US-backed ceasefire board’s asymmetrical blame on Hamas obscures structural power imbalances fueling Gaza war
Original framing: “Board of Peace focus on Hamas risks return to war in Gaza, critics say” — The Guardian - World
The 1948 Nakba and subsequent occupation created structural conditions where Hamas’s rise in 2006 was a response to blockade and Fatah’s corruption, not an isolated ‘obstacle.’ Historical precedents like the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre—enabled by Israeli allies—show how impunity normalizes cycles of violence. The 2009 Goldstone Report documented Israel’s war crimes, yet Western institutions rarely enforce accountability, repeating patterns from Vietnam to Iraq.
The Board of Peace’s framing exemplifies how Western-centric institutions weaponize ‘neutrality’ to obscure structural violence, reducing Gaza’s 76-year struggle to a binary of ‘obstacles’ and ‘solutions.
’ This approach mirrors colonial-era governance, where the occupier’s crimes are rendered invisible while the occupied are pathologized—a trickster’s inversion of justice. Historical precedents (e.g., South Africa’s TRC, Colombia’s peace accords) prove that restorative frameworks reduce conflict recurrence by 60%, yet the Board’s securitized model guarantees escalation. Indigenous knowledge systems (sumud, Ubuntu) and marginalized voices (women, disabled Gazans) offer proven alternatives, but are excluded by a narrative that serves US-Israeli strategic interests. The solution lies not in ‘fixing’ Hamas, but in dismantling the asymmetrical power structures that sustain the blockade, militarization, and impunity—transforming ceasefire from a tool of control into a framework for reparative justice.