A PRESS STATEMENT

 

Standing next to the International Criminal Court war crimes suspect Benyamin Netanyahu, the US president Donald Trump has officially joined Israel’s Gaza Genocide, in order to further tighten the settler colonial grip on Palestine.

 

The deliberate language of an ‘agreement’ in what is being called the 20-Point Peace Plan is designed to end all Palestinian resistance which has endured a genocide— for two years, in a week’s time. To borrow from Khalid Rashidi’s thesis of Declaration of War, we are once again witnessing a fresh superpower-aided assault on Palestinians, camouflaged as a peace agreement.

 

The plan, presented at the White House on Monday, has been greeted with glee by Benjamin Netanyahu, who said it “fulfils all the five objectives” of Israel’s war on Gaza. His supposed spontaneous agreement to the plan reflects a deceptive logic to retrieve captives, living or dead, and still be able to continue with the annihilation of Palestinians.

 

In its vagueness, and under the pretext “it’s-up-to-Hamas,” the one-sided “agreement” seeks to impose on Palestinians what the Zionist forces and their backers have failed to achieve in 724 days of atrocious assaults, mayhem and massacres. It is a ruse for justifying illegal operations in Gaza, by adding a layer of false complexity, away from the underlying question of Palestinian statehood, now recognised by an even more overwhelming majority of UN member nations than ever before.

 

As observers have noted, while expressing ultimatums to the Palestinian resistance and effectively granting the power of veto to Netanyahu— who has been assured Trump Administration’s backing at every turn— the plan neither calls out nor mentions an end to the occupation, which is being entrenched by on-going war crimes and ethnic-cleansing. Moreover, other than advancing the idea of repackaged colonisation of Gaza, the plan lacks time-lines of genuine steps towards Palestinian self-determination.

 

The ominous twist is the re-emergence of Tony Blair, the former British premier who for all intents and purposes was supposed to be serving jail time for the illegal invasion and war on Iraq. In the plan, Blair’s name appears as the governor-designate of the colonial control of Gaza.

 

The Jamiatul Ulama South Africa has over the past 11 months condemned the massacres, man-made humanitarian crisis through forced evacuations, exposure to disease, and a famine through a blockade of food, water and medicine. JUSA hereby condemns the cynical manner in which the latest plan has been presented, reflecting a disposition far-removed from the reality. To echo the analysis of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestine Territories, Francesca Albanese: There is no war in Gaza to be ended by a cease-fire. It is a genocide which has to be stopped.

 

Countries that have been announcing their recognition of Palestine need to go beyond the symbolism, and act with substance. Recognition means little when bombs continue to fall, and scores of lives are being erased, daily.

 

The 1948 Genocide Convention calls for the prevention of, stopping and punishing the crime of genocide. Parties to the Convention, must stop the genocide; not just acknowledge it. Palestinians need protection; not promises. They need security and safety now; not statements for hedging tomorrow’s accountability. It is a moral duty and an obligation under international law, to end the suffering, and restore the dignity of Palestinians.

 

Released by:

 

The Executive Committee
Jamiatul Ulama South Africa

 

07 Rabi ‘al Thani 1447 / 30 Sep 2025