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)
The HRC plays an essential role in the prevention of mass atrocity crimes by responding to situations where populations are at risk of, or are experiencing, genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity or ethnic cleansing. During its 44th session in July 2020 the HRC adopted Resolution 44/14 on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), recognizing the important contribution of the UN human rights system in addressing situations where there is a risk of atrocity crimes being committed. This is in line with the Council’s prevention mandate, enshrined in General Assembly Resolution 60/251, which stipulates that it shall “contribute, through dialogue and cooperation, towards the prevention of human rights violations and respond promptly to human rights emergencies.”
As a current member of the HRC we strongly urge you to uphold this shared commitment to prevent atrocity crimes. The Global Centre respectfully encourages you to consider the following recommendations as you engage in the 52nd regular session:
… During its 52nd session, the HRC will have an opportunity to discuss numerous other atrocity situations. We respectfully urge your delegation to actively participate in the interactive dialogues with the High Commissioner and the Designated Expert on Sudan, the Special Rapporteurs on Afghanistan and Iran and with the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia, the Fact-Finding Missions on Venezuela and Libya, and on the High Commissioner’s report on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. We also urge you to participate in the Enhanced Interactive Dialogue on human rights in Eritrea and on the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in the High-level dialogue on the Central African Republic. During the General Debate under Item 4, we respectfully urge your delegation to note that possible atrocity crimes are also currently being committed in Cameroon, the Central Sahel, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Mozambique, and Nigeria, and that the international community must do more to uphold its collective responsibility to protect.
The international community must take action to stop systematic and deliberate housing demolition and sealing, arbitrary displacement and forced evictions of Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank, UN experts* said today.
… “The systematic demolition of Palestinian homes, erection of illegal Israeli settlements and systematic denial of building permits for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank amounts to “domicide”.
… “Direct attacks on the Palestinian people’s homes, schools, livelihoods and water sources are nothing but Israel’s attempts to curtail the Palestinians’ right to self-determination and to threaten their very existence,” the experts said.
… The experts have repeatedly raised concerns with the Government of Israel on these issues. No response has been received to date.
At the United Nations, Pakistan has urged the international community to take collective action to protect people of occupied Palestine and Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
Addressing a special meeting on preventing genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity at UN in New York, Pakistan’s Deputy Permanent Ambassador Aamir Khan said for over seven decades, India through force and fraud has denied the right of self-determination to the Kashmiris in violation of multiple resolutions of the UN Security Council.
In a settler-colonial context and an apartheid regime, any display of collective identity and (re)claimed sovereignty from the subjugated people represents a threat to the regime itself. On 13 May 2022, Palestinian pallbearers were attacked by Israeli forces while also carrying their national flag during the funeral of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh who had been killed two days earlier (see para. 58). In fact, Palestinian “symbols”, like the Palestinian flag, are systematically attacked and torn down, in public places, during public events, protests and even funerals, with the display of Palestinian national identity being de facto banned. In the occupied Palestinian territory, preventing the Palestinian people from expressing their collective identity in their own land has taken many forms.
This is part of a broader and deeper endeavour to “deconstruct and replace” Palestine from the collective imagination through a combination of cultural appropriation and the erasure of key cultural entities. [106] The Moroccan Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem, destroyed at the beginning of the occupation to make space for the Wailing Wall esplanade, is one of the first recorded cases of Palestinian venues destroyed or seized and converted to Israeli cultural sites soon after June 1967. Similarly, attempts to erase the Palestinian character of what is left of Palestinian ancestral land include: the elimination of Palestinian history in East Jerusalem schools, [107] the revocation of licences to Palestinian schools not adhering to Israeli curriculum policies [108] and the conversion or closure of sites representing Palestinian cultural, political and religious identity. [109]
Attacks on cultural objects of significance to eliminate all traces and expressions of Palestinian existence, and the incorporation of a revisionist view of history to assert (false) claims of sovereignty in the occupied Palestinian territory, demonstrate the occupier’s intention to permanently strip the land of its indigenous identity.
Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Munir Akram, during a thematic debate in the UNGA on the doctrine of responsibility to protect said “One specific circumstance where those provisions would apply is in situations of foreign occupation or alien domination. He said that such situations were often rife with pressing human rights emergencies and could easily spiral to genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. “Yet, we have not heard from the concept’s sponsors about the need for ‘collective action’ to protect the people of occupied Palestine or of Indian occupied Jammu & Kashmir.”
This article contends that Israeli policies that were enacted after the introduction of the siege in Gaza amount to slow-motion genocide. The United Nations has repeatedly warned of the serious implications of the Israeli siege and asserted that Gaza could soon be uninhabitable [Miriam Berger, ‘The U.N. Once Predicted Gaza Would Be “Uninhabitable” by 2020. Two Million People Still Live There’, Washington Post, January 2, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/01/un-predicted-gaza-would-be-uninhabitable-by-heres-what-that-actually-means/]. The present study adopts a sociological perspective and argues that genocide should be understood as a social practice rather than physical annihilation or merely mass killing of a group of people. It also situates the siege within a larger settler-colonial framework and emphasises the processual nature of the Nakba. Drawing on data collected through semi-structured interviews with Palestinian students as well as human rights reports, and historical and sociological materials, this article elaborates on how Israel commits a slow-motion genocide against defenceless populations in the Gaza Strip.
The currently flawed state even allows a non-veto-wielding client state to get away unscathed with its horrible records of war crimes as long as it has a patron or sponsor who can use its veto power to protect it. Not surprisingly, in May 2021, the USA blocked any resolution to be passed in the UNSC against the apartheid state of Israel for its war crimes in the Gaza. (Despite its genocidal crimes against the native Palestinians, the Biden Administration continues to grant nearly four billion dollars annually to the apartheid state.)
Attempting to greenwash its bloody ongoing genocide of Palestinian people and land, “Israel’s” participation in the COP26 and its silencing of Palestinian voices offer the best example of how the apartheid “state” sweeps its crimes against humanity under the carpet.
Iran has criticized the United Nations for failing to include Israel and Saudi Arabia in its blacklist of parties violating minors’ rights during conflicts, calling on the world body to adopt a non-discriminatory approach in naming and shaming child-killer regimes. Iran’s UN Ambassador Majid Takht-Ravanchi made the remarks in an address to the Security Council Open Debate on Children and Armed Conflict on Monday, after UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres presented his annual report.
“These barbaric acts are clear manifestations of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, materially breach fundamental norms and principles of international law, and entail international responsibility of the Israeli regime, whose officials must therefore be brought to justice for committing such heinous crimes,” Takht-Ravanchi said.
