Timor-Leste and the Future of Palestine: Lessons in Freedom and the Failure of Power

“We will continue to kill the idea of a Palestinian state.” With those words, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich abandoned any remaining pretense. What he announced on February 10, 2026, was not merely another policy adjustment, but a deliberate escalation, one that is designed to make it even easier for Jewish settlers to dispossess Palestinians of their land, permanently and irreversibly. Smotrich’s declaration reads less like public policy than a declaration of war on political reality itself: On Palestinians living under occupation, and on any Israeli who still dares to believe in the possibility of a two-state solution. Examined one by one, Israel’s current policies reveal a power imbalance so extreme that it can no longer be obscured by diplomatic language, especially in the wake of Gaza’s catastrophic devastation. One side is armed, sovereign, and protected; the other is fragmented, encircled, and endlessly punished.

One does not need to live in Ramallah or anywhere else in the West Bank to see what is coming. Israeli forces already besiege most of the Palestinian territory, negociated under the imfamous Oslo Accords,  as they besiege city after city across the West Bank. Raids, closures, checkpoints, collective punishment—this is not a temporary security posture, but the daily architecture of control, structually normalized over time. Watching this unfold, I am increasingly reminded of Jamsheed Marker—an old colleague of my father’s and a family friend, whom UN Secretary, General Kofi Annan appointed as Special Envoy to East Timor between 1997 and 1999. Tasked with quietly helping broker peace and eventual independence, Marker worked largely outside the public spotlight. Yet the parallels between his overlooked mission and today’s hollow diplomatic choreography around Gaza and the West Bank are striking and deeply unsettling.

Since the atrocities of October 7, 2023, a number of American and Israeli negotiators — among them Robert Malley and Daniel Levy — have spoken openly about how deeply flawed and performative past peace efforts have been. Behind closed doors, they acknowledge what was long known: that the so-called “peace process” was never designed to deliver a Palestinian state.

Timor-Leste is not a wealthy country, but it is free — a functioning democracy with open debate, competitive elections, and a deeply scarred yet resilient sense of national selfhood. That, in itself, is no small miracle. The story of East Timor’s fight for statehood — its abandonment, its massacres, its years of silence — mirrors in haunting detail the story of Palestine. The comparison is not rhetorical; it is instructive. East Timor teaches us what it takes for a people to become free, and what happens when the international community finally decides that moral rhetoric must be matched by political will.

For decades, the Timorese, like the Palestinians, were told to be patient, to negotiate with their occupiers, to accept “facts on the ground.” For decades, Western governments justified atrocities in the name of geopolitical stability. The Timorese paid for the Cold War with their blood; Palestinians are paying for a post–Cold War order in which occupation is rebranded as “security.”

The Forgotten War

In 1975, as Portugal’s colonial empire collapsed, the small Catholic half of the island of Timor declared independence. Its leaders in the resistance group Fretilin dreamed of building a socialist democracy — a fragile, hopeful experiment on the edge of empire. But just across the border stood Suharto’s Indonesia, a U.S.-backed anti-communist dictatorship that had already slaughtered hundreds of thousands of its own citizens in the name of ideological purity. When Indonesia invaded East Timor, the world looked away. Australia, its nearest neighbour, chose oil over outrage. The United States, terrified of “another Cuba” in Southeast Asia, turned a blind eye. The UN issued resolutions, but no sanctions — words without weight, morality without muscle.

An Australian journalist, Greg Shackleton, captured the moral vacuum of the moment in his final dispatch from the Timorese border: “We were the target of a barrage of questioning from men who know they may die tomorrow and cannot understand why the rest of the world does not care.” They didn’t. Shackleton and four of his colleagues were executed by Indonesian soldiers in the town of Balibo. Their deaths — like those of tens of thousands of Timorese — were dismissed as “crossfire.” For two decades, East Timor was sealed off: its population starved, imprisoned, or massacred. Western democracies made speeches and oil deals, but never policy. Their silence was the price of Indonesia’s anti-communist loyalty. Sound familiar?

When Silence Breaks

It took until 1991 for the illusion to collapse. Cameras rolled as Indonesian soldiers opened fire on a funeral procession at Santa Cruz Cemetery, killing more than 250 unarmed demonstrators. The footage, smuggled out by journalist Max Stahl, forced the world to confront what had long been whispered: that a genocide was unfolding under the protection of Western complicity. Activists, churches, and human rights groups mobilized. By 1998, as Suharto’s dictatorship imploded, Australian Prime Minister John Howard urged Indonesia’s new leadership to allow an independence referendum. The world finally acted — not out of benevolence, but because the political cost of inaction had become too high. A UN-backed peacekeeping mission entered. The Timorese voted overwhelmingly for independence. Finally in 2002, after a meticulous road-map, the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste was born. At the independence ceremony, Kofi Annan said: “Independence is not an end. It is the beginning of self-rule.” Annan’s words remain the most succinct summary of what liberation truly means: not a flag, not a seat at the UN, but the daily struggle to govern, feed, and educate one’s people in freedom.

The Palestine Dilemma

For Palestinians today, East Timor’s story feels painfully familiar. Long-term Western support for an occupying power? Check. Dead journalists? Check. Mass starvation? Check. Fragmented territory, political paralysis, and enclaves sealed off from one another? Check.

The crucial difference is this: East Timor eventually broke through the wall of indifference because Indonesia, under pressure from within and without, finally relented. The military junta’s legitimacy was collapsing; the Cold War was over; the world had cameras in Dili.

Palestine, by contrast, remains trapped in a frozen war — a permanent state of exception. The Palestinian Authority controls barely 9% of the land it claims. The West Bank remains under occupation; Gaza lies in ruins, besieged and sealed. Neither Israel nor Hamas shows any inclination to surrender control to a neutral transitional authority. Without that, no international peacekeeping force can enter, and no functioning state can emerge.  Recognition — by over 157 countries, including France, Spain, Norway, and Ireland — is symbolically vital, but materially meaningless. As with Timor, only the dominant patron — in this case, the United States — has the leverage to compel the occupying power to allow genuine sovereignty. Yet Washington’s “peace process” has long been a euphemism for managing, not resolving, occupation.

For decades, the American political class — Republicans and Democrats alike — has acted less as mediator(s) than as Israel’s diplomatic insurer. Each administration, from Ronald Reagan, Bush senior, The Clintons, Bush Junior, Obama, Biden and now Trump II, have mouthed the same two-state platitudes while funding the expansion of settlements that make any viable Palestinian state utterly impossible. It’s not just mere hypocrisy — it’s complicity on all levels. So, the question must be asked: will the United States ever put its political muscle where its mouth is? Will it act out of self-interest rather than subservience to the lobby networks and defence contractors who profit from ‘permanent’ conflicts? Will it dare to stand for a just solution that guarantees not only Israel’s security, but also Palestinian freedom? History offers little optimism. Yet East Timor’s example shows that pressure — relentless, moral, and international — can move even entrenched powers.

Lessons for the Future

The moral of Timor-Leste is not that independence solves everything. The Timorese are still poor. Their oil was plundered in backroom deals with Australia. Their democracy, though vibrant, remains fragile. But they are free — and that freedom allows them to argue, to fail, to rebuild, to dream. Palestine deserves that same chance.

Figures such as Palestinian human rights lawyer Hiba Husseini and Israeli jurist Yossi Beilin have recently urged a practical reimagining of a bi-national arrangement — one in which Jewish settlers can remain within a recognizedPalestinian state, and Palestinians could reside within Israel “proper”. I would take this idea a step further. Given that the realpolitik on the ground is only getting worse by the day and there seems to be no light at the end of this very dark tunnel, why not allow both peoples with dual nationalities and equal rights under a shared Israeli-Palestinian civil law?

I recognize that this is an extremely contentious and an unliekly position. Yet it has become increasingly clear that the classic two-state paradigm can no longer a viable answer—and may now be the least realistic option, given both the facts and the demographic reality on the ground. Between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, Israelis and Palestinians today constitute roughly equal populations, even before accounting for the millions of Palestinian refugees living abroad. If the international community genuinely seeks peace—not the current quagmire of conflict management, but a durable settlement for Palestinians and Israelis alike—it must move beyond exhausted frameworks and begin imagining forms of shared sovereignty. Only such an approach holds the potential to deliver justice to Palestinians over time, alongside lasting psychological and physical security for Israelis. Achieving this would require nothing less than a profound moral and political shift on both sides, particularly within their respective internal extremist movements.

Practical steps could include:

+ A multilateral peacekeeping force to secure the territory, as in Timor-Leste.

+ A transitional international administration, akin to UNTAET in 1999, to oversee reconstruction, governance, and institution-building.

+ A phased withdrawal of Israeli forces, guaranteed by a regional security pact involving the U.S., EU, Arab/Muslim states and with the eventual United Nations participation.

+ A truth and reconciliation mechanism to document and address crimes on both sides.

+ Sustained economic support tied not to the political loyalty of the Palestinian Authority but to transparent, democratic governance and social investment.

+ The release of political figures such as Marwan Barghouti, who could one day lead a viable Palestinian state in partnership with Israel itself.

Special envoy Jamsheed Marker and the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan were both right. Because they saw clearly that Independence is not the end—it is only the beginning. But before that beginning can even come, there must be an end: an end to occupation.  East Timor, may be the world’s youngest democracy, but this reminds us that the even smallest nation, one long ignored and written off, can one day stand before the world and say: We are free.

None of this will unfold without fierce resistance and escalating violence—from Israeli hardliners, militant Jewish settlers, Hamas, and its anti-Israel allies. But any honest accounting must also reckon with the quieter, more entrenched forces that sustain this reality. Washington’s defense-industrial complex, along with powerful American and international lobbying networks, remains structurally invested in occupation, militarization, and territorial expansion. Their influence does not announce itself with slogans or rockets, but it is no less decisive in determining which forms of violence are enabled, funded, and indefinitely prolonged. East Timor teaches us that independence is never bestowed; it is constructed — inch by inch, body by body — through moral persistence and sustained international pressure. The lesson is brutal but unmistakable: Justice without power is theatre. The Timorese achieved freedom only when global political and military power was finally mobilised on their behalf. In the end, Palestine will be no different.

Greg Shackleton, Australian Journalist from East Timor

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