Seven years after Operation Protective Edge, Israeli officials are once again committing war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories. In its current "Operation Guardian of the Walls," Israeli leaders areperpetrating the same war crimes as those they committed in 2014.
Israeli Apartheid Is a Crime Against Humanity
Under the ICC's Rome Statute, "inhumane acts committed in the context of an institutional regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over another racial group, with the intent to maintain that regime" constitutes the crime against humanity of apartheid.
In 2001, the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) sent a delegation to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories and subsequently published a report documenting a system of apartheid.
Richard Falk, former UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories and professor emeritus at Princeton University, and Virginia Tilley, professor of political science at Southern Illinois University, co-authored a report for the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia in 2017. It found "beyond a reasonable doubt" that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians constitutes "the crime of Apartheid."
In January 2021, the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem issued a report titled, "A Regime of Jewish Supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This Is Apartheid."
Like B'Tselem, Human Rights Watch had long resisted charging that Israeli leaders were committing the crime of apartheid. But on April 27, Human Rights Watch issued a detailed report describing Israel's "intent to maintain the domination of Jewish Israelis over Palestinians across Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory," including East Jerusalem. The report added that this Israeli government intent "has been coupled with systematic oppression of Palestinians and inhumane acts committed against them. When these three elements occur together, they amount to the crime of apartheid."
Palestinians Have a Lawful Right to Resist Israeli Occupation
Under international law, the Palestinians have a lawful right to resist Israel's occupation of their lands, including through armed struggle. In 1982, the UN General Assembly "reaffirmed the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle."
The Biden administration is claiming that Israel is acting in self-defense against the Hamas rockets, but under international law, Israel, as an occupying force, does not have the right to use military force in self-defense against its occupied territory.
Noura Erakat, a human rights attorney and associate professor at Rutgers University, wrote in Jadaliyya, "A state cannot simultaneously exercise control over territory it occupies and militarily attack that territory on the claim that it is 'foreign' and poses an exogenous national security threat. In doing precisely that, Israel is asserting rights that may be consistent with colonial domination but simply do not exist under international law."
As Falk said in an interview with Truthout, "It is always deceptive to treat the oppressor and the oppressed as if equal." In the current situation, he added, "the oppressor acts contrary to applicable international law and elementary morality while the oppressed is countering by exercising rights of resistance and suffering the deprivation of basic rights. Of course," Falk added, "the tactics of resistance should be scrutinized by reference to legal and moral constraints, but without losing sight of overwhelming structures of dominance and the far greater harm done bystate violence than by the violence of resistance."
Yet the Biden administration maintains a false equivalency between Palestinian rockets and Israeli bombs.
The Biden Administration Is Aiding and Abetting Israeli Crimes
An individual can be convicted of a war crime or a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute if he or she "aids, abets or otherwise assists" in the commission or attempted commission of the crime, "including providing the means for its commission."
The U.S. government gives Israel $3.8 billion in military aid annually. Israel could not maintain its occupation of Palestinian lands and persecution of the Palestinian people without U.S. assistance.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
3
3
3
