Yes, Jewish communities have historic ties to the land. That does not entitle a modern state to dispossess, expel or erase another population living there continuously for centuries. Palestinians are not a footnote. They are indigenous in every practical sense. They lived, farmed, birthed and buried generations on that land long before 1948.

If ancient ancestry is a legal claim, then the United States returns to Native Americans, Canada to First Nations, Australia to Aboriginal nations, New Zealand to Māori, and the Romans and Mongols would reorder continents. History does not grant perpetual ownership rights. Trauma does not justify new trauma.

Israel did not form in an empty space. The Nakba was not a peaceful return. It was ethnic cleansing supported by force. Over 500 villages destroyed. Over 750,000 Palestinians expelled. Keys carried by exiles who never saw home again.

Today, the Zionist regime has crossed from dispossession into genocide. Entire neighbourhoods flattened. Hospitals targeted. Journalists assassinated. Starvation used as policy. Families buried under concrete. This is not a conflict between equals. It is overwhelming military power used against a besieged civilian population, justified by a belief in ancient entitlement to land.

Here is the uncomfortable truth. Reasoning like yours is what sanitises violence. It is the logic that made this genocide possible. The belief that one people is entitled to another’s home because of ancient history is not reconciliation. It is supremacy.

Sympathy means nothing without recognition. Justice demands we call things by their name. Genocide is genocide. The right to life and home and future belongs to Palestinians as much as to anyone else.

Peace does not grow from compromise over stolen earth. Peace begins with truth, followed by rights, accountability and justice.