A POPULAR view by academics and politicians alike is that Hamas’s recent action of Oct 7 not only instigated Israel to exact the biggest ever death toll of Palestinians, even more than the Intifadas, but also undermined the peace process. However, this act did not take place in a vacuum. It was an act of resistance to the systematic state terrorism that Israel has been committing for decades against the Palestinian people.
For seven decades, Israel has used brutal force to suppress the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, guaranteed by UN Resolution No 181 of 1947, which had decided to partition Palestine into two states: one Arab, the other Jewish. On Oct 7, 1947, when the General Assembly of the newly formed United Nations was discussing the draft resolution, Pakistan’s representative, Sir Zafarullah Khan, built a strong case for the right of Palestinians to form an independent modern state on the lands on which they had lived for millennia.