Israel, Gaza and the Politics of Palliative Peace: Colonialism, (de)mobilization and why the Two-State Solution is made to Fail

ABSTRACT

Western media and politicians often describe the unprecedented devastation since October 7th uncritically accepting three notions. First, that Arab governments vigorously oppose Israel’s actions. Yet, despite the Palestinian question being central to their domestic politics and despite energy suppliers’ leverage over energy-insecure Western states, Arab regimes have issued little more than stern statements. Second, while Israel justifies its violence claiming it will eliminate armed groups and armed resistance per se, scholarship shows this strategy produces the opposite effect. Third, although ‘two-state solutions’ are presented as the only realistic pathways to peace, since 1978 they display similar structures and fail in similar ways, raising the question of why policymakers insist on a failing strategy. This contribution sketches how key characteristics of the Palestine/Israel question’s colonial roots and post-independence regimes’ strategies of power explains these contradictions and how they lead to ‘palliative’ peace processes which defer structural solutions rather than advance them.

KEYWORDS:

• Palestine
• Israel
• colonialism
• authoritarianism
• positive peace
• negative peace

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Nicola Perugini, Daniela Huber, Virgilio D’Antonio, Osama Diab, Mariangela Masullo, Maria Elena Paniconi, Martina Biondi, and Gennaro Gervasio for feedback on earlier versions. I am also grateful to Eugenio Cusumano and to two anonymous reviewers for constructive feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The only country to formally request joining South Africa’s petition is Nicaragua, on 08 February 2024; https://www.icj-cij.org/case/192; last accessed 09 February 2024. Other countries have expressed support or the intention to petition the Court to join one side or another, but none have yet done so.

2. Early statements also went far beyond the simple neutralization of Hamas and into language of collective punishment and elimination targeting Gazans and Palestinians as groups, as extensively documented by South Africa’s ICJ filing, Lawyers for Palestine, Accountability Archives and other documentation/mapping efforts.

3. Such processes also accept the ‘land for peace’ paradigm, subverting international law insofar as this would require ending occupation to precede negotiations, since acquisition of territory by force and negotiations under threat of violence are prohibited. I am grateful to Daniela Huber for this reminder.