UN Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, International Criminal Court Prosecutor, International Court of Justice President: Investigate the Possibility that Israel is Committing the Crime of Genocide Against the Indigenous Palestinian People.
“What we’re experiencing now is the attempted end of the long game of the Zionist project. And by that I mean: Netanyahu’s government is, I think, not something that he would like to have be more moderate. He has these extremists given strategic positions that are necessary to do in order to sustain his coalition, so that they could do the dirty work. He could stand by and puroport to be trying to moderate what was happening and keep good relations with the US and so on. It’s a little bit hard for him to do it and be with the genocidal kinds of settler violence that has been encouraged by members of the Netanyahu government. But what we’re seeing, I think, is this last phase of a settler colonial project… I agree with Michael [Lynk] that the UN is crucial in establishing what the proper contours of behavior are in a situation of this sort. It cannot change the behavior, but it can create symbolic understanding that is extremely important for civil socioety. Because it relies on this more objective presentation of the relevance of international law, the responsibility of civil society, the need for global solidarity that imposes real cost on Israel for continuing on this path of apartheid with its genocidal implicanions.“ (40:17)
“Request, through the General Assembly, an Advisory Opinion from the ICJ on the treatment of the Palestinian people and the OPT, including, inter alia, the ongoing annexation of East Jerusalem, and the imminent annexation of vast swaths of the West Bank, the ongoing and prolonged closure of the Gaza Strip, the construction and maintenance of an institutionalised regime of racial domination and oppression, amounting to the crime of genocide, over the Palestinian people as a whole, the systematic denial of the right of return of Palestinian refugees and exiles abroad, and the responsibilities of Third States of non-recognition, non-assistance, and the obligation to cooperate the bring the unlawful situation to and end;”
In 2012, a United Nations report painted a bleak picture of the Gaza Strip and the conditions facing its Palestinian inhabitants.
…It is now almost 2020. The UN’s projections about Gaza’s ballooning demands have proven largely accurate – but the delivery of essential services has failed to catch up.
…Michael Lynk, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, told MEE: “The prediction of unliveability has already arrived. The common measuring stick used by the UN or any other international organisation to be able to evaluate how people live is human dignity, and Gaza has been without human dignity for years now.”
…Haidar Eid, an associate professor at Al-Aqsa University in Gaza, described Israel’s policy towards Palestinians in the enclave as “genocidal”.
…with the continuing population growth, service reduction and soaring unemployment, Gaza may be approaching a point of no return. Sara Roy, a senior research scholar at Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies, told MEE: “The term ‘unliveable’… is meant as an alarm bell for the international community, but that bell has been ringing for a long time.” The warning, she said, has been ignored amid international indifference and humanitarian interventions that merely serve as a substitute for human rights. “Without the unencumbered movement of people and goods,” Roy said, “Gaza will be condemned to continued ruination.”
