In Defence of the People: Against the Power-Mongers Who Hold Them Hostage

Amidst the debris of contemporary headlines, one risks losing sight of a quiet yet enduring truth: ordinary individuals on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide are being devastated not only by bombs and blockades, but also by the ambitions of those who purport to lead them. It is time to state this with clarity and moral courage: Netanyahu and Hamas are reflections of authoritarianism. They are not opposites, but rather complementary agents of human suffering.
This is not to deny the vast asymmetry in power or resources between the two, but to name a shared logic: both operate through control, fear, and the suppression of dissent.
One governs through sophisticated weaponry, physical barriers, and the rhetoric of perpetual insecurity. The other enforces authority via religious absolutism, indiscriminate violence, and a cult of martyrdom. Both thrive on fear. Both are sustained by the dehumanisation of the other. And both have evolved into political apparatuses that no longer serve their constituencies, but instead exploit them.
Meanwhile, the cost is borne in flesh and futures. It is borne by Palestinian children buried beneath rubble and Israeli families fleeing to bomb shelters. It is borne in the erosion of trust, the destruction of dreams, and the bequeathing to younger generations of a reality in which peace is little more than a hollow phrase.
What is presently unfolding in Gaza and Israel is not a clash of civilisations, nor an intractable ethnic feud. It is a trauma loop—historical wounds deliberately manipulated into cyclical violence. The primary beneficiaries are those who wield power by exacerbating polarisation. The greater the fear, the tighter their grasp.
Netanyahu governs absent a moral mandate. Despite mass protests, legal challenges, and widespread internal dissent, he clings to office through alignment with far-right factions, judicial erosion, and strategic fear-mongering. His leadership has endangered Palestinians and simultaneously undermined Israel’s democratic fabric, betraying the aspirations of his own citizenry.
Likewise, Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people. While residents of Gaza endure bombardment and scarcity, Hamas leadership issues declarations from relative safety abroad—in Doha and London—far removed from the devastation their decisions incur. Their hold on power is not rooted in democratic legitimacy, but in repression, coercion, and the silencing of dissent.
Let it be unequivocally stated: to stand with the people of Palestine is simultaneously to stand with the people of Israel. It is to align with those in Tel Aviv and Gaza City, Ramallah and Haifa, who reject their conscription into cycles of hatred and loss. It is to stand with all who suffer under the weight of authoritarianism, irrespective of national affiliation.
What if solidarity with Palestinians were not construed as antagonism toward Israelis? What if resistance to Netanyahu’s militarism and Hamas’s dogmatism constituted an act of radical humanism? What if the real conflict were not between nations, but between those who seek to dehumanise and those who insist upon rehumanising?
There are Israelis who grieve for Gaza. There are Palestinians who grieve for Sderot. On both sides, families exist who, in the privacy of their anguish, quietly admit: "This is not the future we desire." Their voices are seldom heard, but they persist. They are the individuals who refuse to be drafted into ideological warfare.
From Israeli veterans in Breaking the Silence to Palestinian youth-led initiatives in the West Bank, resistance to violence exists—but it is systematically marginalised. These efforts are not naive; they are essential, offering the clearest path to a just peace.
To align oneself with these individuals is not to adopt a neutral stance. It is a form of resistance. It is to proclaim: "We repudiate your power games. We discern the machinery of your fear. We choose life, dignity, and justice over your exhausted ideologies."
This is not a call for false equivalency. It is a call for shared humanity. It is an insistence that both state violence and insurgent violence are cultivated in the same poisoned soil—the belief that security may be achieved through the subjugation of others.
It cannot.
We must cease offering moral cover to those who transform trauma into strategy. We must abandon the futile pursuit of identifying who "began" the violence, and instead interrogate who perpetuates it for gain. For both leaderships, continued conflict provides political capital, suppresses internal dissent, and justifies expansive control—thus perpetuating their dominance under the guise of protection.
This is not to offer naive solutions, but to insist that any future worth building must begin with the rehumanisation of those rendered voiceless by war and governance alike.
At long last, we must have the courage to be pro-human.
To stand with the people is to reject the self-serving narratives of those who claim to represent them, but who instead erase their hope, diminish their dignity, and imperil their future.