By Dr. Marwan Emile Toubassi*
The fifty-ninth anniversary of the 1967 occupation passed only days ago, while the aggression against the Palestinian people continues and attempts to impose new realities on Palestinian land and across the region accelerate within broader projects of regional expansion and domination. After all these decades, it is no longer politically or historically accurate to reduce what occurred on June 5, 1967, to the term “setback” (Naksa). Nor is it sufficient to describe what the Palestinian people continue to endure as mere “violations” of international law.
What took place in June 1967 was not an event separate from the catastrophe of 1948. Rather, it represented the continuation of a settler-colonial and displacement project aimed at seizing Palestinian land and replacing its indigenous population with a settler society. Israel’s occupation completed its control over the remainder of historic Palestine, as well as other Arab territories, not as a temporary military occupation but as part of a political and ideological project designed to alter demographic and geographic realities and impose permanent facts on the ground through force.
Since then, the consolidation of this reality has never ceased. Settlement expansion was not a consequence of the occupation; it was one of its primary objectives. Likewise, the ongoing de facto annexation of Palestinian territory is not a deviation from the Zionist project but a natural extension of it. Over the decades, military occupation has evolved into a comprehensive colonial system based on land confiscation, settlement expansion, and the imposition of a discriminatory legal order grounded in Jewish supremacy, while denying the Palestinian people their national rights, foremost among them the right to self-determination.
In the occupied West Bank, these policies are manifested daily through settlement expansion, land confiscation, the legalization of settlement outposts, and the fragmentation of Palestinian towns and villages into isolated geographic enclaves. Measures designed to entrench Israeli control and alter the character and identity of the land have gone far beyond administering an occupation. They seek to complete the de facto annexation of large parts of the West Bank, as was done in Jerusalem, and to eliminate any possibility of a sovereign, geographically contiguous Palestinian state. The objective is not merely control over territory but the closure of the political horizon for Palestinian national rights and the imposition of a permanent reality that is increasingly difficult to reverse.
For this reason, the term “violations” is inadequate to describe what is taking place. A violation implies an exceptional breach of a legal norm. What exists today, however, is a settler-colonial system whose very existence and daily practices constitute a continuing crime against international law, the United Nations Charter, the Geneva Conventions, and numerous international resolutions. Settlement construction is a crime. Annexation is a crime. Forced displacement is a crime. Apartheid is a crime. The perpetuation of occupation and its transformation into a permanent reality is a continuing crime—not merely a series of isolated violations, nor a response to the Palestinian people’s legitimate right to resist occupation.
The ongoing war of destruction in Gaza has exposed the nature of this project more clearly than ever. Ethnic cleansing, the systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure, the targeting of the means of life, and policies of starvation, siege, and forced displacement all form part of an effort to impose a new reality upon the Palestinian people. Proposals concerning the “day after” and the future administration of Gaza raise legitimate concerns that the ultimate objective is to transform the Strip into “a land without people,” or with as few Palestinians as possible, thereby reproducing the policies of population replacement and ethnic cleansing that have accompanied the Zionist project since its inception.
In the same context, Lebanon has been subjected to repeated attacks, widespread destruction of infrastructure and civilian areas, and attempts to impose new security realities by force. Combined with military incursions and attacks across multiple regional arenas, these actions reflect a broader drive to expand Israeli security, political, and economic dominance, particularly over strategic resources such as gas and water. This confirms that the core issue is not a border dispute or a temporary security conflict, but rather a colonial project seeking to reshape the regional order in a manner that guarantees its continuation through a strategic partnership with the United States.
Despite the scale of the tragedy, recent years have also revealed deepening crises within Israel itself, a decline in its international standing, and growing criticism of its settlement and discriminatory policies, including from anti-Zionist Jewish circles. At the same time, there has been a growing international recognition of the Palestinian cause as a struggle for national liberation against settler colonialism rather than a political dispute to be managed indefinitely.
Yet these developments, however significant, will not automatically translate into national achievements. The challenge today is not merely to describe or condemn the crime, but to build a national strategy capable of utilizing available sources of strength, strengthening Palestinian resilience, rebuilding national unity and representative institutions, and advancing political, popular, legal, and diplomatic forms of struggle within a comprehensive vision of liberation.
The anniversary of June 5 should therefore not be treated simply as a remembrance of an occupation that began fifty-nine years ago. It should be an occasion to reflect upon an uninterrupted colonial process whose manifestations are visible today in the ongoing war against Gaza and its fragmentation, in annexation, Judaization, and settlement expansion throughout the West Bank, and in efforts to reshape Palestinian and regional realities through the U.S.-Israeli partnership.
Accordingly, the Palestinian national task extends beyond resisting the consequences of occupation or managing its effects. It requires a clear political will that understands international transformations and the power of peoples, and that develops a national liberation strategy capable of broadening popular participation through democratic methods, confronting colonial realities imposed on the ground, and defeating projects aimed at liquidating the Palestinian cause. The ultimate goal remains ending the occupation, dismantling settlements and apartheid structures, and achieving freedom, independence, the right of return, and self-determination for the Palestinian people on the basis of the unity of the land and the people.
*Member of the Advisory Council of Fatah Movement.
We remind our readers that publication of articles on our site does not mean that we agree with what is written. Our policy is to publish anything which we consider of interest, so as to assist our readers in forming their opinions. Sometimes we even publish articles with which we totally disagree, since we believe it is important for our readers to be informed on as wide a spectrum of views as possible.