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Last Monday, amid a combined address by American leader Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Knesset, colleague lawmaker Ayman Odeh and I displayed a banner urging the acknowledgment of Palestine. We were violently removed from the parliamentary assembly, exposing the weak condition of what's frequently described as the "sole democracy in the Middle East". How can officials talk about regional peace while declining to acknowledge a population deprived of basic liberties and rights under long-standing occupation?

The Reality in the Occupied West Bank

Nowhere is the deceit more evident than in the controlled West Bank. There, talk of peace seem remote and weak, while the terrifying sounds of colonist attacks and terror continue strongly. More than 30 occurrences of settler aggression against Palestinian civilians have been recorded since the announcement of the Trump administration's 20-point plan in late September, including attacks, theft of crops, and torching of cars and belongings.

Systematic Violence During Harvest Season

The rise in settler terrorism is not coincidental. This period marks the beginning of harvest seasons. More than a vital economic activity, it represents an important social and cultural occasion that shows resilience under occupation. Exactly for these causes, annually settlers attack Palestinian farmers throughout this precious period. During the last year's agricultural period, human rights organizations documented 113 separate cases of aggression, intimidation, harvest-thwarting, or destruction to olive groves and crops by Israeli civilians and soldiers, which occurred on territories owned by 51 Palestinian communities, towns, and communities.

Israeli security forces seemed to have had a larger part in hindering the olive harvest

Yesh Din also found that "Israeli security forces appeared to have played a larger part in hindering the harvesting season". In about 70% of instances where entry to lands was forcibly prevented, soldiers, border police officers, and settler civilian security coordinators were actually on site. They either directly stopped Palestinian farmers from accessing and harvesting their own lands, or failed to stop colonists who threatened or assaulted them.

Political Support for Colonization

This comes as no shock, as the head of the colonists' political movement, Bezalel Smotrich, was appointed as an extra official in the Defense Ministry responsible for the territorial coordination unit. In one village, for example, a particular COGAT unit removed personally-owned olive trees of Palestinians, citing missing documentation, but overlooked infractions by an illegal nearby colonist encampment. Last week, the local court ruled to halt all construction in the encampment, which was built on lands seized by Israeli authorities and illegally transferred to settlers.

Annexation Ambitions and International Reaction

In the controlled West Bank, settler terrorism is nothing but a instrument used by the government to achieve de-facto annexation. Earlier this month, Smotrich headed a procession of many of settlers in support of taking over the West Bank. He was reported as saying, "We are continuing to establish presence with our feet of the Land of Israel with many pioneers, many heroes, and hundreds of thousands of settlers who live in this area of the territory ... we must to normalise it and make it eternal."

The colonists and their backers in the Knesset are clear about their motives and intentions. Why, then, do government officials in the Western nations hesitate from substantial penalties and diplomatic measures? Smotrich was penalized by the United Kingdom in the summer, but the effect of the sanction has been minimal. He may not be able to travel to the United Kingdom and tour the West End, but he still maintains the ministerial power to take territories in the West Bank. Remarkably in the declaration of sanctions, the British government emphasized they apply "personally" solely.

International Recognition and Reality

If the UK government recognizes the reality of settler violence and its grave implications on Palestinian existence, why does it still allow settlement produce to be sold in stores and outlets in the UK? If Starmer is genuine about recognition of Palestine as a sovereign entity, how can he allow the Israeli administration to violate its sovereignty with such aggressive methods? Or was the recognition an empty tactic to shut down dissenting voices in the United Kingdom, a hollow act only to be realised in the relabeling of some cartographic representations?

Route Toward Genuine Resolution

A just peace must respect the basic rights of the Palestinian population for self-determination, sovereignty, and liberty from occupation and siege. Only when every person's dignity across the river and Mediterranean Sea is respected can we genuinely declare peace has been achieved.

Genuine resolution requires an independent Palestinian state next to the Israeli state: this is the only solution that enjoises agreement among the global community, the Palestinian leadership, and the Israeli peace advocates.

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 Netanyahu had become excessive. The mass protests across the world for the liberation of Palestine, and the persistent anti-government demonstrations within Israel, are the actual factors behind this pressure.

It is thanks to this enormous civil movement that a ceasefire has been agreed, the captives freed, and the residents of Gaza can experience safeguard from annihilation. After the truce arrangement has been finalized, it is vital to continue maintaining this influence. The international community has ignored to the violence in Gaza for many years; it must not repeat the same mistake in the West Bank.