Asad Wajeed & Fatima Umar
Yet again the land of Prophets, the site for the unification of three religions is drenched in blood, a place where revered religious personalities preached love and humanity is roaring with sounds of grenades and cries of the oppressed. Yes, this holy land is Jerusalem, surrounded by Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. The Palestinian struggle against the occupied forces of Israel dates back to the Holocaust when Jews joined the Zionist movement and considered Jerusalem as their only safe havens which were then under British mandate for Palestine with a wholesome majority of Arab Muslims. But little did the Palestinian’s know that these migrants will become occupied settlers in years to come. Although United Nations witnessinggrowing violence caused by Jewish migrants nullified the British mandate to Palestine and created 2 separate states: The Jewish State called Israel and the Palestinian State under UN Resolution 181. While the holiest for all, Jerusalem became an international site with access to everyone. In the years to come, as a consequence of Arab-Israeli wars, Israel occupied the West Bank including East Jerusalem and Gaza which according to the UN Plan of 1947 belonged to Palestine and since then their illegal occupation and Israeli settlements over Palestinian territories with barbaric use of force are going on.
It is to be well-understood that the mass increment in Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories is ‘occupation’ under international law as under Article 42 of Hague Convention ‘Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. Israel’s occupation is ‘illegal’ under international law as under Article 49 of 4th Geneva Convention it is prohibited for the occupier to transfer its population in occupied territories under the following words: ‘The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its civilian population into the territory it occupies. Along with this, under the same international law, ‘occupation’ is meant to be temporary. This illegality of Israel’s occupation was reaffirmed by United Nations under UNSC Resolution 2334. The illegal actions by Israel are not limited to just settling in Occupied Palestinian Territories, rather for this they are committing genocidal acts. According to United Nations, Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such:
a. Killing members of the group;
b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Beginning in 1948, Israeli forces killed 13,000 Palestinians in just one year, these killings are still going on under the broader mission to ethnically cleanse Palestinians. While hundreds and thousands of Palestinians are killed complying with clause (a), clauses(b), and (c) of the UN definition of Genocide is fulfilled as occupied Palestinians are living in a constant threat to life, freedom, and movement. They live under the dark shadows of uncertainty that when might they be forcibly evicted and displaced without shelter or killed as they are surrounded by electric fences, separation walls, and curfews. And so, this stops their access to medical, education, employment, and basic nutritional demands. Israel’s new wave of efforts to eradicate Palestinians from their own land through genocidal means of action began in the last days of the month of Ramazan when Israeli forces attacked on Al-Aqsa mosque while Muslims were offering prayers and initiated attempts toethnically cleanse them from Sheikh Jarrah, a Muslim neighborhood in East Jerusalem. Israeli Police through the use of brutal force while being illegal occupiers yet again violated International Humanitarian Laws to make 8 Palestinian families homeless and illegally give those residential places to illegal Israeli settlers. For this, they opted to attack Muslim Palestinians in Al-Aqsa Mosque while they were praying on the blessed nights of Ramazan and on average injured 100-200 Muslim worshipers daily. As violence brings violence, Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza opted to fight back in their defense with minimal available weaponry, but again they are facing airstrikes over residential buildings, media houses, and even Refugee camps in Gaza killing 174 Palestinians including 41 children and wounded around 2000 other Palestinians.
How ironic it is that the term ‘Genocide’ which was first used for the atrocities committed against Jews by the Nazi regime, it was the Jewish sufferings that compelled the United Nations to come up with a definition of what ‘Genocide’ is, yet it is the survivors of the Holocaust whose descendants are committing highest level of systematic and state-level Genocide. An irony over an irony is the helplessness of the UN, itself, which failed in protecting civilians in the Bosnian and Rwandan genocide and even now the United States of America is delaying UNSC meeting through its Veto power/ So the UN is passing mere statements of ‘ceasefire’ or ‘warning about full-scale war’, but are failing to anything practical. Similarly, the Western leaders, the protagonists of human rights are showing ‘serious concern’ while sitting in well-secured and sheltered offices; the Muslim bloc is also not doing more than mere statements. Muslim bloc is seeing hot phone diplomacy with the exchange of similar feelings and words between leaders, yet practically is failing to save the sanctity of Al-Aqsa and the lives of the oppressed Palestinians. The question arises till when will the Muslim bloc or the Western world keep on passing statements? A day will soon come when Israeli forces will illegally make Jews settle in Sheikh Jarrah and the Twitter trends, Instagram posts and Facebook feeds; all will become silent, again. But Palestinians will still suffer war crimes and genocide.
Conclusively, politically analyzing the global dynamics, what compelled Israel to flare this conflict once again might lie in the opinion to pressurize the Biden government to maintain ties the way they were doing Trump’s tenure. Or it is to diminish chances of re-establishment of the Iran Nuclear Deal, by pointing Iran’s links with Hamas and Hezbollah which are jointly defending Palestinians. While another reason might link to Netanyahu’s attempts to regain his populist, majoritarian popularity which is at stake due to issues at home including 3 separate corruption cases of breach of trust, fraud, and bribery. Moreover, genocidal atrocities in Occupied Palestinian territories might be an attempt of Netanyahu to distract attention from the political deadlock for two years despite 4 elections. Or is it for the ‘greater’ mission of fertilizing the innocent blood-filled ground for building the third temple of Solomon? Nevertheless, whatever the aims are, the silence of humans over this genocide of humanity might bring regrets in form of practically useless ‘Resolutions’ and ‘ICC statements’ decades from now, while liberalist world order and flag of human rights is failing and falling down.
Bio of authors:
Both the authors are under-graduate students of Peace and Conflict Studies at National Defence University Islamabad.
