One year after Hamas launched a string of terror attacks on Israel, much of Gaza lies in ruins and more than 40,000 Palestinians are dead as a result of the Israeli military response. The war shows no sign of stopping. This is part two of a double interview that reflects both Israeli and Palestinian perspectives on the crisis.
For most Palestinians, the 7 October attacks, and Israel's response, fit a decades-old pattern dominating their struggle for self-determination amidst ongoing Israeli blockades and military actions.
RFI spoke to Diana Buttu, a lawyer and former negotiator for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), about what the events of the past year mean for Palestinians – and what happens next.
Hamas attack, one year on - a view from Israel
RFI: What did the 7 October attacks by Hamas change for Palestinians?
Diana Buttu: Up until 7 October, Palestinians were going through a period of a very slow but systematic genocide. Since 7 October, it's still a genocide. It's just faster paced.
Nothing that was done on 7 October justifies this genocide. We are in a place and space where we should be looking at the perpetrator and ask whether this makes sense for them in the long term to continually live by the sword rather than understand that Palestinians deserve their freedom.
RFI: Did Hamas miscalculate when they launched the 7 October attack, given the relentless counter-assault by the Israeli Defense Forces that remains ongoing as we speak?
Diana Buttu: I don't think that they had a choice. No matter what Palestinians do, with the exception of remaining silent and accepting their fate of living in cages, it would have led to Israel doing what it's doing.
I look back over the course of the past 24 years, and with each and every passing year, for Palestinians, life was getting worse and worse. And Israel was able to get away with more and more.
RFI: How do you see a leadership emerging from the ranks of Palestinian politicians whenever this war is finally over?
Diana Buttu: Intellectually speaking, this happens through elections. We have plenty of leaders. Some of them are in prison, some of them are in civil society. Leaders will be chosen through elections and through actions on the ground.
But realistically, I say: let's look around and what has Israel done? It's assassinated leaders, whether those leaders are people who are in Fatah or in Hamas or in any of the political factions. There isn't one political faction where they haven't harmed or assassinated people.
"With each passing year, for Palestinians, life was getting worse and worse and worse."
Diana Buttu, Palestinian lawyer and former PLO negotiator
So the real question is not how a leader will be chosen, but whether the world is going to allow for there to be a leader in the first place, because Israel has been able to get away with assassinating people or imprisoning them.
Turkey joins South Africa's genocide case against Israel at ICJ
RFI: What role do international mediators like the US, the EU, the UN or Arab states have in stabilising this situation? Do you see a productive way forward?
Diana Buttu: The past decades show a lack of global leadership. In climate or political conflicts or wherever, we've yet to see a global leader who is able to stand up and have a backbone. Instead, they play these little games of manoeuvring back and forth.
It took weeks before the UN secretary general called for a ceasefire. It took months before any of the global leadership called for a ceasefire. The US vetoed the first attempt to have a ceasefire resolution. We could have spared thousands of lives if they hadn't vetoed it.
We are speaking at a time that is particularly sad and fragile for me, because just two days ago a friend of mine was killed. She's a journalist. Two daughters, a son, and she didn't need to die.
I've been looking over my diary over the course of the past year and just seeing place after place after place where there was a failed international community. Where my friends were killed, where they lost their houses. Where they were turned into refugees again.
And I just shake my head and say: really, nobody could come in? Nobody could stop this? It's just hitting me hard.
RFI: Much of public opinion in the West gradually changed from pro-Israel in the 1950s, '60s and '70s to more pro-Palestinian today. But this is not reflected in UN votes, where the US still supports Israel and most Western states abstain. How can Palestinians leverage this shift in opinion nonetheless?
Diana Buttu: When you look at what happened with the global anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa, one of the things that was really important was that the last country to stop supporting Apartheid South Africa was the United States. There was a global anti-Apartheid movement of boycott, divestment and sanctions. The same is already taking shape in Palestine.
It is not the same as in South Africa in in that the Zionist movement is certainly more entrenched, it's larger than the Apartheid movement was. But I still think that world public opinion is going to change things.
South Africa takes Israel to international court for 'genocidal' acts in Gaza
RFI: How do you see Gaza after the war?
Diana Buttu: I don't think there's going to be an "after". This is going to continue for quite some time. Hospitals have been bombed, teachers have been killed. Where are you going to send your child to school? Outside of Gaza. You want to have a job as an artist, a lawyer, you name it, that's not going to be possible in Gaza. So you're going to do it outside of Gaza.
[Israel's] plan has always been to make Gaza unliveable. Since 1948, they lived by the sword. And that will remain so until an Israeli Charles de Gaulle steps forward and says, enough is enough. But I don't think that they have any idea in mind other than them continuing to rule over our lives.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity
