When the international community’s absolutes lead to genocide

When anyone from the international community deems a purported solution as the only viable option for Palestine, it must be immediately assumed the contrary is applicable. For years, the UN and world leaders have affirmed the two-state paradigm as the only solution, with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres qualifying it further as “There is no Plan B”.

Now, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has endorsed US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan as “the only game in town”. Speaking to The New Yorker editor in chief David Remnic, Clinton stated, “Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza is actually a pathway to security for Israel, reconstruction for Gaza and the possibility of self-determination, however defined for the Palestinians.”

Neither the two-state paradigm nor Trump’s 20-point plan have achieved anything remotely resembling self-determination for Palestinians.

The 1947 Partition Plan trampled over self-determination to pave the way for Zionist colonialism. Ultimately, the two-state paradigm contributed to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, while Trump’s 20-point plan facilitates Israel’s military occupation and colonisation of Gaza. In both cases, Israel’s territorial theft of Palestinian territory was guaranteed by the international community. 

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However, the near-absence of Palestinians from their political trajectory makes it easy for Western leaders and institutions to pass off such statements as absolutes. Little is said in terms of how central the two-state paradigm and the 20-point plan are to Palestinian loss of land and lives. Despite the entirety of reports on international law violations, the two-state paradigm is never truly challenged and, on most occasions, it is endorsed. If not endorsed, reports do not link back to how the two-state paradigm facilitates Israel’s colonisation of Palestinian land. Therefore, international law violations happen in a vacuum that are linked only to the legislation, but not to the politics supporting the violations. 

Indeed the two state paradigm and the 20-point plan for Gaza seem to operate on the future absence of the Palestinian people. Years ago, the concept of two states was declared obsolete.

The 20-point plan leaves much room for manoeuvre as has been seen with Israel’s colonial expansion, marked by the Yellow Line and the Orange Line. With colonial expansion comes forced displacement – an identical feature in Gaza and the occupied West Bank through different processes. In Gaza, it was swifter through genocide.

Without addressing genocide, or how both plans collude with genocide, Palestinians remain in a murky area of debate, excluded from politics except as political pawns in a process that only suits Israel and the international community. The only part that is true in the international community’s praise of both plans is Israel’s security, but not one single world leader will admit that Israel’s security is founded upon the ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian people. Not a word will be uttered about the fact that securing the Zionist colonial project, even before Israel was established, required the obliteration of Palestinian self-determination. Of course genocide was the easiest process for Israel to commit in Gaza; the groundwork had been laid decades ago. 

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