The United States on Thursday, August 7, intervened in the crisis in Iraq on humanitarian grounds. In a televised late-night statement from the White House, President Barack Obama said American military planes carried out airdrops of humanitarian aid to tens of thousands of Iraqi religious minorities surrounded by militants and desperately in need of food and water.
“Today, America is coming to help,” he declared.
Food and water supplies were delivered to Yazidis, an endangered Iraqi minority group trapped on a mountain without food and water. The Yazidis, who follow an ancient religion with ties to Zoroastrianism, fled their homes after the terrorist Islamic State group that has balkanised Iraq in an attempt to create a Caliphate, issued an ultimatum to them to convert to Islam or pay a religious fine or flee their homes or face death.
Obama cast the mission to assist the Yazidis as part of the American mandate to assist around the world when the U.S. has the unique capabilities to help avert a massacre.
In those cases, he said, “We can act carefully and responsibly to prevent a potential act of genocide.” Well said.
But why is it that the West has no universal perception of genocide? Doesn’t the universal mandate the U.S. claims it has extend to Palestine?
Why will the international community stand by and watch Israelis massacre innocent Palestinians every time without raising its voice in condemnation? Is Israel above the law? If yes, why? Are Palestinians not human beings? Are they not entitled to the protection of the human community? Is might now right?
I ask these questions in the face of the Israeli massacre of Palestinians in the name of right to self-defence. Yes, the enervating din of the guns seems to have quietened. The temporary truce brokered in Egypt seems to be holding but for how long?
A triumphant Benjamin Netanyahu, the hawkish Israeli Prime Minister, must be beside himself now with joy. He had always relished every opportunity to soil his hands with the blood of Palestinians. He did that on a grand scale this time through the so-called “Operation Protective Edge.”
At the time the temporary truce came into effect last week, at least 1,890 Palestinians had been killed. According to the United Nations figures, at least 1,354 were civilians, including 447 children. In contrast, only 67 Israelis were killed, 64 of them soldiers.
Israel claimed it went into the latest war to destroy Hamas’ terror infrastructure, but since it launched the bombing campaigns on July 8, no place, not even UN facilities where innocent civilians took shelter, was off-limits.
For the occupiers of Palestinian land, everywhere – schools, hospitals, industries, and mosques – was a legitimate target. Those who claim to be the conscience of the world sit by and watch (even encourage) Israel to commit what UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, describes as “moral outrages” and “criminal acts.”
So horrified was Sayeeda Warsi, a senior minister in Britain’s Foreign Office, that she not only resigned from the cabinet but accused Prime Minister David Cameron’s government of taking a “morally indefensible” approach to the conflict.
It took the deliberate shelling of a UN school in Rafah sheltering 3,000 displaced civilians, which took at least 10 Palestinian lives, for the U.S. to criticise Israel.
But even while Americans appreciate the fact that “the suspicion that militants are operating nearby does not justify strikes that put at risk the lives of so many innocent civilians,” they didn’t go to the UN to seek a resolution to condemn Israel as they would have done if it were any other country.
Of course, expecting them to do so would be the height of naivety. But there is always a price to pay for condoning injustice.
Many supporters of Israel and its defence force (IDF) blame Hamas for the crisis and the high death toll of Palestinian civilians. Some go as far as blaming all Palestinians for the murder of their children by Israelis by electing the Hamas government. But that is tantamount to playing the axiomatic ostrich.
Such critics, including Western nations and even the UN, are being smart by half because the firing of rockets from Gaza by militant groups which they insist endangers lives in Israel, is merely a symptom or unavoidable reaction to the real problem – the occupation of Palestine by Israel, its obnoxious policy of apartheid in the occupied territories and the deliberate and unconscionable humiliation and dehumanisation of Palestinians.
What the Israeli army is committing in Gaza, no matter how anyone looks at it, amounts to war crimes.
Nothing exposes the hypocrisy of the international community to the crisis more than the willingness to allow Israel disregard UN resolutions and act with impunity. There is a litany of failed UN resolutions, at least 79 of them, that rightly condemn Israel’s egregious human rights violations but they were all scuttled by the use or threat of the use of veto by the U.S. and United Kingdom.
As detailed in Paul Findley’s book, Deliberate Deceptions, the major themes reflected in the UN Security Council resolutions against Israel over the years are its unlawful attacks on its neighbours; violations of the human rights of Palestinians, including deportations, demolition of homes and other collective punishments; confiscation of Palestinian land; establishment of illegal settlements; and refusal to abide by the UN Charter and the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.
All these have been ignored without any sanction. Yet, decisions by the UN are considered part of international law. Security Council resolutions are binding.
As has been observed by scholars, Israel itself was created by an act of the UN. Thus the Arabs cannot deny its legitimacy. Similarly, Israel cannot deny the legitimacy of UN Security Council resolutions.
But the West has not only successfully used the UN to protect Israel from any international retribution it also provides cover for it to destroy the Palestinian nation.
The fact remains, however, that it is Israel, rather than Palestinians, which doesn’t want a two-state solution.
And as long as Israel continues to occupy Palestinian land, there will be resistance. And when a people are determined to fight for their rights, to end occupation and apartheid, not even genocide will deter them.
History is on the side of Palestinians.