You recognise Palestine now?
These atrocities are not hidden. They are streamed, reposted, dissected and debated in real time. This is not just violence. It is deliberate extermination.
WE are witnessing genocide in real time. Every day, the world scrolls past images of Palestinian children torn apart by airstrikes, their bodies wrapped in white shrouds, marked with names and numbers.
Families lie buried beneath the rubble. Unarmed civilians are shot while trying to reach food convoys.
Whistleblower accounts shared across international media and social platforms reveal a horrifying truth. Israeli soldiers and American security contractors hired by the aid organisation GHF have deliberately opened fire on Palestinians seeking food.
Despite the danger, thousands return to these sites daily, driven by starvation and the will to survive. Documented testimonies from parents and children witnessed soldiers shooting into panicked crowds scrambling for flour and powdered milk.
These atrocities are not hidden. They are streamed, reposted, dissected and debated in real time. This is not just violence. It is deliberate extermination.
Gaza’s universities have been flattened. Hospitals bombed. Aid convoys blocked. Food weaponised.
Amid this devastation, Western governments have chosen this moment to recognise the State of Palestine. To some, this might seem long overdue. In truth, it is a self-serving gesture meant to obscure decades of complicity.
Recognition now is not solidarity. It is a smokescreen, a political manoeuvre to distract from the fact that these same governments have armed, funded, protected and legitimised Israel’s system of apartheid and ethnic cleansing.
It will not stop the bombs, lift the siege, or restore the dead. It offers nothing concrete – only the insult of symbolic validation while genocide continues.
For decades, the West backed Israeli atrocities. It vetoed ceasefires, blocked investigations and supplied weapons with full knowledge of how they would be used. It condemned Palestinian resistance while excusing settler violence. Now, facing public scrutiny, it seeks cover in empty gestures.
This is not about affirming Palestinian rights. It is about salvaging Western reputations.
Worse, the Palestine being recognised is not the Palestine of return, dignity or liberation. It is a diminished vision: fragmented, occupied, disconnected from its diaspora.
A pseudo-state with no sovereignty, no mobility, no control. A construct designed to manage Palestinians, not empower them.
This is not liberation. It is containment. A move to satisfy international optics while preserving Israeli domination.
This pattern is not new. The Oslo Accords were sold as a path to peace but entrenched occupation. They dismantled the liberation movement and installed a managed authority stripped of power. While Israel expanded settlements and deepened apartheid, Palestinians were told to wait.
Recognition today follows the same logic. No consequences for Israel. No enforcement of law. No end to occupation.
A recent letter from British lawyers and parliamentarians to the Attorney Generalclaims Palestine does not meet the Montevideo Convention’s statehood criteria. This is not a genuine legal objection. It is legal theatre designed to justify delay.
Palestine has a permanent population, diplomatic presence and recognition from over 140 United Nations member states. The International Court of Justice has affirmed the Palestinian right to self-determination. Disputed borders and divided governments have never disqualified other states.
Invoking Montevideo now is hypocrisy – legal cover for political cowardice.
This has always been the West’s playbook on Palestine: deny, delay, deflect. And when faced with undeniable atrocity, offer symbols instead of action.
Recognition without justice is empty. Recognition in the midst of genocide is worse than hollow. It is an insult.
Palestinians do not need validation from those who denied their existence and funded their destruction. They need freedom. The return of their stolen land. An end to siege, displacement and apartheid.
They do not need pity. They need justice.
Genuine recognition would come with sanctions, arms embargoes, international prosecutions, reparations, and a full withdrawal of diplomatic cover at the UN and the International Criminal Court. None of that is being offered.
Instead, the world is asked to applaud symbolism while Gaza is turned to ash.
This is not a moral awakening. It is a crisis of credibility. Recognition is not an act of conscience. It is an attempt to rewrite the narrative before history renders its judgment.
Palestinians have endured every form of violence – military, structural, rhetorical, legal. They have been displaced, demonised, erased. And still they resist, with clarity, dignity, and courage.
They do not need to be made real by those who once denied their existence.
Palestine is not an idea. It is a people, a homeland and a struggle that has always existed.
We live in a world where genocide unfolds in the palm of our hand, live-streamed and normalised. But to say the world has only watched is not enough.
Across cities and campuses, from Malaysia to Johannesburg, people have marched, disrupted, occupied, and demanded justice. They have filled streets with Palestinian flags, called for ceasefires, and exposed the complicity of governments and institutions.
These protests matter. They prove that while states perform diplomacy, conscience belongs to the people. The calls for boycott, accountability, and liberation are not coming from parliaments.
They are coming from below.
Even this global resistance has been met with repression. Students have been arrested. Workers fired. Protesters surveilled and smeared. The violence does not only fall from warplanes. It is also enforced through policies, headlines, and handcuffs.
In this context, recognition is not a breakthrough. It is a strategy to pacify protest, not to respond to it.
To witness and do nothing is complicity.
To witness and rise up is solidarity.
But solidarity must not end with protest. It must demand the dismantling of every structure that makes genocide possible.
Recognition without reparations is betrayal.
Recognition without freedom is fiction.
Recognition without dismantling Israeli apartheid is not justice. It is camouflage.
Palestinians do not need recognition to be real.
They need to be free.
Siti Nurnadilla Mohamad Jamil is a linguist and discourse analyst. Her research focuses on language, ideology, and the legitimisation of violence in media and political discourse. She is currently a Visiting Researcher at Lancaster University and an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the International Islamic University Malaysia. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Sinar Daily.
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