by Dr. Dalal Saeb Erekat
On the fourth of June each year, Palestinians recall the last day before the war of 1967 — the day that preceded the Naksa (the Setback), the upheaval that reshaped the face of the region and ushered the Palestinian people into a new phase of military occupation that endures to this day. Fifty-nine years on, the Naksa appears not as a mere event of the past, but as a political, legal, and human reality whose repercussions continue to renew themselves in different forms across the Palestinian land.
The 1967 war marked a pivotal turning point in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and produced a clear body of international law embodied in United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. These resolutions affirmed a fundamental principle of international law: that the acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible, and that a just and lasting peace can be achieved only through ending the occupation and respecting the right of peoples to self-determination. For decades, these references formed the political and legal foundation of what later became known as the two-state solution — a proposal advanced by the international community along the lines of the fourth of June, while the Nakba of 1948 remains alive in the national memory, together with the displacement, the resulting refugeehood, and the seizure of land. By accepting the two-state solution, the Palestine Liberation Organization expressed its intent and its desire for a peaceful settlement through its acceptance of the right to self-determination for two states, regarded as the formula most widely accepted internationally for achieving security and peace for Palestinians and Israelis alike. Yet this solution today faces the gravest test in its history — not merely because political initiatives are absent, but because of the realities imposed daily on the ground and because of the ongoing settlement policy that erodes the solution geopolitically, without accountability.
Amid the outposts, the military checkpoints, the walls, the bypass roads, the settlement expansion, and the media, a reality takes hold that directly contradicts the very foundations on which the two-state solution rests. We thus witness a sustained attempt to impose sovereignty by force over land over which international law recognizes no Israeli sovereignty. From here, one must pause at the question of settlement, which has become the very heart of the crisis rather than its margin. The problem lies not only in the acts of violence committed by some settlers, grave as these are, but in the settlement enterprise in its entirety. Imposing sanctions on so-called “violent settlers” does not address the root of the problem, for Security Council Resolution 2334 was unequivocal in affirming that all Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, possess no legal legitimacy whatsoever and constitute a flagrant violation of international law.
For this reason, any serious talk of peace must begin from recognition of this legal truth. The two-state solution cannot be protected while the very land on which the future Palestinian state is meant to stand is being undermined. Nor can the international community demand that Palestinians believe in a political solution while the policies of de facto annexation, settlement, and the alteration of the demographic and geographic reality on the ground continue — all while Israel remains beyond the reach of accountability.
This year’s commemoration of the Naksa carries an even more painful dimension. Gaza still groans under annihilation, targeting, displacement, mass exodus, and an unprecedented humanitarian collapse. While the world is preoccupied with multiple crises, more than two million Palestinians endure a reality that must never be allowed to become normal, acceptable, or familiar to the human conscience. It is not normal for children to spend long months in tents or amid the rubble of their homes. It is not normal for humanitarian aid to be turned into an instrument of pressure or bargaining. It is not normal for schools, hospitals, universities, and civilian infrastructure to be targeted in a manner that places life itself under perpetual threat. Most dangerous of all are the temporary solutions, Israel’s seizure of the land, and the attempts to normalize this reality and treat it as ordinary or transitional — for the lessons of the past have taught us that temporary solutions become a permanent status quo under occupation.
Palestinians demand what any people in the world demands: freedom, dignity, security, and peace. The Palestinian is not against peace; rather, it is his long suffering that makes him most keenly aware of the value of genuine peace. But peace cannot be imposed through military force, nor through displacement, nor through managing the conflict ad infinitum. Lasting peace begins with justice, begins with ending the occupation, and begins with mutual recognition of legitimate national rights.
In this context, Gaza is not merely a humanitarian cause but a political and strategic one, bound up with the future of the entire region. Gaza is not a file separate from the West Bank, nor a temporary relief matter, but an integral part of the Palestinian land on which the independent Palestinian state is meant to stand. Any vision that treats Gaza in isolation from the West Bank and East Jerusalem only serves to entrench division and weaken the prospects for peace. Herein lies the Palestinian responsibility to represent the Palestinian people within a unifying, inclusive framework under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
The majority of the world’s states have recognized the State of Palestine, and the International Court of Justice, in its recent advisory opinion, affirmed the unlawfulness of the continued Israeli occupation and the necessity of ending it. Yet recognitions, statements, and UN resolutions are no longer enough. What is required today is to move from the stage of expressing concern, verbal and civil declarations, pretexts, and justifications of the status quo, to the stage of applying international law and holding accountable those who violate it — without exception or selectivity. For the persistence of impunity threatens not only Palestinian rights, but undermines the credibility of the international order itself.
Fifty-nine years after the Naksa, ending the occupation is not a Palestinian demand alone, but a necessity for regional stability and international security. Without an end to the occupation and settlement, and without preserving the unity of the Palestinian land between Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, the two-state solution will remain a mere political slogan, drifting ever further from reality.
If the world truly wishes to save peace and the two-state solution, it must first save justice — for peace is not built upon force, nor upon occupation, nor upon settlements and criminality, but upon recognition and respect for the right of peoples to self-determination, the ending of occupation and colonization, and the guaranteed enforcement of the law without selectivity.
* This article was first published in Al-Quds on 7 June 2026. It has been translated from Arabic into English by The Levant Files (TLF). The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of TLF.