The Colonial Foundation: Herzl, the Balfour Declaration, and the Erasure of Palestine

Theodor Herzl publishes Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) in 1896, founding the Zionist political movement with the goal of establishing a Jewish-exclusivist state. Zionism promoted the myth of Palestine as “a land without a people for a people without a land” — a deliberate erasure of the 700,000 Arab Palestinians already living there.

In 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour writes to Zionist leader Lord Rothschild promising British support for a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine — without consulting a single Palestinian. The letter grants away a people’s homeland without their knowledge or consent. Palestinians have never recognized its legitimacy.

Al-Nakba — The Catastrophe: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

The UN proposes partitioning Palestine, allocating 56% of the land to a Jewish state despite Jewish people owning approximately 7% of it at the time. Without Palestinian consent, Zionist military forces implement Plan Dalet — a premeditated military campaign to ethnically cleanse Arab Palestinians from the land designated for the new Israeli state.

The results are documented by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics: more than 15,000 Palestinians are killed across more than 70 documented massacres. Zionist forces seize control of 774 Palestinian towns and villages. They deliberately destroy 531 of them to prevent Palestinians from ever returning. More than 750,000 Palestinians are forcibly expelled from their homes. The State of Israel is declared in May 1948 on the ruins of Palestinian society.

The Deir Yassin massacre on April 9, 1948 — in which Irgun and Stern Gang militias killed more than 110 Palestinian men, women, and children — was one of the most notorious atrocities. It was carried out by forces led by future Israeli prime ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir.

Palestinian refugees and their descendants — now numbering over 7 million — have never been permitted to return, in direct violation of UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (1948), which affirms their right to return. The Nakba did not end in 1948. It continues today in every demolished home, every illegal settlement, and every displaced family.

Al-Naksa (The Setback): The June War and the Beginning of Military Occupation

Known to Palestinians and Arabs as al-Naksa (the Setback) or the June War, and to Israelis as the Six-Day War. Israel occupies the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), the Gaza Strip, and Syria’s Golan Heights. A further 300,000 Palestinians are displaced.

UN Security Council Resolution 242 calls on Israel to withdraw from all occupied territories. Israel has refused for over 57 years. The International Court of Justice ruled in 2004 that the occupation and the separation wall built on Palestinian land are illegal under international law. Nothing changed.

The October War (Ramadan War) — Known to Israelis as the Yom Kippur War

Known across the Arab world as the October War (حرب أكتوبر) or the Ramadan War (حرب رمضان) because it was launched during the holy month of Ramadan. Egypt and Syria launch a coordinated military offensive to reclaim territory stolen by Israel in 1967. The war ends without fully restoring Arab land but reshapes regional power dynamics and creates the diplomatic conditions for the 1979 Egypt-Israel treaty.

Palestinian self-determination was not on the agenda of any negotiation that followed. The Palestinian people remained under occupation while regional states negotiated for their own interests.

The Camp David Accords: Palestinian Rights Traded Away

Egypt becomes the first Arab state to formally recognize Israel, in exchange for the return of the Sinai Peninsula. U.S. President Carter brokers the deal. Palestinian self-determination is entirely excluded from the final agreement. The Palestinian people — the central party to the conflict — have no seat at the table.

Egypt’s recognition of Israel in exchange for Sinai was widely condemned across the Arab world as a betrayal of Palestinian rights. President Sadat was assassinated in 1981 in part because of Arab outrage over the treaty.

The First and Second Intifadas: Palestinian Resistance to Occupation

The First Intifada (1987 to 1993) is a mass Palestinian uprising against 20 years of military occupation — strikes, civil disobedience, and stone-throwing against one of the most heavily armed militaries in the world. Israel responds with mass arrests, home demolitions, collective punishment, and lethal force. An entire generation of Palestinian children grows up under military curfew.

The Second Intifada (2000 to 2005) erupts after the failure of Oslo and Ariel Sharon’s provocative visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Over 3,000 Palestinians and approximately 1,000 Israelis are killed. Palestinian civilian deaths outnumber Israeli civilian deaths by more than three to one. Israel responds with military incursions, targeted assassinations, and the construction of an illegal separation wall deep inside Palestinian territory.

The Oslo Accords: False Promise, Real Consolidation of Occupation

Israel and the PLO sign the Oslo I Accord, creating the Palestinian Authority and a framework for Palestinian statehood. It is presented to the world as a peace process. In practice, it is a process that allowed Israel to consolidate its control while appearing to negotiate.

Every core issue — Palestinian refugees’ right of return, the status of Jerusalem, final borders, and Israeli settlements — is deferred for later negotiations that never happen. Meanwhile, the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank more than doubles during the Oslo period. The Palestinian Authority is handed administrative responsibility for Palestinians with no sovereignty, no control of borders, no army, and no contiguous territory. Oslo did not free Palestinians. It institutionalized their fragmentation.

The Gaza Siege and Repeated Massacres: The Open-Air Prison

Israel withdraws its settlers from inside Gaza in 2005 but retains full control of Gaza’s borders, airspace, and coastline. When Hamas wins Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 in a vote international observers certify as free and fair, Israel and Egypt immediately impose a total land, air, and sea blockade — collective punishment of 2.3 million civilians, which the United Nations describes as illegal collective punishment.

Israel launches repeated large-scale military assaults on the trapped civilian population of Gaza:

2008 to 2009 — The Gaza Massacre (Israeli name: Operation Cast Lead / Palestinian name: Battle of al-Furqan): Israel kills approximately 1,400 Palestinians, including 352 children. 13 Israelis die. Israel uses white phosphorus munitions over densely populated civilian areas — a war crime documented by Human Rights Watch.

2012 — (Israeli name: Operation Pillar of Defense / Palestinian name: Operation Stones of Baked Clay): Eight days of Israeli air strikes kill 171 Palestinians, including more than 100 civilians.

2014 — The Gaza War (Israeli name: Operation Protective Edge / Palestinian name: Battle of the Withered Grain): Israel kills over 2,200 Palestinians, including 519 children and 297 women. More than 10,800 are wounded. Israel fires 32,000 artillery shells into one of the most densely populated places on earth. A UN inquiry finds evidence of war crimes by Israel.

2021 — (Israeli name: Operation Guardian of the Walls / Palestinian name: Sword of Jerusalem): 11 days of air strikes kill 256 Palestinians, including 66 children. Amnesty International documents Israeli war crimes.

The Abraham Accords: Arab States Abandon Palestine

The United States brokers normalization agreements between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco. Palestinians are excluded from every negotiation. The agreements contain no requirement for Israel to stop settlement construction, end the blockade of Gaza, or recognize a Palestinian state. Arab governments trade Palestinian rights for U.S. weapons deals and economic incentives.

The Abraham Accords represent a strategic victory for Israel — normalization without accountability, and without Palestinian freedom.

West Bank Assault (Israeli name: Operation Summer Camps)

Israel launches its largest West Bank military raids in decades, targeting the refugee camps of Jenin, Tulkarm, Nablus, and Hebron — camps housing Palestinians displaced in 1948 and their descendants. Dozens of Palestinians are killed. Entire neighborhoods are bulldozed. Infrastructure is destroyed. These are not military bases — they are homes.

West Bank Mass Displacement (Israeli name: Operation Iron Wall)

Israel escalates military operations across the West Bank. More than 40,000 Palestinians are displaced from Jenin, Nur Shams, and surrounding refugee camps — the largest forced displacement in the West Bank since the Nakba of 1948. Families who survived 1948 are displaced again, 77 years later, from the very refugee camps they were forced into the first time.

The Gaza Genocide (Palestinian name: Battle of al-Aqsa Flood)

On October 7, 2023, Palestinian resistance forces led by Hamas launch Operation al-Aqsa Flood — breaking out of the blockaded Gaza Strip and attacking Israeli communities, killing approximately 1,200 Israelis and taking approximately 250 hostages. This occurs after 17 years of total siege, four major Israeli military assaults, and 56 years of occupation. It does not occur in a vacuum.

Israel’s military response is the deadliest assault on Palestinians in history. As of mid-2025, over 64,000 Palestinians have been killed — more than half of them women and children. Entire family lineages have been erased. More than 90% of Gaza’s population has been forcibly displaced. The World Food Programme confirms famine conditions across Gaza as Israel deliberately restricts food, water, medicine, and fuel. Gaza’s entire hospital system, university system, and civilian infrastructure has been systematically destroyed.

The International Court of Justice ruled in January 2024 that it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide and issued binding provisional measures ordering Israel to allow humanitarian aid. Israel has defied those orders. The UN Commission of Inquiry concluded in September 2025 that four of the five acts of genocide as defined by the Genocide Convention have been committed. The United States has blocked every UN Security Council ceasefire resolution with its veto.

Israeli Cabinet Votes to Permanently Seize Gaza

The Israeli Cabinet votes to impose direct permanent military and civil administration over Gaza — formally burying any pretense of a two-state solution and moving toward the complete annexation of Palestinian territory. This is a vote to permanently erase Palestinian political existence in Gaza.

22 Illegal Settlement Outposts Legalized in the West Bank

Israel retroactively legalizes 22 unauthorized settlement outposts — building permanent Jewish-only communities on stolen Palestinian land in direct violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its civilian population into occupied territory. Every major international legal body considers Israeli settlements war crimes. The U.S. continues to fund Israel regardless.

UN Two-State Conference

The United Nations convenes a global conference to revive the two-state solution as Israel continues its military operations in Gaza and the West Bank. For Palestinians, the two-state solution as currently discussed means accepting 22% of their historic homeland — after losing 78% in 1948. Many Palestinians and their advocates argue that nothing short of full rights, return, and sovereignty across historic Palestine constitutes justice.