When Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stood before a map marking four-fifths of the West Bank for annexation, he did more than unveil a policy plan — he exposed, with startling candour, the logic that has always driven the Zionist project: maximum land, minimum Palestinians. His declaration that it was time to “apply Israeli sovereignty to Judea and Samaria” was not a political innovation. It was the latest iteration of a century-long campaign to erase Palestine and the Palestinians from geography, from politics, and from memory.

This campaign did not begin in 2025. It was rooted in the Nakba of 1948, when over 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homes, their villages destroyed, and their land confiscated. The Naksa of 1967 extended this process as Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights, displacing hundreds of thousands more. Decades of settlement expansion, home demolitions, and restrictions on movement have turned the West Bank and Gaza into laboratories of occupation, testing walls, checkpoints, drones, and digital surveillance — instruments of a modern colonial state.

In September 2025, when the Knesset advanced the first reading of a bill to annex the West Bank, it was not legislating new rights but legalising an old crime. The illusion of democracy — the façade of “votes” and “laws” — merely masks the machinery of dispossession. Every settler colony has cloaked its violence in the garb of law; every empire has found bureaucrats to justify its theft. Armed settlers roam with impunity through Palestinian villages while Israeli occupation forces provide protection, sanctioning patterns of dispossession and killings. Meanwhile, the siege of Gaza, the walls that divide villages, and checkpoints that cage entire cities underscore the brutality of occupation.

Palestine is not a story of isolated calamities. It is a process — ongoing, violent, adaptive. Israel is not merely occupying land; it is perfecting control. Palestine has become a laboratory of modern colonisation — a testing ground for technologies of domination later exported to other regimes of oppression. From training death squads in Latin America to arming apartheid South Africa, from providing intelligence to authoritarian regimes to policing black and brown bodies globally, Israel’s expertise in control has become one of its most profitable exports.

Colonialism today is not only about soldiers or settlers; it is about systems and structures. Banks that fund illegal construction, corporations that build on stolen land, universities that legitimise the apartheid narrative, and international trade networks that sustain the occupation all interlock with military might to enforce dispossession. It is an economy of oppression, in which profit and power intersect to keep a people stateless. The complicity is global, but so too must be the response. The same financial and political architecture that props up Israeli apartheid also underwrites the broader imperial order — one that impoverishes the Global South, fuels endless wars, and deepens global inequality. To speak of decolonising Palestine is, therefore, to speak of decolonising the world.

Condemnations, resolutions, and rhetorical gestures are no substitute for justice. For seventy-five years, international institutions have treated Palestine as a humanitarian crisis rather than a colonial condition. Yet Palestine is not a tragedy to be managed; it is a people demanding liberation. Decolonisation is not a metaphor. It is a material, political, and moral project — the restoration of land, the reclamation of sovereignty, and the dismantling of the systems that make occupation possible. To decolonise Palestine is to affirm that indigenous people anywhere — whether in Africa, Asia, or the Americas — have the right to live free from domination.

For the Islamic world, this is not merely a geopolitical issue. It is a moral imperative. The Qur’an reminds us: “And what is [the matter] with you that you fight not in the cause of Allah and [for] the oppressed among men, women, and children?” (4:75). The struggle for Palestine is the struggle against the logic of empire — economic, political, and spiritual. True solidarity lies not only in prayer or protest but in constructing an alternative moral economy — one that prioritises justice over profit, dignity over domination, and human life over capital.

The question before us is no longer whether Palestine has been stolen — that theft is plain. The question is whether it will be decolonised. Whether humanity will continue to normalise a system of apartheid under the guise of diplomacy, or finally muster the courage to confront and dismantle it. The future of Palestine is not only about borders on a map. It is about the very meaning of justice in our time.

And so we must act, think, and speak boldly — not tomorrow, not next year, but now. To support justice in Palestine is to support justice everywhere. To build a moral economy that protects the oppressed is to reclaim the dignity of our shared humanity. The time to choose sides is here, the time to refuse complicity is now, and the time to dream of decolonisation is ours to seize — with courage, with conviction, and yes, with hope and smiles.

Footnote:

AFRIEF Webinar — “Palestine: Stolen or Decolonised?”

The Africa Islamic Economic Forum (AFRIEF) will at the end of this month host a two-hour virtual webinar exploring the political economy of Palestine, the structures sustaining occupation, and pathways toward decolonisation. The session will convene scholars, policy experts, and economic thinkers to examine how ethical finance, international solidarity, and moral economic principles intersect with the struggle for Palestinian sovereignty. This webinar underscores AFRIEF’s commitment to fostering informed dialogue on justice-oriented economics and highlights the critical moral and financial dimensions of the Palestinian struggle.

Across the continent, elections have become coronations. From Tanzania to Guinea, power is recycled through manipulation, courts, and guns — not consent. The price is paid in instability, poverty, and the erosion of public trust.

In the language of politics, democracy in Africa still thrives — on paper. Constitutions proclaim it, parliaments echo it, and electoral commissions ritualize it every few years. Yet across much of the continent, the ballot box has been emptied of meaning. What we now witness is not popular sovereignty but political theatre — a choreography of control disguised as democracy.

In Tanzania, the October 2025 election returned President Samia Suluhu Hassan with nearly 98 percent of the vote. It was a landslide that few outside her ruling party regarded as credible. Opposition figures were jailed, disqualified, or chased into exile; journalists were muzzled; protests were crushed with curfews. What should have been a test of public confidence became a coronation of continuity.

In Cameroon, 93-year-old Paul Biya — in power since 1982 — claimed yet another term amid allegations of rigging and intimidation. His presidency has now outlasted every U.S. administration since Ronald Reagan’s, a living symbol of how power in Africa often turns into private property.

In Côte d’Ivoire, Alassane Ouattara re-engineered the constitution to justify a third term in 2020, and reports suggest he may seek a fourth. Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni continues to rule through a blend of security coercion and constitutional tinkering. Nigeria’s democracy is plagued by mass defections into the ruling party and endless litigation — it is now common to hear that “the courts, not the people, decide elections.”

And now, Guinea, where a coup-born junta leader who once promised a return to civilian rule has banned opposition parties yet announced that he himself will run for president. The farce completes the circle: military seizure of power followed by civilian pretense of it.

These are not isolated incidents. They are symptoms of a continental crisis — a collapse of accountability masked by the ritual of voting. Freedom House notes that two-thirds of African countries have declined in democratic performance over the past decade.

“What we now witness is not popular sovereignty but political theatre — a choreography of control disguised as democracy.”

The consequences are not only moral but material. When elections are stolen, economies bleed. Investors retreat; risk premiums rise; capital flees to safer ground. The World Bank estimates that countries with high political-risk ratings pay 1.5 to 2 percent more in borrowing costs, diverting billions from public investment. In countries where opposition is crushed, tax collection averages below 15 percent of GDP, limiting funds for health, education, and infrastructure. Patronage replaces policy; loyalty outweighs merit.

Tanzania’s current growth — officially around 5.4 percent — hides deep structural weakness: a narrow tax base, youth under-employment, and rural stagnation. Nigeria, despite oil wealth, has the world’s third-highest number of poor people. Uganda’s debt-to-GDP ratio has doubled in a decade. Cameroon’s infrastructure projects stall under corruption investigations. The economics of impunity is the most expensive policy Africa can afford.

Islamic economics offers a corrective lens. Its pillars — shūrā (consultation), ʿadl (justice), amānah (trust), and maslahah (the public good) — demand stewardship, not survivalism. The Qur’an commands: “Indeed, Allah commands you to render trusts to whom they are due and when you judge between people, judge with justice.” (4:58). Leadership is an amanah, a sacred trust — not a perpetual entitlement. When rulers rewrite constitutions, muzzle dissent, or militarize elections, they betray that trust before both man and God.

“The Qur’an commands justice — yet Africa’s rulers rewrite constitutions to serve ambition, not accountability.”

The remedy begins with constitutional honesty: no resets, no endless tenures. Regional bodies must treat the manipulation of term limits as seriously as coups. Election commissions need budgetary and legal independence. Courts must be guardians of justice, not instruments of incumbency. Campaign finance must be transparent, and the security forces must serve the law, not the ruler.

Economically, Africa must delink growth from graft. Fiscal reforms, fair taxation, and decentralised opportunity can only thrive under rule-bound governance. No sustainable development is possible where fear governs the ballot box.

The deeper change, however, must come from within society — from faith leaders, educators, business people, and journalists who refuse to normalise tyranny. In Islam, silence in the face of injustice is complicity. The Prophet ﷺ said: “The greatest jihad is a word of truth spoken to a tyrant ruler.” Africa needs that word now more than ever.

Democracy, stripped of justice, becomes decoration. Economics, stripped of ethics, becomes exploitation. For Africa to heal, it must return to first principles — of justice, consultation, and stewardship — where power serves the people, not the other way around.

The ceasefire in Gaza arrives as a fragile, much-needed pause in a conflict whose human toll is unconscionable. When US President Donald Trump strode into the Knesset to deliver a grandiose speech, declaring that an “age of terror and death” had ended and a “new Middle East” was dawning, the spectacle was unmistakable. He was met with repeated standing ovations, as Israeli lawmakers cheered a narrative of victory, peace, and redemption. The symbolism was powerful — but so were the silences.

In that speech, Trump cast himself as the broker of a “grand concord” and invoked hope, faith, and regional harmony. But the Knesset address also contained significant omissions. He celebrated the hostages’ return and Israel’s security gains, yet offered only a vague commitment to the future of the Palestinians. His references to Palestine and Gaza were implicitly limited to reconstruction, oversight, and “transition,” not sovereignty or rights. When challenged over whether he supported a two-state arrangement, his reply was noncommittal: “We’ll have to see,” he said, leaving the question unresolved.

From the Knesset, Trump flew to the Sharm el-Sheikh summit, where world leaders gathered to sign a “Trump Declaration for Enduring Peace and Prosperity.”  That summit carried pageantry: dozens of heads of state, media spectacle, and a shared demand for reconstruction, aid flow, and guarantees of security. Yet the core combatants — Israel and Hamas — were absent, casting a shadow over whose peace was being declared. The signed document is ambitious but ambiguous, with promises of governance, oversight, and transition rather than full statehood for Palestine.

The political theater raises a critical question: is this ceasefire a genuine pivot toward a just resolution — or a new façade masking the old status quo? The question of a two-state solution is central. For decades, that model has served not just as diplomatic convenience, but as the only structure with any chance of reconciling Palestinian self-determination and Israeli security in a sustainable way. The newly revived Gaza peace plan seeks to revive the two-state vision as part of US bipartisan policy. But in practice, the plan’s text and political maneuvering leave room for stalling, backtracking, or co-optation.

Trump’s reluctance to fully endorse Palestinian statehood, and the absence of strong enforcement mechanisms in the summit agreements, suggest that the two-state ideal remains secondary to the optics of peace. A transition government might be installed in Gaza, international oversight may be arranged, and reconstruction funds mobilized — but without a guaranteed political pathway to sovereignty, the structural injustice remains. The Palestinian Authority has been mentioned in background discussions, but its role remains marginal rather than central in these declarations.

It is not enough to declare that “war is over” or that “a new Middle East” is beginning. The measure of this moment lies not in ceremonial speeches, but in commitments to accountability, rights, and empowerment for the oppressed. Israel’s military withdrawal must be more than symbolic; it must restore Palestinian control over territory, infrastructure, water, and resources. Reconstruction contracts should not favor external actors or perpetuate dependency. Aid must be tied to governance reforms, justice, and local capacity—not just bricks and mortar.

From an Islamic perspective, the principles of adl (justice), ihsan (excellence in moral conduct), shura (consultation), ta‘awun (cooperation), and maslahah (public welfare) demand that peace be more than quiet. The Palestinian people’s right to dignity, property, political voice, and movement cannot be relegated to footnotes.

In the end, the Ceasefire + Summit narrative will test the sincerity of global actors: will they insist that statehood, rights, and justice become nonnegotiable terms—not optional appendices—to any peace plan? Or will peace be permitted only so long as it maintains asymmetry, control, and exclusion?

This is not a time for complacence or political theater masquerading as reconciliation. The Muslim world, the international community, and civil society must demand that the two-state promise be not just revived, but enforced and made real. Only then can the echoes of the Knesset spectacle and the Sharm el-Sheikh stage become preludes to genuine redress, dignity, and enduring peace.