An uncertain phase has opened in the spiral of horror unleashed in the Middle East since the Hamas terrorist attack last Saturday. Brutal attack that targeted mainly the civilian population, which included killings, rapes and kidnappings. The attack suffered by Israel is not a minor detail. Nor is the history of Israel’s violation of the rights of the Palestinian people during or the current siege of Gaza, which primarily affects the civilian population.
And we are in the middle of the ascending spiral that has opened serious uncertainty about regional and global peace. The Government of Benjamin Netanyahu, which with its extremism was demolishing democracy and judicial independence within its borders, is rearranging itself. While he announces “we are going to win the war,” he adds to the horror an unprecedented warlike intensity.
The walls and foundations of international law are shaking while no exit routes are seen for a situation that has its only consistent response, paradoxically, precisely in international law and in the United Nations. The secretary general has already publicly specified two fundamental issues. First, that “civilians must be respected and protected at all times in accordance with international humanitarian law” and, second, that “violence cannot provide a solution to the conflict and that only through negotiation that leads to a two-way solution States, peace can be achieved.”
But in the meantime, the fundamental structure of the United Nations would seem to be on the sidelines. Evident expression of the rule of the right of veto in the Security Council that makes it difficult – or impossible – to date to adopt agreements to stop this spiral of death, blood and pain that hits Israel and Palestine.
This is a crucial issue given the very reason for the UN. And it would be in any tension or conflict like this. But with much more reason in this case because it was precisely in the UN where Israel was created in 1947 and its borders were later established. Limits that, as is known, have been exceeded by Israel, especially since the “six-day war” (1967), occupying Palestinian lands and displacing – or subduing – its population.
In the solution to this crisis, the UN has an essential role, although these days its actions are hindered. But since what is involved is not only a local but also a global dimension, it is worth remembering that in all of this the UN has been and is the essential component. Three aspects stand out.
First, the creation of the State of Israel and its immediate derivation. It was by decision of the UN General Assembly in 1947 that divided Palestine into two independent states, one Arab and the other Jewish. The problem is that the resolution was never fully implemented. After proclaiming its independence (1948), the nascent Jewish State took control of 77% of the territory of Palestine previously under British mandate. More than half of the Palestinian Arab population was expelled or fled the territory of the new state.
Second, with the conflict that followed since the creation of Israel, several decisions were adopted by the General Assembly and the Security Council to limit Israeli expansionism. Among them, resolution 242 in 1967, after the “six-day war” after which Israel occupied additional territories. That crucial resolution, however, was never fully implemented and the territories in question remain wrongfully occupied by Israel. After several decades, the issue continues to be a matter of periodic follow-up in the General Assembly, while Israel consolidated its expansion by creating settlements in territories that belong to the Palestinians.
Third, because in reality a situation was taking shape in which, due to the oppression of the rights of the Palestinian people and their subjection to the rules and policies of the occupying country, other serious effects on international law have been taking place before our eyes. of the world. The main one: “apartheid” affecting the Palestinian population, a very serious and fundamental issue that affects substantive principles and norms of international law.
In 1973, the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid was approved, which outlaws the institutionalization of racial, ethnic or religious oppression of a specific group of people. Since 2021, the human rights organization Human Rights Watch and other reliable analyzes have classified this situation as “apartheid”, a serious violation of UN standards and the provisions of this Convention.
In a situation like the current one, in which crucial decisions of the Security Council and the General Assembly and a series of international principles and norms are involved, the role of the UN should be central today to avoid more deaths and more pain. . Not only with a peace mission to confront persistent threats to peace in the region. In the immediate future, stop the escalation of the conflict and achieve compliance with all the resolutions adopted in recent decades.
The international community faces the challenge of overcoming inertia and promoting a decisive turn to do so.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
#Terrorism #apartheid #Palestine #Israel #time