Mar Yousuf K,
“Permission ˹to fight back˺ is ˹hereby˺ granted to those being fought, for they have been wronged.1 And Allah is truly Most Capable of helping them ˹prevail˺.”
— Qur’ān 22:39
From Palestine to Kashmir, the same imperial blueprint repeats itself: violent occupation masquerades as ~ security and order ~ whereas acts of resistance are miscast as terror. In each case, the call for “peace” demands silence from the oppressed, never justice from the
oppressor. The truth is this: the brutal machinery of imperialism does not merely aim to subjugate bodies; it seeks to conquer minds. It reframes the very terms of struggle, sanitising oppression, and weaponising language. For over 75 years, Palestinians have endured the relentless brutality of Zionist colonisation: stolen homes, expulsions, siege, and daily humiliations designed to break both body and spirit. Yet every time they rise to reclaim their dignity, the world demands they stand down for the sake of “peace.” This version of peace, championed by imperial powers and liberal elites alike, does not mean the end of injustice; it means the normalisation of oppression. It reframes quiet submission to colonial violence as coexistence, and surrender to occupation as the price of dialogue, enforcing what can only be called the violence of normalcy.
When the Al Aqsa Flood operation – a revolutionary explosion born of decades of dispossession and 16 years of brutal siege – erupted on October 7, world leaders clutched their pearls in unison and rushed to condemn the uprising, yet they had stood by in complicit silence as Israel massacred Palestinians and relentlessly seized more land, from Sheikh Jarrah to the rest of Palestine. Ceasefire was demanded not as a step toward liberation, but as a tool to return Gaza to the suffocating “normal”, where Palestinians died quietly, without making headlines.
This hypocrisy is reinforced by many lauded as progressive voices or symbols of solidarity who ultimately function as agents of normalisation. Greta Thunberg, an activist hailed as a hero by the le, for example, tweeted that she was “against the horrific attacks by Hamas” and “not against Israel or Palestine” but “any form of violence or oppression from anyone or any part” – as if the violence of an occupied people resisting ethnic cleansing can ever be equated with the colonial violence of their oppressor. Even her participation in the Freedom Flotilla, a small fleet aiming to break the siege, fell short of revolution. Led by white saviours more concerned with performative activism than dismantling Zionist colonisation, the coalition raised thousands upon thousands of dollars, not for direct aid to besieged Gazan families, but to pay for participants’ travel costs – funneling money that could have saved lives into something that served egos rather than liberation.
Similarly, NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani calls for a Free Palestine yet affirms Israel’s “right to exist” as a settler colony; the Hadids, who publicly identify as pro-Palestinian, repeatedly parrot calls for “peace” and “coexistence” without naming Zionism, colonialism, or Israel’s illegitimacy. Adding to this, countless so-called “anti-war” and “peace” organisations claim that the destinies of Palestinians and Israelis are “intertwined,” insisting they are fated to “live together” – a narrative that obscures the reality of colonisation and imposes coexistence on the colonised while absolving the coloniser. This notion is itself violent: it frames liberation as conditional on empathising with oppressors and denies Palestinians the right to full freedom on their terms. By presenting the conflict as a symmetrical struggle between two equal sides, these voices erase the fundamental asymmetry of power, reinforcing the lie that Palestinians and Zionist settlers share comparable culpability.
NGOs further institutionalise this normalisation and think tanks that hide Zionism’s crimes behind the language of peace. Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), for instance, presents itself as fiercely critical of Israeli policies, yet refuses to reject Israel’s so-called “right to exist” and consistently centers Jewish safety above Palestinian liberation. The Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP) plays both sides and funds both Palestinian and Israeli groups, promoting coexistence initiatives that normalise occupation rather than challenge it. The Alliance for Middle East Peace, also funded by FMEP, specialises in projects encouraging Palestinians to reconcile with settlers instead of resisting colonisation.
Seeds of Peace runs camps in the US where Palestinian and Israeli youth are brought together to “dialogue” – teaching Palestinians that their freedom depends on empathising with their coloniser rather than resisting him. Peace Now, an Israeli NGO, calls for settlement freezes but accepts the continued existence of Israel on stolen land. Meanwhile, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) publishes reports urging a pivot to a “rights-based solution,” which reduces Zionist colonialism to a mere humanitarian issue instead of the fundamental injustice it is, making Zionism more palatable under the guise of human rights talk while avoiding calls for dismantling the colonial project itself.
This same pattern is replicated among high-profile “leftists” who command platforms that could powerfully challenge Zionism but instead reinforce the language of peace over liberation. Cornell West, Jill Stein, and Jeremy Corbyn – figures hailed as progressive stalwarts – all repeatedly advocate for a “peaceful solution” while refusing to call Israel an illegitimate colonial entity or support Palestinians’ right to armed resistance. Their statements almost always affirm Israel’s right to exist, reducing Palestinian liberation to a conversation about reforms rather than dismantling an inherently violent settler colony.
For the coloniser, peace is defined as the absence of resistance, not the presence of justice. Kwame Ture put it aptly:
“There’s a difference between peace and liberation, is there not? You can have injustice and have peace, isn’t that correct? You can have peace and be enslaved. Peace isn’t the answer, liberation is the answer… that’s the white man’s word, ‘peace’, liberation is our word. You can’t have peace until everybody’s equal.”
By deliberately obfuscating peace with justice, imperial powers and their proxies preserve a violent normalcy disguised as order. They call for ceasefires to freeze oppression in place rather than dismantle it. They elevate controlled opposition who placate the masses, condemn Palestinian resistance while refusing to call for an end to the colonial system that necessitates it. They praise passive suffering but demonise active struggle – ensuring the oppressed remain victims, not revolutionaries.
“Whoever is in solidarity with our corpses but not our rockets is a hypocrite and not one of us.”
Peace simply cannot exist until the structures of colonial occupation are dismantled and the oppressed are free to chart their own futures without the gun barrels of settlers dictating their every move. Until we reject the imperial lie that equates peace with silence, and instead stand firmly for liberation, normalisation will continue to be the world’s favoured form of oppression. Resistance, not the pacification of the oppressed, is the path to real peace: a peace built on justice, not the fragile calm of a violently imposed “normal.”
Mar Yousuf K. is a writer exploring how politics and faith shape life in Occupied Kashmir and beyond, with contributions to local publications and community platforms.
