” that the conference’s mandate had explicitly called for.

The declaration was based on the deliberations of 8 working groups, co-chaired by representatives of 15 different countries, the Arab League and the European Union, which each drew up plans for the aftermath of a hypothetical permanent ceasefire in Gaza, with topics like “Humanitarian Action and Reconstruction” and “Security for Israelis and Palestinians.”

Three roundtables at the July conference, chaired by former Irish president Mary Robinson, former Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid bin Ra’ad of Jordan, agreed that the General Assembly’s first step should be the international recognition of the state of Palestine.

UN recognition requires the approval of both the General Assembly and the UN Security Council. However, with such a large majority of countries supporting recognition, and the United States abusing its veto to sideline the Security Council, the General Assembly can call an Emergency Special Session (ESS) to act alone under the “Uniting for Peace” principle, to officially recognize Palestine and welcome it as a full UN member.

Instead, while several Western countries finally recognized Palestine, bringing the total number who have recognized its independent statehood to 157, the declaration was endorsed in a regular session of the General Assembly that lacked the power to grant formal UN recognition.

But the most serious omission from the July 2025 conference and the September 12 resolution was that they failed to take concrete, coordinated UN action to impose a ceasefire in Gaza, the vital first step to get to the “day after” that the working groups at the conference were tasked with planning for. Trump took advantage of that omission to propose an end to the genocide in Gaza on terms that would perpetuate the Israeli occupation instead of ending it.

It was entirely predictable that Israel would reject and ignore the New York Declaration, and prime minister Netanyahu did just that in his General Assembly speech on September 26. But after most of the delegates walked out and left Netanyahu ranting to a nearly empty hall, the Hague Group of countries led by Colombia and South Africa hosted a meeting with representatives of 34 countries to plan the coordinated, concrete action the UN must now take to end the genocide and the occupation.

As Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez Parilla told the General Assembly in his speech the next day, it should convene an Emergency Special Session “without further delay” to take concrete measures for Palestine, including a binding resolution on full UN membership.

If the General Assembly is serious about ending the genocide and the occupation, the Emergency Special Session must also debate and vote on a UN-led arms embargo, economic boycott and other concrete measures designed to force Israel to comply with international law, international court rulings and UN resolutions on Palestine.

The UN Human Rights Office in Geneva already has a database of 158 Israeli and multinational corporations that are complicit in Israel’s illegal occupation, so an international boycott of those companies could take effect immediately.

Israel is a small country, dependent on trade and economic relations with countries all over the world. If the large majority of countries that voted for the New York Declaration are ready to back their words and their votes with coordinated action, a UN-led trade boycott, divestment campaign and arms embargo can put enormous pressure on Israel to end its genocide in Gaza and its illegal occupation of Palestine. With full participation by enough countries, these steps could quickly make Israel’s position untenable.

Many speakers at the 2025 General Assembly called passionately for this kind of decisive action to bring about a ceasefire in Gaza and end the occupation. King Abdullah of Jordan asked, “How long will we be satisfied with condemnation after condemnation without concrete action?”

President Lula said that Brazil already has an arms embargo against Israel and has cut off all trade with its illegal settlements; Turkiye severed all trade links with Israel in August; Dutch prime minister Dick Schoof called for an arms embargo and the suspension of the EU’s trade agreement with Israel; and Chadian prime minister Allah-Maye Halina declared, “Our duty from this moment on is to transform this strong declaration into concrete acts and make the Palestinian people’s hope a reality.”

The Hague Group of countries was formed by the Progressive International to support South Africa’s genocide case at the International Court of Justice and war crimes cases against Israeli officials at the International Criminal Court. In a meeting at Bogota in Colombia in July, twelve of those countries committed to an arms embargo and other concrete measures against the Israeli occupation. In his speech to the General Assembly on September 23, Colombian president Gustavo Petro called for an Emergency Special Session on Palestine and for a UN peacekeeping force to “defend Palestine.”

A previous Emergency Special Session in September 2024 demanded that Israel must end its post-1967 occupation of Palestine within a year. Israel’s refusal to even begin to do so, and its defiant escalation of its genocide in Gaza, increasing repression in the other occupied territories and attacks on other countries provide all the grounds the General Assembly should need to take the concrete, coordinated measures that many countries are calling for.

Tragically, instead of applying the diplomatic and economic pressure it will take to secure a ceasefire and end the occupation, France, Saudi Arabia and their partners instead relied on dangling carrots in front of Israel, such as regional economic integration and recognition by Arab and Muslim countries, to try to seduce or bribe Israel into complying with international law and UN resolutions.

This was never going to work. The toothless New York Declaration, and now Trump’s new occupation plan for Gaza, have wasted irreplaceable, precious lost time for the besieged, starved, bombed people of Gaza, as more of them are killed, maimed and starved to death every day. The UN General Assembly must follow up on these flawed initiatives with decisive UN-led action to actually end the genocide and the occupation, by imposing economic sanctions, an arms embargo and other measures to diplomatically and economically isolate Israel.

There is nothing to prevent the UN General Assembly from quickly convening a new meeting of its Emergency Special Session on Palestine. The ESS can finally take the “concrete, time-bound, coordinated international action” that the French- and Saudi-led initiative promised but failed to deliver – what Malaysian foreign minister Mohamad Hasan described to the General Assembly as “concrete action against the occupying force.”

Across the world, ordinary people are rising up to demand that their governments take action, while flotillas of activists set sail to breach the blockade of Gaza that their governments have failed to challenge.

The Emergency Special Session of the UN General Assembly, meeting under the Uniting for Peace principle, can debate and pass binding resolutions on UN recognition of Palestine, a UN-led international arms embargo, economic boycott and disinvestment campaign, war crimes prosecutions, and other measures to diplomatically isolate Israel.

By responding to calls of conscience from their own people, voting for these measures at the UN and acting quickly to enforce them, the governments of the world have the collective power to end this genocide and the brutal, illegal occupation of Palestine that it is part of. Now they must use it.

Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq. He is also the co-author, with Medea Benjamin, of War In Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, which just came out in a new revised, updated 2nd edition. Read other articles by Nicolas.

Two Years of Resistance to Imperialist Barbarism!

by Black Alliance for Peace / October 7th, 2025

Two years after Al-Aqsa Flood, Palestinians Continue Their Fight for National Liberation and the Right to Exist!

Today, October 7th, 2025, marks two years since Operation Al-Aqsa Flood changed the present and future of resistance not only in Palestine, but throughout the world. As we have stated previously, “the Black Alliance for Peace views the Al-Aqsa Flood as a legitimate resistance operation by the besieged Palestinians – the only party with an internationally recognized right of resistance. We support Palestinian resistance against the violent military domination by white supremacist imperialism and colonialism that began, first in the form of British colonialism, and continues in the form of zionism.” The Palestinian Resistance has given humanity the ideological clarity to understand in no uncertain terms the true nature of zionism and capitalist imperialism, and the so-called “Western civilization” that upholds them.

The Palestinian Resistance in Gaza, as well as in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, has unmasked the “Western liberal order” for what it has always been, a structure of degradation, war, and genocide – based in the exploitation and domination of the masses of the world’s people. They have shown all of humanity that while resistance comes with a cost, within this global imperialist system, it is the only path to self-determination, human dignity, and collective liberation. The Palestinian people have paid an unconscionable cost for their resistance. The people of Lebanon, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, and Syria have also found themselves further engulfed in the fire caused by zionist settler-colonialism and U.S.-led imperialism.

While some would draw sharp distinctions between the Biden and Trump administrations, the former’s full-throated support for the zionist genocide in Gaza reveals to us that the entire duopoly of political elites in the United States has been spearheading support for the state of Israel’s genocidal ambitions. The Trump administration has only accelerated and further unmasked these intentions. The Trump-Netanyahu “peace plan” for Palestine provides insight into how the ruling political and corporate elites plan to divide and dominate the globe in a more advanced, straightforwardly militaristic status quo.

In Gaza, this plan would mean that Palestinians are excluded from negotiations over their own territory, forced into a “bantustan” framework under foreign supervision, and stripped of meaningful statehood while international forces oversee their administration, a return to the colonial British model of control that precipitated the 77 years of Nakba and occupation. Haiti is now being subjected to a similar model: decisions imposed by external actors, foreign forces exercising operational command, and a people’s sovereignty denied under the pretext of “security.” In both cases, imperial powers insist on “peace” and “stability” while erasing the political agency of the oppressed. As we have seen with the genocide in Gaza and accelerating settler-occupation throughout Palestine, BAP understands that the logic of U.S.-led imperialism is destruction, dismemberment, and death for all oppressed peoples.

In the face of this outrightly colonial “peace plan”, Hamas’s response further solidifies the clarity and heroism of the Palestinian Resistance. Rather than capitulate, the Resistance agreed in principle to releasing the captives, an agreement they made as early as 2023 but which was sabotaged by the zionist entity. They also agreed only to a governing structure that would be in alignment with the principles of international law and the national interest of Palestine, while leaving further terms to be worked out in negotiations. Resistance, not concessions, is what has forced this plan forward.

Whether in Gaza, the Congo, Sudan, the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, or Haiti, the only “peace” that U.S.-led imperialism seeks is capitulation [or submission] to “full-spectrum dominance” and white supremacist, colonial control, which is the antithesis of self-determination for the colonized and oppressed masses of the world. This colonial control and false peace-making follows the consistent logic of domination and genocidal settler colonialism that Indigenous peoples of North America have been subjected to for over 500 years. This same colonial logic is playing out in cities across the U.S., as Black/African and Brown people and neighborhoods are occupied and terrorized by federal and local militarized “police” forces, and those who resist their brutalization and violation of human rights are punished with more brutalization. This logic is enforced through a militarization of our local environments and nations around the globe by the U.S. Department of War, which utilizes CENTCOM in Palestine and West Asia, AFRICOM on the continent, SOUTHCOM in Our Americas, INDOPACOM in the Pacific, and NORTHCOM (which oversees DHS/ICE and receives support from the National Guard) in the United States. These are not structures that can be reformed, they must be defeated.

As our dear sister, and now ancestor, Assata Shakur said, “Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.” While we are far from anything resembling true peace, repair, and freedom for Palestinians in Gaza, the oppressed peoples of the world understand much more clearly now that there is no hope in appealing to a liberal order that sustains itself on our dismemberment, degradation, and death. Resistance, and the development of self-determinative institutions based in popular power, must be our continued response to oppression, from Gaza to Los Angeles, from Haiti to Sudan, from Yemen to Chicago.

Long live the resistance!

No Compromise, No Retreat!

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) seeks to recapture and redevelop the historic anti-war, anti-imperialist, and pro-peace positions of the radical black movement. Read other articles by Black Alliance for Peace, or visit Black Alliance for Peace's website.

Canada’s Recognition of Palestine and the Enduring Logic of Colonial Erasure

The Civilizing Racist Outpost

by Amel-Ba’al / October 8th, 2025

Newspaper: The Rights of the Palestinian People

“The only way to stop this evil [loss of land], is for all the red men to unite in claiming a common and equal right in the land as it was at first, and should be now — for it never was divided, but belongs to all for the use of each.” —Chief Tecumseh. Esarey, Logan, ed. Messages and Letters of William Henry Harrison, Vol. 1. Indiana Historical Commission, 1922, pp. 463-466.

“The white men are not friends to the Indians: at first, they only asked for land sufficient for a wigwam; now, nothing will satisfy them but the whole of our hunting grounds, from the rising to the setting sun.” —Chief Tecumseh. Hunter, John Dunn. Manners and Customs of Several Indian Tribes Located West of the Mississippi. J. Maxwell, 1823, p. 68.

“First kill me before you take possession of my Fatherland.” —Chief Sitting Bull. Vestal, Stanley. Sitting Bull: Champion of the Sioux. Houghton Mifflin, 1932, p. 194.

“You come here to tell us lies, but we don’t want to hear them. If we told you more, you would have paid no attention. That is all I have to say.” —Chief Sitting Bull. Utley, Robert M. The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull. Henry Holt and Co., 1993, p. 267.

“If I agree to dispose of any part of our land to the white people I would feel guilty of taking food away from our children’s mouths, and I do not wish to be that mean.” —Chief Sitting Bull. Vestal, Stanley. Sitting Bull: Champion of the Sioux. Houghton Mifflin, 1932, p. 140.

“The country was made without lines of demarcation, and it is no man’s business to divide it… Do not misunderstand me, but understand me fully with reference to my affection for the land. I never said the land was mine to do with it as I chose. The one who has the right to dispose of it is the one who created it. I claim a right to live on my land and accord you the privilege to live on yours.” —Chief Joseph. Direct excerpt from his famous speech “An Indian’s View of Indian Affairs,” delivered in Washington D.C. in 1879. Published verbatim in the North American Review, Volume 128, Issue 269, in April 1879 (p. 412-433).

“I have not hesitated to tell this House, again and again, that we could not always hope to maintain peace with the Indians; that the savage was still a savage, and that until he ceased to be savage, we were always in danger of a collision, in danger of war, in danger of an outbreak.” —Scottish settler colonial John Alexander Macdonald. House of Commons Debates, Official Report, 1st Session, 5th Parliament, Volume 2 (4 May 1885), p. 1582.

“When the European settlers arrived, they needed land to live on. The First Nations peoples agreed to move to different areas to make room for the new settlements.” — Complete Canadian Curriculum (Grade 3), Popular Book Company (Canada) Ltd., 2017.

Canada’s performative recognition of the state of Palestine is the ultimate hypocrisy—a gesture dripping with the unacknowledged guilt of a settler-colonial state. This act is not a break from history but its continuation: a modern diplomatic maneuver built upon a foundation of racist and imperial logic laid by its founding architects. To understand the profound cynicism of this recognition, one must return to the words of “Supreme Court Justice” Ivan C. Rand, a key figure in the 1947 Partition of Palestine, who articulated the core belief that has animated Canadian colonial policy for decades: that Palestine was to be an outpost for “the ethical values and civilizing influence of the West.”

This Canadian view, as Rand proudly stated, was a direct mimicry of Theodor Herzl’s 1896 declaration that a Jewish state would serve as a “rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism.” Rand’s statement is not a historical relic; it is the key to deciphering Canada’s consistent role. It reveals a worldview that divides humanity into the civilized and the barbaric, the West and the Orient—a binary used to justify the ongoing settler-colonial project on Turtle Island and the Nakba in Palestine. This is the same civilizing mission used to justify the theft of Indigenous lands through the Indian Act, the violent dispossession of territories, and the residential school system designed to “kill the Indian in the child.” It is the same logic that framed the Nakba not as a catastrophic expulsion of a native people but as the noble establishment of a Western “anchorage.”

Canada’s dirty past is inextricably linked to its role in Palestine. As detailed in analyses of Canada’s early position, its support for Partition was never neutral or pragmatic; it was an ideological commitment to a settler-colonial project it intimately understood. Lester B. Pearson and Rand saw in zionism a kindred spirit: a European-derived movement that would create a friendly “outpost” to buffer against Soviet influence and, more deeply, against the native Arab society they viewed with Orientalist disdain. The indigenous inhabitants of Palestine were, in this calculus, rendered invisible—obstacles to progress, their history and rights blotted out to make way for the march of Western civilization, just as the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island were deemed obstacles to Confederation, colonial expansion, and the formation of an imaginary Canadian national character.

This foundational erasure, practiced domestically and exported abroad, dictated Canada’s subsequent approach to the Palestinian right of return. How could a people deemed uncivilized savages have a right to return to a land now occupied by a civilizing outpost? The Canadian government’s solution was to recast the refugees as a humanitarian problem, a burden to be managed and resettled elsewhere. In internal memos, officials like Jules Léger argued that Arabs must accept that “Israel has come to stay” and that refugees must be resettled in Arab lands, echoing the settler-colonial policy of forced assimilation and displacement of First Nations in Canada. The small 1955 Canadian refugee admission program was not about justice but about setting a precedent for permanent ethnic cleansing, neutralizing the “threat to regional security” posed by the rightful owners of the land living too close to their stolen homes.

Our Palestine, We Will Never Forget You.

This philosophy of resettlement over return became Canada’s steadfast policy, perfectly aligning with Israeli interests. While paying lip service to UN Resolution 194, Canadian leaders across party lines—from Pearson’s call for “token repatriation” to Diefenbaker’s unwavering support (a man who, as a member of the pre-statehood Canadian Palestine Committee, was dedicated to establishing a Jewish majority state)—pushed for the dissolution of the Palestinian people into the Arab diaspora. They blamed the victims, with MPs accusing Arab states of “indoctrinating the refugees with hatred,” a rhetoric that mirrors the colonial trope of the “ungrateful native” refusing the gift of civilization—a trope long used against Indigenous communities in Canada resisting their own erasure.

This same Randian logic infected Canada’s role in the Oslo-era “negotiations.” Chaired by Canada precisely because of its pro-Israel bias, the Refugee Working Group became a mechanism to suppress the right of return, dismissed by a Canadian gavel-holder as a “myth.” Canada’s mission was to reduce an inalienable political right to a technical discussion about “compensation regimes” and “living conditions”—to manage the natives rather than grant them justice. This is the modern face of the “civilizing” mission: using the language of humanitarian aid and process to bury a right and uphold a settler-colonial status quo, just as the Canadian settler state has used bureaucratic processes and empty reconciliation rhetoric to avoid addressing Indigenous land rights and sovereignty at home.

Nowhere is this hypocrisy more grotesque than in Canada’s calculated refusal to name the ongoing genocide in Palestine. A state built upon the completed genocide of Indigenous nations—a fact it still will not fully admit, let alone atone for—now positions itself as a sober arbiter of international law, parsing words while children are dismembered and starved by a regime it helped create and arm. This is the ultimate shame: a guilty state of genocide, having finished its bloody work on Turtle Island, now provides diplomatic cover for a new genocide, one whose ideological foundations it helped pour. The bitter irony is cosmic: Canada, a state that has never reconciled with its own mass graves, dispatches its “peacekeeping forces” abroad to sanctimoniously stabilize the world’s “peace”—a peace built upon the very genocidal logic it perfected at home. This is not peacekeeping; it is the maintenance of a violent, colonial order, ensuring the continued silence of the victims and the impunity of the killers, whether in Gaza or Grassy Narrows.

The hypocrisy is further exposed by Canada’s active silencing of dissent and suppression of any narrative that challenges its settler-colonial ally, mirroring the Canadian state’s historical and ongoing suppression of Indigenous resistance and scholarship that exposes its own foundational crimes.

Today, Canada’s recognition of a Palestinian statelet on the fragments of the 22% of Palestine it helped to dismember is the culmination of this century-long project. It is an attempt to impose a final settlement that permanently extinguishes the right of return, confining the native population to disconnected bantustans while blessing the Israeli occupation state and its apartheid zionist regime that controls everything from the river to the sea and beyond. It is the “civilizing outpost” graciously granting limited autonomy to the natives it has permanently displaced.

Before guilty Canada can utter a single word about Palestine, it must first confront the racist, settler-colonial legacy of its Ivan Rands and its own dirty past as a settler colony on Turtle Island. It must remember its own apartheid, its Indian Act, the lies of treaties—some of which were blank pages—and make meaningful reparations for genocide and land theft. It must repudiate the poisonous idea that its values are a universal gift to be imposed upon others. True solidarity requires not recognition on the terms of the oppressor but an unwavering commitment to dismantling the architecture of apartheid everywhere—from the Jordan River to the Ottawa River—and upholding the right of all Palestinians to return to their homes and the right of all Indigenous peoples to their lands and sovereignty.

Until then, the words of the Canadian state are as empty as the promises made to Chief Sitting Bull, and its “peace” is as violent as the dispossession described by Chief Tecumseh. This recognition is not a step toward justice but the ultimate act of Canadian settler-colonial hypocrisy.

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Amel-Ba’al, a symbolic name in keeping with a Palestinian tradition, is a Palestinian refugee located on the unceded land known as British Columbia. Read other articles by Amel-Ba’al, or visit Amel-Ba’al's website.