It is a funny process that takes place in your head when you go from coloniser to colonised. Having been raised in the United Kingdom singing ‘God Save the Queen’ at school assembly, you are implicitly led to believe that there is nothing mightier than Britannia.

I was not surprised when they voted to leave the European Union because, in their hearts, they are still the rulers of an enormous empire. The education system alone, with its constant emphasis on World War II and how one island was burnt but not broken, would have to be completely reworked for many of the English to realise how much damage they wreaked in the process of their version of improving the world.

One such “improvement” that the world is still raking benefits from is the Israel and Palestine disaster. Growing up, all you would hear on the BBC were comments about the PLO, Yasser Arafat and Palestinian terrorism. It was only when I arrived in Malta years later and visited Palestine myself that I realised just how dark things can get when a country is unable to own up to the mistakes of its forefathers.

Going to Palestine was as eye-opening as it was stomach-churning. Due to our Arabic-based language, the Maltese were instantly treated like second-class citizens. I saw an old, Maltese woman in her 70s being tearfully hauled away to an airport interrogation room because she had the misfortune of having an Arab surname. I too was questioned profusely over my mother’s maiden name.

Teenage soldiers would get on to our bus with rifles, check our passports, and sneer at us. When we went to Jerusalem, we were almost scared to speak Maltese in public for fear that we would be singled out by soldiers. I saw with my own eyes the high walls built around Palestinian land and the checkpoints where they would be turned away. Our guide told us that Palestinians were openly called cockroaches by Zionists and that soldiers would not hesitate twice to shoot children if they did so much as breathe in a way they thought was suspicious.

Going to Palestine was as eye-opening as it was stomach-churning- Anna Marie Galea

Many people say that the situation in Palestine is a complex one but in reality, it is not as convoluted as many would have us think. There is nothing complicated about a coloniser giving land which is already occupied by people to a new group of people out of sheer guilt. There is something even less complicated about the fact that Zionists keep seizing and occupying vast swathes of land which were not given to them.

The latest explosion of tensions arises from the threat of even more land displacement and to date at least 31 Palestinian children have been killed in the fray. To say that this situation is heart-breaking and morally reprehensible is beyond understatement. The only minuscule silver lining to be found is that finally this plight is starting to gain a little worldwide recognition.

International powers must recognise the systemic abuse of the Palestinian people and intervene in a situation that has gone on for far too long. No amount of reparation can be made for what has been allowed to happen thus far, but measures can be taken to ensure that at the very least no more people are displaced or killed.

The time for the coloniser to continue to brandish the whip of his past decisions is long gone and the global community needs to come together and acknowledge this. May we live to see a day when Palestinians are free to live free.