For more than seven decades, the global community has witnessed the repeated failure of peacekeeping and peace-imposing initiatives in occupied Palestine. Despite countless international resolutions, ceasefire proposals, and diplomatic interventions, peace remains elusive because the efforts are largely coercive, top-down, and externally designed. Palestine continues to exist as a stateless entity a fragmented and besieged society denied sovereignty and dignity. The tragic irony is that this ongoing humanitarian catastrophe arose from an initial act of compassion granting refuge to a people devastated and displaced by war in the West after WWII. Yet in resolving one historical injustice, another was created, leaving generations of Palestinians to live under occupation and siege. Over time, the use of the term “peace” has become rhetorical, often invoked to legitimize power politics rather than to promote justice and reconciliation. As Johan Galtung famously argued, peace imposed without justice merely reproduces structural violence the invisible systems of domination that perpetuate suffering.
Recent developments reaffirm this contradiction. In early 2024, more than seventy delegates at the United Nations voiced grave concern over what Secretary-General António Guterres called the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza. The debate reaffirmed that peace cannot be built through occupation, coercion, or unilateral control. Guterres emphasized that Israel’s persistent rejection of the two-State solution is “unacceptable” and that denying Palestinians their right to statehood endangers global peace and security. Council members, joined by the broader UN membership, called for an immediate ceasefire and unrestricted humanitarian access. Yet, the dominant frameworks remain fixated on managing violence rather than resolving its root causes. As the Jordanian and Palestinian representatives poignantly stated, the world faces two choices: “a spreading fire or a ceasefire.” However, ceasefires alone-especially those born of pressure rather than mutual understanding-cannot yield sustainable peace.
The proposed three-stage Gaza ceasefire plan of 2024 illustrates this paradox. While it includes humanitarian provisions such as the release of prisoners, limited reopening of key routes, and daily aid convoys, it still operates within an asymmetric power structure. Palestinians are asked to make major concessions-releasing captives, halting resistance, and accepting restricted mobility-without guarantees of sovereignty, justice, or permanent peace. Such arrangements, though seemingly pragmatic, perpetuate dependency and reinforce the occupier’s control. Sustainable peace requires not merely a cessation of hostilities but the dismantling of oppressive systems that sustain inequality and displacement.
By late 2024, the UN General Assembly’s adoption of three resolutions underscored this principle. The Assembly reaffirmed that peace “will never be achieved through force or occupation,” urging an end to the siege and recognition of Palestine as a full UN member. Yet Israel’s representatives dismissed these resolutions as biased, emphasizing Hamas’ violence while disregarding the structural realities of occupation. This selective narrative exposes the inherent flaw in threat-based diplomacy-it defines peace through the lens of security for one party while denying justice to the other. As Oliver Richmond and Roger Mac Ginty argue in Post-Liberal Peace theory, externally imposed peace processes often reproduce domination under the guise of order. They fail because they neglect local agency, historical context, and the moral dimensions of justice and equality.
The preparatory meetings for the 2025 UN Conference on the Two-State Solution, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, echoed similar frustrations. Leaders, including General Assembly President Philemon Yang, called for a move “from words to deeds,” warning that the horrors in Gaza demand urgent, concrete action-not another cycle of diplomatic rhetoric. Saudi and French envoys described the moment as historic, urging a credible political plan addressing root causes, including occupation and annexation. Yet even these appeals risk falling into the familiar trap of external mediation without transformation of power relations.
Ultimately, threats, coercive peace plans, and imposed solutions cannot produce sustainable peace, because genuine peace is inseparable from justice, consent, and equality. Peace born from domination breeds resentment and resistance. True reconciliation must emerge from dialogue rooted in mutual recognition and respect for human dignity. In the words of Galtung, positive peace arises only when oppression is replaced by cooperation, and fear is replaced by trust. Until the international community shifts from managing conflict to empowering justice, Palestine will remain a test of the world’s moral conscience-a reminder that peace enforced through power is not peace at all, but a continuation of war by other means.
