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Last week, amid a joint speech by American leader Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Israeli parliament, colleague lawmaker Ayman Odeh and I raised a sign urging the recognition of the Palestinian state. We were violently removed from the parliamentary assembly, revealing the fragile state of what's often portrayed as the "sole democratic state in the region". How can officials talk about Middle East peace while declining to recognize a people deprived of fundamental freedoms and entitlements under long-standing military control?

The Reality in the West Bank

Nowhere is the hypocrisy more apparent than in the controlled West Bank. There, words of peace sound distant and faint, while the frightening sounds of settler violence and intimidation persist loudly. More than 30 occurrences of settler aggression against Palestinian civilians have been documented since the unveiling of the Trump administration's peace proposal in September's end, including attacks, stealing of agricultural produce, and burning of cars and belongings.

Systematic Violence During Harvest Season

The rise in violence by colonists is deliberate. This time marks the start of agricultural harvesting. Beyond a vital economic activity, it represents an important social and cultural occasion that demonstrates endurance under occupation. Exactly for these reasons, year after year settlers target Palestinians during this crucial period. During the 2024 harvest period, human rights organizations recorded 113 distinct cases of violence, harassment, harvest-thwarting, or destruction to olive trees and crops by settlers and soldiers, which occurred on lands owned by 51 Palestinian communities, towns, and areas.

Israeli military seemed to have had a greater role in hindering the harvesting season

Yesh Din also found that "Israeli military appeared to have played a greater part in obstructing the harvesting season". In approximately 70% of instances where access to farmland was forcibly blocked, soldiers, border police officers, and settler security officials were actually present. They either directly stopped Palestinians from reaching and gathering their own lands, or neglected to stop settlers who threatened or assaulted them.

Government Backing for Colonization

This is no surprise, as the head of the colonists' political movement, Bezalel Smotrich, was named as an additional minister in the Ministry of Defence responsible for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories. In Umm al-Khair, for instance, a particular COGAT unit uprooted private olive trees of local residents, claiming missing documentation, but overlooked infractions by an unauthorized adjacent settler outpost. Last week, the Jerusalem district court ruled to stop all building work in the encampment, which was built on property seized by Israeli authorities and unlawfully transferred to settlers.

Annexation Ambitions and Global Response

In the controlled West Bank, settler terrorism is nothing but a instrument used by the government to pursue de-facto incorporation. Earlier this month, Smotrich led a procession of many of settlers in support of taking over the West Bank. He was quoted as saying, "We persist to take hold with our feet of the territory with many settlers, many champions, and hundreds of thousands of settlers who reside in this area of the territory ... we need to normalise it and make it eternal."

The colonists and their backers in the parliament are explicit about their motives and intentions. Why, then, do political leaders in the west hesitate from substantial sanctions and diplomatic measures? Smotrich was penalized by the UK in June, but the effect of the sanction has been minimal. He may not be permitted to go to the UK and visit the London's entertainment district, but he still enjoys the ministerial power to seize territories in the West Bank. Remarkably in the announcement of penalties, the British government emphasized they take place "in his personal capacity" only.

International Acknowledgment and Actual Situation

If the British administration recognizes the truth of colonist aggression and its grave implications on Palestinian existence, why does it still permit settlement produce to be sold in stores and shops in Britain? If the British leader is serious about recognition of Palestine as a sovereign entity, how come he permit the Israeli government to breach its sovereignty with such aggressive methods? Or was the recognition an empty tactic to shut down dissenting voices in the United Kingdom, a hollow gesture only to be realised in the rebranding of some cartographic representations?

Route Toward True Peace

A fair resolution must respect the basic rights of the Palestinian people for self-recognition, sovereignty, and liberty from occupation and siege. Only when each human being's dignity across the river and sea is honored can we truly say reconciliation has been achieved.

True peace requires an sovereign Palestinian nation alongside the Israeli state: this is the sole solution that has agreement among the international community, the Palestinian leadership, and the Israeli peace camp.

Trump may have inflicted pressure on the Israeli leader to stop the violence, but he probably only did so because the strain of his relationship with the isolated government of the Israeli PM had become too great. The mass protests across the globe for the freedom of Palestine, and the unwavering anti-government demonstrations inside Israel, are the actual factors behind this influence.

It is due to this massive public campaign that a truce has been signed, the captives released, and the people of Gaza can enjoy safeguard from annihilation. After the ceasefire agreement has been signed, it is crucial to keep maintaining this influence. The world has ignored to the atrocities in Gaza for many years; it must not repeat the same error in the West Bank.