OPINION...

Europe is not serious about stopping the genocide in Gaza

A view of destroyed buildings as the Israeli attacks continue in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on March 28, 2024. [Ashraf Amra – Anadolu Agency]

by Hossam Shaker

March 30, 2024 

Middle East Monitor

Has Europe really stopped supporting the genocide, ethnic cleansing and starvation war taking place in Gaza? It is clear that changes have occurred in European positions recently, compared to previous months.

European officials have begun to express increasing “concern” about the humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip and have recently mentioned the word “international law” in their statements regarding the brutal Israeli war after they had previously ignored it. Then, the European Union (EU) called for a ceasefire for the first time at the European Council summit on 21 March, finally after the Israeli army killed 32,000 Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.

European positions have budged, but very slowly and with great caution and the result is that they have not yet left the trenches of supporting the ongoing genocide, with scattered exceptions issued by Belgium, Ireland, Spain, Malta and Norway.

It seems clear that the criticism directed at the Israeli side from most European platforms is still cautious, with great care being taken to choose expressions carefully. Most importantly, Europe ignores the fact that its influence gives it the ability to stop war and genocide immediately if it has the political will through a package of sanctions, for example, but it simply does not want to.

READ: Biden quietly signs off on more bombs, warplanes for Israel

Instead, European politicians are currently trying to give the impression that they disagree with the horrors committed by the Israeli government and its forces against 2.3 million people in the Gaza Strip, but without doing anything to deter them. Because the invasion of Rafah will bring back the most horrific scenes of World War II to the world of colours, Europe clearly opposes the invasion of this narrow area crowded with displaced persons, as do the allies in Washington as well. However, most European platforms do not declare opposition to the ongoing war, despite all the atrocities that have accompanied it. Indeed, the Israeli war leadership still enjoys generous military supplies from European countries, in addition to the continuation of mutual partnership and cooperation agreements without prejudice or even the threat of being suspended.

Instead of taking serious action to curb the horrific massacre, Europe’s political leadership is deluding its people and the world that it is really acting by talking a lot about providing humanitarian aid and showing concern about the worsening famine in the Gaza Strip, without this changing anything in reality, which is, in fact, worsening. There are also renewed declarations of support for the political vision of the two-state solution, readiness to discuss recognition of a Palestinian state and denounce the attacks of extremist settlers in the West Bank and perhaps impose sanctions on them. Regrettably, none of these relate to the essence of the ongoing war on Gaza, which includes genocide, even though the EU and most European capitals have avoided pronouncing this forbidden word when it comes to Israeli behaviour.

Even if Europe imposes sanctions on a few settlers who attack Palestinian citizens, it ignores what is being done by the Israeli army and its soldiers, who do not stop killing, terrorising and abusing Palestinians in the West Bank, in addition to their atrocities in Gaza. Europe grants immunity to the Israeli army, its officers and its soldiers from any sanctions or even any explicit criticism. The focus of criticism on the behaviour of the settlers is always accompanied by a clear insistence on exempting the army from blame and accountability for war crimes.

History will forever recall that Europe’s political establishment supported genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip from day one in multiple forms through military support, political encouragement, propaganda and financial aid. Moreover, they have remained indifferent to the ongoing public objections against this shameful involvement. The war leadership with clear fascist tendencies would not have been able to wage this terrible massacre without this unwavering European cover, in addition to US and Western support in general.

READ: OIC welcomes ICJ’s additional order to Israel to avert famine, humanitarian crisis in Gaza

Political Europe supported the atrocities through a rhetorical plot that included prior justification for everything that any army could commit against civilians. They did this despite knowing that the matter is related to an occupying army whose record is replete with war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip and elsewhere. In fact, the Benjamin Netanyahu government, which is the most extreme and racist Israeli government since its creation, had from the very first days declared its intentions to commit genocide, ethnic cleansing, starvation, war and total destruction. The evidence in this regard is well-documented in the case file South Africa submitted to the International Court of Justice. Yet the EU and most European capitals stuck to a unified narrative, providing excuses for all the atrocities that this army committed in the Gaza Strip, the majority of whose residents are refugee children and women.

European positions did not budge partially until after months of horrific massacres that reached a record level of Palestinian civilian casualties. Their partial change only came months after the brutal Israeli bombing campaign destroyed most homes, hospitals and civilian facilities with ammunition supplied by US and European industries and after starvation in Gaza reached a terrifying and visible peak before the entire world.

Still, European politicians behave as if they are incapable of acting. They continue to make feeble statements and diplomatic appeals to the Israeli side without telling their people and the world that they can take immediate, deterrent and effective steps to stop the genocide, ethnic cleansing and brutal starvation. Alas, they simply do not want to.

The easiest test of the seriousness of European positions is to compare their stand toward the Israeli occupier with the punitive steps taken after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The EU and other European countries have imposed strict, extensive and unprecedented sanctions on Russia since 24 February, 2022, in addition to the sanctions that were previously imposed after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The EU also imposed sanctions on Belarus and Iran due to their roles in supporting the Russian war effort.

READ: Starvation in Gaza: The World Court’s latest intervention

On the other hand, the EU and other European countries did not take any clear punitive steps towards Israel, except for the imposition of sanctions against a few settlers. The strangest thing, however, is that Europe rushed to punish the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and the Palestinian citizens served by the UN agency by hastily cutting off its funding as soon as uncorroborated Israeli allegations were received regarding some of its employees.

In contrast, Europe’s politicians still exempt the Israeli occupation army from even verbal censure. They choose carefully worded phrases when commenting on the terrible atrocities that the world sees, such as the mass killings at aid distribution points, so that these atrocities are not explicitly linked to the Israeli army.

One of the taboos of political discourse in the EU and the capitals of the continent is the use of specific vocabulary to describe what is happening. During half a year of horrors, expressions such as “genocide”, “ethnic cleansing”, “atrocities” and “war crimes” did not appear in European official comments, except in rare exceptions from non-conformist politicians in blog posts. The logical question that has been repeated for months in the words of demonstrators in European squares is: How many more victims would make you consider what is happening to be genocide?

Political Europe is now trying to disavow the image of the party supporting Israel’s war on the Palestinian people with all its atrocities. It is covering up its involvement in justifying this war and encouraging the genocide campaign that has been ongoing for months, including providing multiple forms of military, political, financial and propaganda support from several European countries. Ending the policy of supporting genocide, starvation, war and brutal war crimes has a clear title: ending the partnership and cooperation agreements, imposing strict sanctions, banning the supply of weapons and ammunition and launching a serious humanitarian operation to end the programmed starvation policy. The question remains: How many victims are needed in order to do something like this?

READ: Israel warns 4 European countries against Palestinian statehood recognitio

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor

OPINION,

Delusions at the United Nations

It is absurd to believe that UNSC resolutions and ICJ orders can stop the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

• 
  
  Andrew Mitrovica

  Al Jazeera columnist

Published On 30 Mar 202430 Mar 2024

We have now entered the comforting world of delusions.

Earlier this week, 14 members of the United Nations Security Council agreed on a resolution that called for an “immediate ceasefire” between Israel and Hamas and the “unconditional release of all hostages”.end of list

The US delegation abstained, allowing the resolution to pass.

Applause broke out in the chamber. It was a surreal, farcical scene, punctuated by an expression of self-congratulatory delusion that something tangible had finally been achieved to end Israel’s killing rage in the shattered, dystopian remnants of the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.

These delighted diplomats – many of them inconsequential underlings who devote careers to doing what they are told to do by presidents and prime ministers – seemed to have forgotten that up until this latest vote they were instructed to oppose a host of other ceasefire resolutions.

They also appear to have forgotten that the presidents and prime ministers who appointed them UN ambassadors rushed to Tel Aviv not too long ago and embraced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and advised him, in effect, to do whatever he wanted to Palestinians in Gaza and beyond, by whatever means he wanted to, for as long as he wanted to.

Now, some of these same presidents and prime ministers apparently want Netanyahu to stop doing what he has been doing with their unequivocal blessing, and they want you and me to believe them.

It is a farce and a delusion. Even if there was a sliver of sincerity in their craven volte-face, it is far too late. They championed Netanyahu. He could erase Gaza and its people – with their approval or not.

Netanyahu and his fanatical cabinet – who have long claimed that the UN is a cesspool of anti-Semitism – are not going to be dissuaded from achieving their aim of turning Gaza into dust and memory by a resolution that they consider as disposable as toilet paper.

Anyone, in any quarter, who believes otherwise is delusional, too.

Remember, in January, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which arguably enjoys a touch more gravitas than the UN Security Council – a spent, feckless anachronism – ordered Israel, almost unanimously, to stop doing what it is doing to Palestinians in Gaza given that it amounts “plausibly” to genocide.

Israel’s response has been to keep doing what it has been doing in Gaza every ruthless day since the ICJ issued its interim ruling. If anything, Israel’s killing rage has surged in its cruelty and ferocity.

So, on Thursday, the judges issued “new provisional measures” amid “the worsening conditions of life faced by Palestinians in Gaza”.

The ICJ acknowledged the obvious: Israel has, by deliberate design, engineered a famine in Gaza meant to starve Palestinians into submission and capitulation.

The ICJ has demanded that Israel, as a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, allow food, water, fuel and the other stuff of life to enter Gaza “unhindered” at “land crossings” more often.

It is another delusion. Israel will reject the “new provisional measures” just as it rejected wholesale the ICJ’s “interim ruling”.

The ICJ’s answer for Israel’s preening arrogance and obstinance is as pathetic as the court itself: “ … the State of Israel shall submit a report to the Court on all measures … within one month.”

Yes, that ought to get Netanyahu and company to abandon their “plausibly” genocidal destruction of Gaza tout de suite.

Meanwhile, back at the UN Security Council, the US delegation gave quite the vacuous performance that was hailed by a batch of hyperbolic Western commentators as evidence that US President Joe Biden has lost patience with the recalcitrant Israeli government.

Leading the delusional pack was an article in the online British publication, The Independent, which described the US ambassador’s abstention as a “landmark” moment that may have signalled the end of Biden’s, and by extension America’s, “love affair with Israel”.

“Faced with Netanyahu’s unsparing belligerence in Gaza and the contempt he has shown to global concern, the US special relationship with Israel has been pushed to breaking point. But what happens next could help reshape Middle East politics for the better,” a columnist wrote.

What an instructive paragraph, filled as it is, with palatable euphemisms, falsehoods and cliches that confirm the column’s delusions.

First, from October 7 on, Biden has repeatedly declared that America’s abiding “love affair” with Israel is sacrosanct even in the face of Netanyahu’s “unsparing belligerence” in Gaza, which is a polite euphemism for genocide.

All along, Biden – the self-proclaimed Zionist – has had one, overarching message for Netanyahu and friends: Please proceed.

Whatever differences exist between the US and Israel vis-à-vis the genocide in Gaza, they have been on the rhetorical margins and, hence, meaningless.

In this context, the US decision to abstain is more a fleeting lovers’ quarrel than any concrete sign of a “special relationship … pushed beyond a breaking point”.

Instead of a bouquet, Biden sent Bibi more bombs to make amends this week.

Netanyahu’s “contempt” for “global concern” is a product of this blunt calculation: just like the ICJ and the UN Security Council, Biden is irrelevant.

Donald Trump looks poised, come November, to return to the White House. Then, the empty rhetorical spats will vanish, and Israel will be granted carte blanche to “reshape” Gaza and the occupied West Bank as it pleases.

That could well translate, I fear, into the forcible expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza and the occupied West Bank as the definitive solution to the “Palestinian question”.

There will be one state: a greater Israel. That is Netanyahu’s end game. Trump will say, “Aye, aye, sir!”, as will most Israelis, who have cheered on every malignant aspect of the still unfolding genocide.

The notion that there exists some grand plan in the offing – ready to be enacted whenever Israel’s killing rage ends – that respects the right of Palestinians to self-determination and recognises the territorial integrity of a Palestinian state is perhaps the grandest delusion of all.

Human rights organisations inside and outside Israel warned that an avowed apartheid state would not be satisfied with “occupying” Gaza and the West Bank.

They wrote voluminous reports steeped in international law and conventions that doubled as flares of what inevitably was to come.

A few heeded the alarm. Most dithered.

Palestinians have paid and will pay the price for that negligence and willful blindness.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

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• 
  Andrew Mitrovica

  Al Jazeera columnist

  Andrew Mitrovica is an Al Jazeera columnist based in Toronto.

South Africa pleased with outcome of genocide case at top UN court: President

March 30, 2024

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa gives a speech in Johannesburg, South Africa on August 24, 2023. [Handout – BRICS – Anadolu Agency]


South Africa’s president said Friday his country is pleased with the outcome of genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and Israel should heed the measures ordered by the court so there is an end to the ongoing slaughter of Palestinians, Anadolu reports.

“We are very pleased and sad about the outcome of the case at ICJ. Sad because it just confirms that what the International Court of Justice had ruled before was not heeded by Israel and we needed to go back and argue another case, particularly with concern that there may be attacks on Rafah,” Ramaphosa told reporters.

He said the new orders of the top UN court need to be heeded by Israel. “We need to see the end of the slaughter that the people of Palestine are being subjected to.”

The top UN court on Thursday issued additional provisional measures on Israel, including “unhindered provision” of aid to Gaza, in the ongoing genocide case against Israel brought on South Africa’s request.

“The catastrophic living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have deteriorated further,” said the ICJ order, referring to the change in the situation since its interim ruling on Jan. 26.

South Africa filed a case at the ICJ in late 2023, accusing Israel of failing to uphold its commitments under the 1948 Genocide Convention.

READ: World Court orders Israel to take action to address Gaza famine

In January, the court ordered Israel to take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance in the Gaza Strip but stopped short of ordering a cease-fire which South Africa had requested.

On March 6, South Africa again approached the court requesting for additional provisional measures based on the change in the situation.

The ICJ indicated new measures since the provisional measures in the earlier order “do not fully address the consequences arising from the changes in the situation.”

Courageous initiative

Ramaphosa said what is pleasing is that more countries around the world are now seeing the correctness of the step South Africa took.

“Initially when we initiated the court case, people in some countries were saying it is baseless, nothing will come of it. Now more and more countries and leaders are saying South Africa has taken a huge courageous initiative that’s going to advance the interest of humanity.”

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack led by Hamas in which nearly 1,200 Israelis were killed.

More than 32,600 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have since been killed in Gaza, besides causing mass destruction, displacement, and conditions of famine.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which asked Israel to do more to prevent famine in Gaza. It said: “Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine … but that famine is setting in.”

Ethiopian soldier in the Israeli forces recorded himself dancing inside a destroyed home in Gaza

A video depicts a soldier with Israeli forces dancing inside a demolished home in the besieged Gaza Strip. He was performing a traditional Ethiopian dance, and Palestinian media outlets refer to him as an Ethiopian serving with the Israeli military.


March 30, 2024

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