Palestine Did Not Begin on 7 October

By: Sukanya, Deputy Chair of Commission I of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia; Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) faction

Three years have passed since 7 October 2023. That date is repeatedly invoked whenever people discuss war and the destruction of Gaza. The sequence usually begins with the attack of 7 October, followed by Israel’s assault on Gaza, the prolonged war, a ceasefire, and then discussion of reconstruction.

I believe this way of seeing things needs to be corrected. This is not because we wish to avoid discussing what happened on 7 October, but because the Palestinian question did not begin on that day.

In Indonesian history, we know of the moment when Prince Diponegoro pulled up the stakes marking a road built across the land of Tegalrejo and the burial grounds of his ancestors. That event became one of the triggers for the Java War. The Dutch then laid siege to Tegalrejo, and a great war lasting five years followed.

Yet we never truly understand the Diponegoro question by starting history at the uprooting of those stakes.

If history begins there, the Diponegoro War can appear to be a matter of personal offence. A road was to be built through his ancestors’ land and burial grounds, Diponegoro became angry, the stakes were pulled up, tensions rose, and a war followed that brought great suffering and loss of life.

Such a reading is misleading.

The stakes at Tegalrejo were indeed one of the triggers of the war, but they do not explain why the Diponegoro War happened. Long before, there was colonialism, Dutch interference in court affairs, control of politics and the economy, pressure on the population, and many tensions that had long been accumulating.

By starting history from the stakes, a structural problem becomes a personal one. Colonialism disappears from the story, while the reaction of people living under colonial rule appears as the beginning of the problem.

The same error can occur when Palestine is read from 7 October 2023.

When the entire story begins on that date, a conflict that has lasted for decades shrinks into a simple sequence: Hamas attacks Israel, Israel retaliates, and Gaza is destroyed.

What gradually disappears is the history of occupation, displacement, the seizure of land, the expansion of settlements, the blockade of Gaza, and the long struggle of the Palestinian people to determine their own fate.

For this reason, 7 October must be placed within Palestinian history, not Palestinian history placed within 7 October.

7 October was a detonation point, not the zero point of Palestinian history.

Long before, there was the mass displacement of Palestinians in 1948. After the war of 1967, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza came under Israeli occupation. What followed was a long history of land seizure, settlement expansion, restrictions on movement, recurring conflict and various peace efforts.

There was the Oslo Accords, the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, numerous rounds of negotiations, United Nations resolutions and the idea of a two-state solution. Yet after decades, an independent and sovereign Palestinian state has still not come into being.

In 2024, the International Court of Justice again affirmed the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and stated that Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is contrary to international law.

This context is lost when the issue is narrowed to Israel against Hamas. Gaza is not Hamas. Gaza is part of Palestine, just as the West Bank and East Jerusalem are. The fundamental issue is a people who, to this day, have not gained full independence and sovereignty over their own land.

Do Not Reverse Cause and Effect

There is another consequence when history is begun on 7 October: cause and effect can be reversed.

The destruction of Gaza then comes to seem like a consequence of Palestinian resistance itself. Had 7 October not happened, the logic goes, Gaza would not have been devastated as it is now.

We can test this again with Indonesian history.

The Diponegoro War ended in 1830. In the same year, the colonial government began to implement the Cultivation System, which burdened the people of Java for many years. We would certainly not say that the suffering caused by the Cultivation System was Diponegoro’s fault because he had earlier chosen to fight the Dutch.

The fundamental issue was colonialism.

Therefore, the suffering of the Palestinian people must not be attributed to their struggle for independence. The occupation must not disappear from the discussion while resistance to occupation is portrayed as the source of the problem.

This does not mean that every action carried out in the name of resistance can be justified. The struggle for independence is not a blank cheque for any act whatsoever. Civilians must be protected, and every violation, whoever commits it, must be held accountable.

Yet judging an action within a struggle is different from erasing the conditions that gave rise to that struggle. A nation does not lose its right to independence because errors, violence or tragedies occur along the way.

Three Years Later

Now three years have passed since 7 October. The world must also look at what has happened during those three years.

Gaza has suffered extraordinary destruction. Countless people have lost their lives and their family members. Homes, schools, universities, hospitals and many other elements of social infrastructure have been damaged or destroyed. Most of Gaza’s population has been displaced, in many cases repeatedly.

What has been damaged is not merely buildings. The fabric of a society has been shattered. Children have lost their education, families have lost their homes and livelihoods, and the social and psychological wounds will last far longer than the war itself.

Gaza must therefore be rebuilt. But reconstruction must not make us forget the larger problem.

In a few years, Gaza may well look very different. New buildings will stand, roads will be repaired, schools will reopen and economic activity will resume. The world may then come to feel that the Gaza issue has been resolved.

Yet the Palestinian people may still not have sovereignty. The occupation could well continue, Palestinian territory could become increasingly fragmented, and a Palestinian state could still fail to materialise.

It is here that we need to remember one thing:

Gaza must not be rebuilt while Palestine itself is lost.

Reconstruction must be part of the path towards a political settlement, not a substitute for it. The Palestinian people need food, medicine, homes, schools and hospitals. But they also need a homeland where they can live safely and determine their own future.

Humanitarian aid cannot replace independence.

Do Not Cleanse the World’s Memory

There is another matter to be wary of as the war recedes from global attention: efforts to rehabilitate images and reshape world opinion.

The destruction of Gaza has changed how many people around the world see Israel. The image of a modern, advanced and democratic state now confronts the reality of the occupation of Palestine, the destruction of Gaza and the many issues of international law that accompany them.

After all this, there are certainly interests in restoring that image and returning things to how they were. We need not speculate endlessly about the form or course this will take. What matters is that societies do not lose their memory or their capacity for critical thought.

History can be cut in two directions.

It can be cut backwards by making 7 October the starting point of the Palestinian issue. In that way, the occupation and the long history preceding it disappear from the story.

It can also be erased forwards, when the world is gradually encouraged to forget what happened after 7 October. Gaza is rebuilt, attention shifts, relations return to normal, while accountability and the issue of occupation remain unresolved.

For this reason, Gaza must not be rebuilt physically while the world’s memory of its destruction is quietly cleansed.

Normalisation should not move faster than accountability.

This is not a matter of hatred towards any particular nation or religion. Criticism of the actions of the Israeli government must not turn into hatred of Jewish people. Solidarity with Palestine must not become a justification for antisemitism.

What we are discussing is occupation, justice and accountability.

Remembering Gaza is also not about nurturing hatred. We preserve that memory so that the world learns and the same tragedy does not keep recurring.

The Ending Remains Independence

In the end, we return to a question that has long gone unanswered: how much longer must the Palestinian people live without independence?

We have seen war, negotiations, ceasefires, humanitarian aid and reconstruction. If the root of the problem remains, the same cycle is very likely to repeat itself.

Today the world sends food and medicine. Tomorrow it helps build homes. Let us not reach a point where, a few years later, the world is again sending aid to the same families because their homes have been destroyed once more.

Indonesia’s experience should make this problem easy for us to understand. We have lived under colonialism. For a nation living under colonial rule, the issue is not merely receiving better treatment from the colonial authorities.

The Indonesian people did not fight for a more humane colonialism. We fought for independence.

That, too, should be the conclusion of any discussion about Palestine.

Indonesia must continue to support an end to violence, the protection of civilians, humanitarian aid, the reconstruction of Gaza and various diplomatic avenues towards peace. But all of these must have a clear direction: an end to the occupation and the emergence of a free and sovereign Palestine.

Three years after 7 October, we need to look again at the Palestinian question in its entirety.

The stakes that Diponegoro pulled up were never regarded as the beginning of Dutch colonialism. We understand that behind that event lay a much longer history. In the same way, 7 October should not be treated as the beginning of Palestinian history.

It is the detonation point of a problem that had been unfolding long before.

And when one day Gaza has been rebuilt and the world’s attention moves elsewhere, let us not allow history to be cut from another direction. Do not allow the destruction of Gaza and the suffering of its people to fade from memory.

For what the Palestinian people need is not a slightly better life under occupation.

What they need is an end to the occupation and independence in their own homeland.