Some might view the conflict between Israel and Palestine as a war spanning over thousands of years with religious connotations and complexities beyond any scope of modern political compromise.

However, this pessimistic view is extremely misplaced. The streets of Jerusalem have always been pluralistic, catering to Christian, Jews, and Muslims alike, and all of them have considerable history based on this small piece of land.

The conflict is a product of 20th century policy making, where colonial mentality, imperial apathy, and a considerable amount of religious and racial bigotry gave birth to a nation founded with Zionist ambitions, while the people living there had no say in their own future and on the land they owned.

In order to recognise the plight of the Palestinians, the UN, an institution perpetuating and legalising the unjust act of Israel’s creation, established the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People in 1977.

The dichotomy of both establishing the Israeli nation whilst recognising the unjust nature of the fate of the Palestinians is the reason why some view the UN as a puppet of the imperialist powers of history. And the recent massacre observed in Palestine further exacerbated this perception.

Resolution 181 (II): The epitome of the colonial policy
As Europe destroyed itself over one magnomaniac’s actions, it soon realised that society within it needed much reform. The Jewish people, while living and assimilating in Europe for a millennia, never could feel welcomed by them.

Maybe the imperialist mentality failed to assimilate people from all walks of life, for a German-speaking Jew could not say proudly that he was German; same goes for the French and English. Perhaps, that is why Europe decided to expel them, this time with the veil of safety and promise.

Supporting such promises was a sect of Jewish intelligentsia, who, with their divine dogma and insatiable memory of the pogroms of European origins, thought that it would be best to get out of anti-Semitic Europe altogether. History would remember them as the forefathers of Israel, and early 20th century thinkers such as Theodor Herzl’s work would lead the political class of Judaism to look for a promised land beyond Europe’s borders.

It seemed that the European powers did lack economic agency but did not suffer from a lack of geographical influence. They were the colonial powers, and their competition, mainly the Asian giant and Middle Eastern empires, were all fragmented and devoid of any political ambition.

Therefore, it was easy for them to enact their will. By the year 1947, Palestine, freshly captured by the British Empire after WWI, was a prime destination. It held religious significance, and it was the land that was famously recognised as the promised land for the Jewish people.

However, how did the cosmopolitan, secular, and liberal Jewish elite suddenly find back their origins in the words of the Tawrah so conveniently is still a matter of reckoning; nonetheless, the educated elite supported and lobbied for a separate nation, and the so-called “world community”, consisting of only a handful of imperial countries with military might, decided the fate of the voiceless Palestinians. Britain was given the authority by the League of Nations “to establish in Palestine a national home for the Jewish people” while safeguarding the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities.

In 1948, with a population of 600,000 Jews and 1.9 million Arabs, a figure cited in the UN 1947 partition plan, the state of Israel was established. No matter what the current elite liberals spew out, and the endless narratives try to prove otherwise, this was the day that the plight of the Palestinian people truly started. A conflict not born of thousand-year-old religious hatred, rather a conflict born out of colonial minds sketching out maps over which they held no moral and ethical authority.

UN’s role and its incompetence
The International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People is observed on 29 November because the partition plan for Palestine was finalised on this date in 1947, and a year later Israel declared independence.

Right after the partition plan, the systematic exodus took place. Approximately 700,000–750,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes between 1947 and 1949 in what became Israel, and in the war of 1967, about 300,000–400,000 Palestinians were displaced from the West Bank and Gaza.

All this time, the UN played its usual role of containing itself in concern and letting the big guns take up the matter of peace. However, pressures were still active by the populations, those who were not blinded by fanaticism and could acknowledge reality without fear. By 1977, the UN felt the need to save face, and recognised 29 November as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, giving the world a subtle wink, confessing that there was a plight, and it needed recognition, and it was done so—the nude denial of responsibility at its peak.

Skirmishes and conflict followed throughout the decades, but still, no progress was made in recognising the Palestinian state. In 2025, after 58,573 fatalities, among which 17,921 were children, the world community felt the need again to recognise the plight.

In September 2025, France, Australia, and Britain all formally recognised the state of Palestine, removing themselves from the killing and washing their hands of any historical guilt, as it was them who famously gave Britain the exclusive authority to partition Palestine and make way for this genocide to take place. The ceasefire deal now in effect does not seem to be abided by the Israelis; food and shelter are still lacking, and a famine soon approaches the people in Gaza.

29 November therefore, holds so much historical burden of responsibility for the so-called liberal West. The UN, in the last two years, demonstrated its utter incompetence, and some might say irrelevance, in mitigating any conflict.

The UN failed to stop what the ICC itself termed genocide, another institution lost in obscurity.

The bleak future ahead
There is no reason to believe that the plight of the Palestinians is going to be resolved anytime soon. The Arab world, which committed itself fully to destroying Israel, is now bound by shared trade and are equal puppets to their master, the US.

International trade and modernity have forced the rest of the Arab world to become irrelevant in voicing any true opposition, and the political will to take action seems to be non-existent.

However, there is hope. Technology has blessed us with the voices we lacked in the 20th century. Israel could not continue to commit genocide because, in part, citizens of those Western liberal nations rose up as they, for the first time, witnessed genocide in high-definition cameras, and the perpetrators could not stop all these abundant cameras from recording, no matter how many journalists they had targeted.

It is incumbent on all of us to recognise the power we have in voicing opposition. As our political leaders lack the moral and pragmatic ideals, it is up to us to build pressure, to ensure that we stand on the right side of history, and we do not cave in to narratives distorting historical facts.

The facts are that this conflict is born out of colonial-era policies, and the reality is that without individual participation against oppression, the masters of colonial descent cannot be expected to change their ways.