People Recognise Need To Address Root Cause In Solving Palestine Issue: Panellists At GSF

Doha, Qatar: Panellists in a session at Global Security Forum (GSF) 2024 which is being held in Doha have said that people have started recognising that we must get to the root cause to solve the Palestine issue.

They noted that any act that tries to turn off Palestinian voices or exclude them is immediately challenged in the public realm with demonstrations on the streets, in the media, and courts.

They hoped that a credible legitimate government for Palestinians could resolve the conflict through intensive diplomacy.

The“The Implications of Gaza War and October 7th” session was moderated by Washington Investigative Correspondent of New York Times Mark Mazzetti.

The session began with the discussion about the October 7 attacks and its consequences and all the dynamics that have played out since then.

Participating in the discussion Lawyer and Legal Analyst, Former spokesperson for the Palestine Liberation Organization, Diana Buttu said that Palestine is now a place where the world's attention is returned.

“We see that capitals around the world, there are demonstrations against Israel's genocide and we see now that people are no longer looking at this through the lens of conflict management, but instead recognizing and understanding that we must get to the root cause, which is a 76-year denial of freedom of Palestinians,” said Buttu.

Columnist and Member of Editorial Board of Haaretz Gideon Levy said that Israel didn't gain anything from this war. “The situation of Israel today, after eight months of mass killing of thousands and tens of thousands of Palestinians, most of them innocent people, Israel is in its worst position ever,” said Levy.

“People who are fighting for the freedom of the Palestinians should realize that on October 7 there were crimes committed. But those crimes never will justify what Israel had done ever since then,” said Levy.

Director of Global Engagement, American University of Beirut, Rami Khouri said that social media now gives people all over the world an immediate eye into Gaza.

“The missing element is that the Palestinians don't have a government, a credible legitimate government, and this is something we have to resolve, which we will. But once that's done, I think we're going to find a really serious new phase of hopefully intensive diplomacy to resolve the conflict at its root causes that in a way is fair to everybody, and then we can firmly say that the colonial era has finally ended,” said Khouri. Writer and Filmmaker, Director of 'Looting the Holy Land' and 'Gaza Fixer 2', Mariam Shahin said that what happened as a result of October 7 is that the new generations woke up and realised that the old way did not work.

“Gazans were able to report first-hand. There were so many social media actors on the ground that were able to take us live into the areas being bombed into the hospitals and homes,” said Shahin. Senior Fellow and Director Middle East Security Program Center for a New American Security Jonathan Lord said:“The idea of a Palestinian state is not otherwise at odds with the idea of a functioning Jewish state.

“One can recognise Palestinian ambitions. One can recognise Palestinian suffering, one can seek a solution without the destruction of the other,” he said.

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