NEW DELHI, India:The conflict in Gaza is not only a battle over territory, security and political control. It is also exposing a much larger crisis at the heart of the international system: who gets to shape global decisions, who gets protected by international institutions, and whose voice is heard when diplomacy confronts war. That was the broader significance of the remarks by Palestinian Ambassador to India Abdullah Mohammad Abu Shawesh, who offered a sharply critical assessment of Israeli politics while reaffirming Palestine’s determination to remain on its homeland and expressing strong support for India’s long-standing demand for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
Speaking at the Palestinian Embassy in India on Wednesday, Abu Shawesh made clear that Palestinians closely follow political developments inside Israel because, in his assessment, changes in Israeli political leadership have direct consequences for Palestinian lives. Elections and political calculations in Israel, he argued, are not distant domestic events for Palestinians. They can affect salaries, water, livelihoods, security and, ultimately, the future of Palestinian society.
That is an important distinction. For Palestinians, Israeli politics is not simply about who forms the next government in Jerusalem. It is about policies and decisions that Palestinians believe directly shape conditions on the ground. The Ambassador’s most emphatic message was that Palestinians are determined to remain where they are.
“We will not leave our homeland,” Abu Shawesh said, presenting remaining on Palestinian land as a central element of Palestine’s strategy.
The statement goes beyond rhetoric. It reflects a deeply entrenched Palestinian political position that displacement cannot become the mechanism through which the conflict is ultimately resolved. For the Palestinian side, remaining on the land is inseparable from preserving national identity, political claims and the possibility of a future Palestinian state. Abu Shawesh was equally forceful when discussing Israeli electoral politics. He argued that Palestinians have repeatedly experienced the consequences of political shifts inside Israel and described what he sees as a fundamental contradiction between the political process in Israel and the reality confronting Palestinians.
In his characterisation, Israeli leaders seek to return to power “through the ballot,” while Palestinians are being subjected to rule “by bullets.” That is the Ambassador’s political assessment and should be understood as such. But the language is significant because it captures the Palestinian argument that electoral legitimacy within Israel cannot be separated from the consequences of Israeli policy in Palestinian territories.
For Palestinians, the question is not merely who wins elections. The deeper question is what those governments do with the power they receive. And that is where Gaza changes the conversation. The war has transformed what might otherwise have been a familiar debate over Israeli politics and Palestinian statehood into a much broader examination of international accountability. The scale of the humanitarian crisis has placed renewed pressure on the United Nations system and raised uncomfortable questions about the ability of existing institutions to prevent conflict, enforce international norms and protect civilians.
India occupies a particularly interesting position in this debate because New Delhi maintains relationships across the competing sides of the wider West Asian equation while simultaneously seeking a larger role in global governance. Abu Shawesh connected these issues directly to India’s campaign for permanent membership of the UN Security Council.
Drawing on his eight years of experience at the United Nations, the Ambassador recalled earlier discussions surrounding reform of the international organisation and the Security Council. He said that one of Palestine’s appeals, particularly as a country of the Global South, was that India should be among the countries deserving a permanent seat.
His argument is not an isolated Palestinian position. In July 2026, Abu Shawesh publicly said that India “deserves to be a permanent member of the Security Council,” arguing that the Council needs stronger representation by major countries.
For New Delhi, the question of permanent membership has been a long-standing diplomatic priority. India has repeatedly argued that the structure of the Security Council no longer adequately reflects contemporary geopolitical and economic realities and has advocated expansion in both the permanent and non-permanent categories.The arithmetic of the Council makes the imbalance clear.
The Security Council has 15 members five permanent members and ten elected members. China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States occupy the permanent seats, with veto power. India, despite being one of the world’s largest countries by population, a major economy and a significant contributor to international peacekeeping, remains outside the permanent structure.That disconnect is central to India’s argument.
The question is not simply whether India deserves recognition. It is whether an institution created in the aftermath of the Second World War can effectively represent a world that has changed dramatically since 1945. Gaza has made that question even more difficult to ignore. The conflict has repeatedly exposed the political limitations of the Security Council, particularly when the interests of permanent members collide. The Council’s failure in April 2024 to recommend full UN membership for Palestine, after the United States vetoed the draft resolution despite 12 members voting in favour, remains a powerful example of how the veto can determine outcomes even when a clear majority supports a proposal. This is precisely where the Palestinian and Indian arguments intersect.
Palestine’s experience demonstrates, from the Palestinian perspective, the limitations faced by states without decisive influence inside the Security Council. India’s campaign, meanwhile, argues that the Council itself needs to become more representative so that the distribution of global power is better reflected in its permanent membership. These are not identical political claims, but they converge around one fundamental issue:
Representation matters when decisions affect the lives of millions.
The Gaza crisis has given that argument greater urgency. The United Nations has repeatedly highlighted the humanitarian consequences of the conflict, while India has maintained that dialogue, diplomacy and a two-State solution remain central to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has called for humanitarian assistance to reach Gaza.
India’s position is therefore also carefully calibrated. It supports Palestinian aspirations while maintaining its broader diplomatic engagement with Israel and the wider region. That balancing act is part of India’s emerging foreign-policy identity: strategic autonomy combined with an increasingly visible role in international diplomacy.
For Palestine, India’s position carries particular importance because India is not viewed simply as another country voting at the United Nations. It is a major Global South power with growing economic, diplomatic and strategic influence.
That explains why Abu Shawesh’s endorsement of India’s permanent UNSC membership carries significance beyond a bilateral diplomatic compliment.It represents an argument about the changing hierarchy of global governance.
The Ambassador’s intervention essentially connects three separate political questions: what happens inside Israeli politics, what happens to Palestinians in Gaza and the wider Palestinian territories, and who should have permanent authority in the institution responsible for maintaining international peace and security.His message is that these questions cannot be completely separated.
If Palestinian lives can be profoundly affected by decisions taken within another country’s political system, then international institutions become critically important. If those institutions themselves are seen as insufficiently representative, then their legitimacy comes under pressure.That is the larger geopolitical tension.
The United Nations Security Council was designed for a world emerging from the Second World War. Its permanent membership reflected the distribution of power at that moment. But the international system has since undergone enormous transformation.
India has become a major economic and technological power. The Global South has expanded its economic and political weight. Asia’s strategic importance has grown dramatically. Africa’s demographic and economic significance has increased. Yet the permanent architecture of the Security Council has changed very little. The result is an increasingly visible gap between global power in practice and global representation in institutions. India’s UNSC campaign is essentially an attempt to close that gap.
Palestine’s position brings another dimension to the debate: the experience of states and peoples that possess international recognition and substantial diplomatic support but lack the institutional power enjoyed by permanent members of the Council.
The Palestinian question therefore becomes part of a wider conversation about whether international law, multilateral diplomacy and political power can be reconciled in an increasingly fragmented world.But reform will not be easy.
Any change to the permanent membership structure requires amendment of the UN Charter and therefore depends on negotiations involving a broad coalition of member states, including the existing permanent members. The very countries whose privileges would be affected by reform have a central role in determining whether that reform can happen.That is the structural paradox. The system requires reform, but the system’s most powerful beneficiaries have significant influence over the process of reform.
For India, this means that moral and demographic arguments alone will not be sufficient. New Delhi will need sustained diplomatic coalition-building across Africa, Latin America, Asia and the wider Global South, while continuing to engage the existing permanent members.
For Palestine, meanwhile, the immediate priority remains far more fundamental: survival, humanitarian relief, political rights and the preservation of a viable national future. That is why Abu Shawesh’s statement,“We will not leave our homeland” – is arguably as important as his comments about the Security Council.
The two positions are connected by a common demand for agency. Palestinians are asserting that their future cannot be decided solely by forces outside their control. India is asserting that global decisions cannot continue to be shaped indefinitely by an institutional structure that excludes major contemporary powers from permanent representation.
Both arguments ultimately return to the same question: Who gets a meaningful voice when decisions about the future are being made?
Gaza has made that question painfully immediate. The conflict has demonstrated the limits of military power, the difficulties of diplomacy and the political constraints of multilateral institutions. It has also exposed the enormous consequences of decisions made far beyond the people directly affected by them.
For Abu Shawesh, Palestinian determination to remain on their land is non-negotiable. His criticism of Israeli politics reflects the Palestinian leadership’s view that electoral calculations in Israel have consequences for Palestinians. His support for India’s permanent UNSC membership reflects his belief that the international system needs stronger representation from major Global South countries.
Taken together, his remarks form a broader political argument: a changing world cannot indefinitely be governed through an institutional architecture designed for another era.
The real test for the United Nations, therefore, is not simply whether it can issue resolutions.It is whether the institution can remain credible when wars continue, humanitarian crises deepen and large parts of the world question whether the distribution of decision-making power still reflects contemporary realities. Palestine is asking for recognition, security and the right to determine its future.
India is asking for a permanent place at the table where the world’s most consequential security decisions are made.And Gaza has brought both questions into sharper focus.The question confronting the international community is no longer merely whether the Security Council should be expanded. It is whether the world’s principal security institution can retain legitimacy without becoming more representative of the world it claims to serve.
-Dr. M Shahid Siddiqui
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