LEFT to its own devices, Israel would never grant Palestinians their freedom.

In the past, some, whether ignorantly or not, claimed that peace in Palestine could only be achieved through “unconditional negotiations.”
 
This mantra was also championed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he cared enough to pay lip service to the “peace process” and other US-originated fantasies. Back then, he spoke about his readiness to hold unconditional negotiations, though constantly arguing that Israel does not have a peace partner.
 
All of this was, of course, “doublespeak.” What Netanyahu and other Israelis were, in fact, saying is that Israel should be freed from any commitment to international law, let alone international pressure.

Worse, by declaring that Israel has no Palestinian peace partner, the Israeli government has essentially cancelled the hypothetical “unconditional negotiations” before they even took place.
 
For years — in fact, for decades — Israel was allowed to perpetuate such nonsense, empowered, of course, by the total and unconditional support of Washington and its other Western allies.
 
In an environment where Israel receives billions of dollars of US-Western aid, and where it grew to become a thriving technological hub, let alone one of the world’s largest weapons exporters, Tel Aviv simply had no reason to end its occupation or to dismantle its racist apartheid in Palestine.
 
But things must change now. The genocidal Israeli war in Gaza should completely alter our understanding, not only of the tragic reality underway in Palestine, but of past misunderstanding as well.