By Alpha Amadu Jalloh
Palestine is a land of the Bible, the Qur’an, and the Torah. It is a land steeped in faith, reverence, and divine history. But beyond the holy texts, beyond the prophets and the miracles associated with it, Palestine has become a land where men imposed their greed, selfishness, and colonial arrogance. The British, the Americans, and all of Europe with the silent complicity of us who stood by participated in or condoned a great injustice: the dispossession of a people. Today, the people of the Bible, the Qur’an, and the Torah, the Palestinians, have been dissipated into almost nothingness, displaced, humiliated, and made strangers on their own soil.
It is a question that pierces the conscience of humanity: how come men and women calling themselves Jews, whose parents originated from Ukraine, Poland, Russia, Germany, and whose children were born in Argentina, America, and elsewhere across the world, can suddenly lay claim to a land they have never tilled, never watered, never buried their dead in, and never nurtured with their sweat? What divine right, what moral authority, what historical justice allows such a claim?
Those currently occupying the land of the Palestinian people, calling it Israel, are living on stolen land, drinking stolen water, eating stolen fruits, and building their futures on the ruins of another people’s existence. They are, in truth, living a stolen life.
│ “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed.” – Isaiah 10:1-2, The Bible
To understand this tragedy, one must revisit history. Palestine did not disappear overnight, nor did Israel simply appear as a gift from heaven. It was carved out of colonial deceit and Western complicity. In 1917, the infamous Balfour Declaration set the stage. Britain, an imperial power with no moral or legal claim to Palestine, promised a homeland for the Jewish people on land already inhabited by Palestinians. Imagine a neighbor gifting your house to a stranger while you are still living in it. That was the crime of Balfour.
The Jewish immigration into Palestine accelerated after the horrors of the Holocaust. The suffering of European Jews at the hands of the Nazis was immense, undeniable, and unforgivable. But Europe, instead of confronting its guilt and finding a solution within its borders, decided to export the problem. Rather than compensate Jews with German or Austrian land, the very countries that persecuted them, Europe pushed them into Palestine, a land that already had a people, a culture, and a history.
Thus, the Palestinians became victims twice over: victims of Europe’s genocidal hatred and victims of Europe’s “solution” to its own crimes. The Holocaust was a European crime, but Palestine has paid the price.
│ “And do not consume one another’s wealth unjustly or send it [in bribery] to the rulers in order that [they might aid] you to consume a portion of the wealth of the people in sin, while you know it is unlawful.” – Qur’an 2:188
The Bible, the Qur’an, and the Torah all point to Palestine as sacred. But what men have done is weaponize these holy texts, using religion not as a source of unity but as justification for theft. Zionism is not a divine promise, it is a political ideology dressed in religious clothing. It is an ideology that has convinced much of the world that to oppose Israel’s occupation is to oppose Judaism itself. This is one of the greatest lies of our age.
Judaism, like Islam and Christianity, is a faith of peace, humility, and justice. But Zionism has become its political hijacking, a hijacking that has turned the faith of the Torah into a banner for bombs, bulldozers, and barbed wire. How can the world accept the notion that a man from Ukraine, who migrates to New York, raises a family in Brooklyn, and then decades later flies into Tel Aviv, has more right to the olive groves of Hebron than the Palestinian farmer whose ancestors have lived and died on that land for centuries?
│ “You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another.” – Leviticus 19:11, The Torah
Today, Palestinians live in fragments: some in Gaza, some in the West Bank, some as refugees in camps across Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria, and millions more scattered across the globe. Gaza is a prison, West Bank is a colony, and the diaspora is a wound that refuses to heal. Meanwhile, those who proclaim themselves Israelis have built highways, skyscrapers, and settlements on stolen soil with the full support of the world’s most powerful nations.
And yet, the Palestinians endure. Despite the checkpoints, the drones, the bombs, the demolitions, and the daily humiliations, they remain rooted in their land. The olive tree, that ancient symbol of Palestine, still grows even when bulldozers uproot it. A people that has survived Nakba in 1948, occupation in 1967, and endless wars since, will not vanish. They may be scattered, but their claim is eternal.
But let us not deceive ourselves. The occupation continues not only because of Israel’s power but because of our silence. The Americans fund it, the Europeans defend it diplomatically, and the rest of us watch, sometimes grumble, sometimes weep, but rarely act. We live in an era where a child throwing a stone at a tank is labeled a terrorist, while a government with nuclear weapons, drones, and fighter jets that rain destruction on refugee camps is called democratic.
The hypocrisy is staggering. When Russia invaded Ukraine, the West mobilized billions, sent weapons, opened borders, and rallied the media with cries of freedom and sovereignty. But when Israel bombs Gaza into rubble, when settlers torch Palestinian villages, when children are shot at checkpoints, the world mumbles about both sides. The message is clear: some lives matter more than others.
│ “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” – Article 1, Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations)
Israel’s existence is not simply about stolen land. It is about stolen lives and stolen futures. Every demolished Palestinian home is a stolen childhood memory. Every uprooted olive tree is a stolen livelihood. Every refugee camp is a stolen dignity. And every dead Palestinian child is stolen tomorrow.
│ “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” – Article 49, Fourth Geneva Convention (1949)
Can a nation truly flourish on the graves of another? Can a state built on injustice ever know peace? For decades, Israel has lived in a perpetual cycle of fear and aggression, building walls higher, weapons deadlier, and policies harsher. But walls cannot secure peace, nor can bombs create justice. The human soul is not so easily erased.
We must confront a bitter truth: Israel, as it exists today, is a stolen reality. And the world, by inaction, has become complicit. The land of the Bible, the Qur’an, and the Torah has been turned into a battlefield, not because of faith but because of greed, colonial arrogance, and political cowardice.
│ “The inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.” – UN Security Council Resolution 242 (1967)
What is required is not another round of peace talks that lead nowhere, nor more hollow condemnations. What is required is recognition of truth, that Palestine has a rightful people, and that no amount of bulldozed homes or redrawn maps can erase that.
Justice delayed is not justice denied, it is justice stolen. And when justice is stolen, peace becomes impossible.
Israel today is living on borrowed morality. It is drinking stolen water, eating stolen food, building cities on stolen land, and raising children in stolen homes. In short, it is living a stolen life. And a stolen life can never be a blessed life.
The question that must haunt humanity is simple: if this can be done to the Palestinians, who will be next? The world cannot continue to watch as people are dissipated into naught. The land of prophets, of holy books, of divine promises, deserves better than to be reduced to rubble and barbed wire.
Palestine will endure, because truth endures. And one day, perhaps, the world will remember that justice is not a gift given by the powerful but a right earned by the oppressed.
Until then, every olive tree cut down, every child killed, and every home demolished will stand as a testimony. This is stolen land, stolen lives, and a stolen future.
