Editorial

On 29 November 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) adopted Resolution 181(II) with the Partition Plan that would become the solution endorsed by part of its members for the situation in Palestine, which was already boiling. The native Palestinian people had rejected the idea of dividing the territory, because they understood the Zionist movement, which advocated the creation of a Jewish State, as a colonial project supported by the interests of the imperial power, the United Kingdom, as documented in the reports of the Commissions of Inquiry of the British Mandate. Still, the State of Israel was established in 1948, in a violent process that the Palestinians have named the Nakba - or Catastrophe, in Arabic -, which resulted in the destruction of about 500 villages, the death of approximately 15,000 people, the forced displacement of over 750,000 and, today, more than six million refugees, according to the UN. The neighbouring countries reacted by invading the territory, resulting in the Arab-Israeli War (1948-1949), the first of a long list of armed conflicts in the region. Among them, the War of 1967, which allowed Israel to establish a military occupation of other Palestinian and Arab territories, is especially relevant for our understanding of the current situation. Since then, Israel’s expansion of settlements and its regime of control and apartheid have lasted for decades, with very high levels of constant violence, even during periods when its acute, armed manifestation is not captured by Western media. The dispute for the narrative is not disconnected from the hierarchy of the international system – and its echo in the national and international media – undervaluing some lives vis-à-vis others.

On 7 October 2023, Hamas and other groups invaded Israel, taking down the barrier that encloses the Gaza Strip, in an action that culminated in the deaths of about 1,200 Israelis and the capture of over 200 hostages, according to Israeli and UN sources. The reaction of the Israeli government was to declare yet another war on the Palestinian enclave – the fifth of large dimension since 2006. The year already counted over 200 Palestinian deaths and 30 Israeli deaths between January and August, a record high since the UN started registering them in 2005, as well as in the building or regularisation of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, with over 14,000 new housing units approved. In a context of huge vulnerability, this war has caused such a high level of destruction and death in Gaza that it has been very challenging to keep track of and to update. Approximate numbers point to about 15,000 people killed in just the first two months in Gaza, amidst a population of 2.2 million, and over 200 Palestinians killed in the West Bank by Israeli soldiers and Israeli settlers, according to Palestinian and UN sources. This is the same number of fatalities initially registered by the Nakba, which gives this data great historical significance. Five months into this offensive and the number of fatalities doubled to over 30,000 Palestinians, including 13,000 children. The UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese thus stated that this is not a “war”, but rather “genocide as colonial erasure”. Twenty months into it, and the number of fatal victims surpasses that of 54,000 people, while the UN and Palestinian and international organisations denounce Israel’s use of hunger and the instrumentalisation of humanitarian assistance as weapons of war, which makes children especially vulnerable, according to the World Health Organisation. In addition to the Palestinian organisations that had been demonstrating it with evidences and testimonies, in recent months, a coalition has been forming of scholars in the fields of genocide and Holocaust studies, together with humanitarian organisations operating in Gaza, who argue that the acts committed by Israel meet the constitutive elements of the legal definition of genocide.

We have reached such an extreme point also because, throughout the last seven decades, the power asymmetry evinced by the predominance of their narrative on the international stage has privileged, indelibly, the prominence of the Israeli over the Palestinian interests and perspective. The duration and intensity of the violence have also fed polarised positions that render certain voices, dynamics, and analytical nuances invisible. The well-known phenomena of propaganda and disinformation have escalated tensions and prevented, as well, the construction of bridges and a just peace in the region. In addition, the clear inability of international institutions, such as the UN, to promote peace and self-determination, as well as the deliberate policy of actors such as the United States of America and European states have contributed to a situation of abandonment of the Palestinian people in favour of Israel that has lasted seven decades.

This archive aims to contribute to recovering part of the history and memory of the dynamics of violence, oppression and struggle for self-determination in Palestine, encouraging an understanding of the impacts of their legacy, as well as a reflection about the prospects of the promotion of justice and peace in the region. The archive offers resources such as scholarly literature and historical documents, suggestions of films, videos, podcasts, news websites, varied studies, a section on discussions of different positions in a round-table format, and an engaged contribution by CES researchers, including articles, theses, interviews, events, photographs and other resources of internal production. These resources will be published periodically, building a live source committed to contributing to an informed debate about pathways to peace in Palestine and Israel.
 

Moara Assis Crivelente, Teresa Almeida Cravo and Sofia José Santos

June 5, 2025