For a person of Jewish descent, there are two ways of drawing lessons from the Nazi genocide of the European Jews: one leads to saying "Never again to us, the Jews"; the other "Never again" tout court.

The former conclusion stems from a narrow ethnic outlook, reversing the Nazi perspective by taking the side of "the Jews" against the rest of the world. In both cases, "the Jews" are singled out as a particular group of people with extraordinary features: whereas the Nazis saw them as the embodiment of evil to the point of trying to annihilate them, the holders of the Jewish ethnocentric perspective believe that the defence of "Jewish" interests - which like all brands of collective interest, whether national or class or whatever, is a hotly disputed notion, with rare occasional unanimity on what it could mean - is a value superseding all others. In the name of this defence, they end up denying the humanity of the victims of Israel, the purported "State of the Jews", just as most oppressors throughout history have denied their victims' humanity.

Ever since its creation in 1949 by General Assembly Resolution 302, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has had to defend itself and the refugees it assists from critics, dissenters and others who wished to ignore or deny the rights of Palestine refugees.

In the early years, when UNRWA was perceived as a 'humanitarian' relief organisation, providing food, water and tents to the refugees, political and financial support was forthcoming in a fairly consistent manner. The Agency was seen to be offering services similar to those available to European refugees after the Second World War. There was no anticipation that the 800,000 Palestinians who fled their land in 1948 would lead, over the years, to the presence of nearly five million stateless persons in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank and Gaza. There was even less expectation that another five million Palestinians in the Diaspora would be adding their voices to those still insisting on the right to their land and their independence and calling for justice in 2012.

Lorna Fitzsimons believes that Israel's lurch to the right is just one facet of a global democratic crisis, but I would argue that the Israeli rejectionism that she defended during her time as head of the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) was a key factor in creating an era of militarism that helped to bring that crisis about. Moreover, the former Labour MP noted last month that, "A notion is spreading in the West that Israel is fast becoming an illiberal ethno-democracy - fear-driven, bigoted, and small minded." She was introducing a debate on Israeli democracy in what turned out be one of her final acts with the lobby group and, she insisted, "that notion is just not true".

Introduction

After decades of human suffering resulting from Israel's occupation and illegal colonisation of Palestinian territory; fruitless and stalled negotiations; moribund policies; and legal options being overlooked in favour of diplomacy, it is time to look at a new strategy using political action and negotiations based on international law.

Observers of the Palestine question note that some Western countries are openly pro-Israel, "right or wrong", and the so-called diplomacy of most does nothing for the Palestinian cause. Western diplomats, for example, almost always avoid declaring that Israeli settlements are illegal, breach international law and are an obstacle to peace. Sadly, the Palestinian Authority usually displays the same reluctance.