Exposing Colonial Peace-Building from Palestine to Ireland

The frameworks of peace-building in Palestine and Ireland are profoundly problematic in the context of continued colonization. Over the last few years, western donors and policymakers have been reviving peace-building in Palestine through people-to-people projects. Using the Irish peace process as a model, they argue that dialogue between two sides is the only way forward, obscuring the power asymmetries between Palestinians and Israelis. Why are these initiatives being revived? How and why is the notion of “embedded peace” in Northern Ireland being exported to Palestine?

Al-Shabaka’s Commissioning Editor, Nadim Bawalsa hosted a conversation with Senior Analyst, Yara Hawari, and Assistant Professor of Conflict Resolution at Trinity College, Dublin, Brendan Ciaran Browne, to investigate these questions and more.

Yara Hawari

Yara Hawari is Al-Shabaka's co-director. She previously served as the Palestine policy fellow and senior analyst. Yara completed her PhD in Middle East Politics at...

Nadim Bawalsa

Nadim Bawalsa is Associate Editor with the Journal of Palestine Studies. From 2020-2023, Nadim served as Al-Shabaka’s commissioning editor. He is a historian of modern...

(2021, October 20)

Latest Analysis

Commentary

Civil Society

The World Radicalized by the Gaza Genocide

The global reckoning that followed October 7, 2023, marked a profound rupture in how Palestine is understood worldwide. The Gaza genocide exposed how Israeli mass violence is not exceptional or reactive, but foundational to the Zionist project. What was once framed as a “conflict” to be managed is now widely recognized as a system of domination to be dismantled. It ushered in a shift away from the technocratic language of peace processes and toward an honest confrontation with the structural realities Palestinians have long named: settler colonialism, apartheid, and the ongoing Nakba. The commentary argues that the Israeli genocidal campaign in Gaza has radicalized the world. When crowds march through global capitals demanding a free Palestine, they simultaneously articulate demands for the abolition of racial capitalism, extractive regimes, climate injustice, and all forms of contemporary fascism. In this moment of radical clarity, Palestine becomes a lens through which the underlying architecture of global domination is laid bare—and through which new horizons of collective freedom emerge.

Tareq Baconi· Dec 21, 2025

Policy Lab

Politics

Legitimizing Genocide: The Israel-Trump Plan and Gaza’s Future

Inès Abdel Razek and Munir Nuseibah joined Al-Shabaka for a conversation on the politics behind the UNSC resolution, the implementability of the US-Israeli plan, and the scenarios now being advanced for Gaza and for Palestine more broadly.

Inès Abdel Razek,Munir Nuseibah· Dec 9, 2025

Policy Brief

Politics

Christian Zionism in the Global South: The Case of South Africa

European empires used Christian missions to legitimize conquest in Africa and advance imperial interests, laying the groundwork for a political form of Christian Zionism. British evangelicals were central in transforming Christian Zionism from a theological belief into an imperial strategy by promoting Jewish resettlement in Palestine as a means of extending British influence. This fusion of religious ideology and imperial ambition endures in contemporary Christian Zionist movements, which frame modern Israel as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy and recast Palestinian presence as an impediment to a divinely ordained order. This policy brief shows how these narratives and their policy effects have taken root in the Global South, including in South Africa. In this context, Israeli efforts increasingly rely on Christian Zionist networks to weaken longstanding solidarity with Palestinians and cultivate support for Israeli occupation.

Fathi Nimer· Dec 7, 2025

Latest Analysis

We’re building a network for liberation.

We’re building a network  for liberation.