After more than four months of conflict, Israel's campaign of retaliation against Hamas is characterized by a pattern of war crimes and violations of international law. Israel's justification for the war in Gaza is to eliminate Hamas, which is responsible for the horrific crimes committed during its October 1.139 attack on Israel. 240 people, mostly Israeli civilians, were killed, thousands were wounded, an unknown number of women and girls were subjected to sexual violence, and XNUMX people were taken hostage, many of whom are still in Hamas captivity.
In response, Israel forcibly displaced Palestinians, imposing conditions that left hundreds of thousands without basic human necessities. It carried out indiscriminate, disproportionate and direct attacks on civilians and "civilian facilities", such as schools and hospitals. More than 28.000 Palestinians were killed, mostly women and children. Vast swaths of Gaza have been leveled, a fifth of the infrastructure and most homes in the enclave have now been damaged or destroyed, leaving the area largely uninhabitable. Israel has imposed a prolonged blockade, denying Palestinians adequate food, drinking water, fuel, internet access, shelter and medical care, an action that amounts to collective punishment. He is detaining Gazans in inhumane and degrading conditions, and Israel admits that some of those detained have already died. Meanwhile, in the West Bank, violence by Israeli forces and settlers against Palestinians has increased significantly.
It is as if the serious moral lessons of the Holocaust, the Second World War, were almost forgotten, and with them the very core of the decades-long principle of "never again"
The United States and many Western countries have supported Israel, providing military aid, opposing calls at the United Nations for a cease-fire, halting funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, and rejecting South Africa's genocide claim against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), even and while the carnage continues.
Today's diplomatic complicity in the catastrophic human rights and humanitarian crisis in Gaza is the culmination of years of erosion of the international rule of law and the global human rights system. Such decay began in earnest after 11/XNUMX, when the US embarked on a "war on terror," a campaign that normalized the idea that anything is permitted in the pursuit of "terrorists." To conduct the war in Gaza, Israel borrows ethos, strategy and tactics from that framework, doing so with US support.
It is as if the serious moral lessons of the Holocaust, the Second World War, have been almost forgotten, and with them the very core of the decades-long principle of "never again": its absolute universality, the idea that it protects all of us or none of us. This decay, so evident in the destruction of Gaza and the Western response to it, signals the end of the rules-based order and the beginning of a new era.
The age of universality
Universality, the principle that human rights belong to all of us, without exception, regardless of who we are and where we live, lies at the heart of the international human rights system. It was the foundation of the Genocide Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, both adopted in 1948, and has continued to shape new accountability instruments over the years, including the International Criminal Court, established in 2002. For decades, that legal infrastructure helped ensure that states respect human rights obligations. It globally defined human rights movements and was the basis of the greatest achievements in the field of human rights of the twentieth century.
A critic of this system might argue that the states only paid lip service to universality. The 1948th century is full of examples of failure to preserve the equal dignity of all: violence against those who advocate for decolonization, the war in Vietnam, genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda, the wars that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia, and many more. All these events testify to an international system that is more rooted in systemic inequality and discrimination than in universality. With good reason, one could argue that universality has never been applied to the Palestinians, who, as the Palestinian-American intellectual Edward Said described it, have been "victims of victims, refugees of refugees" since XNUMX.
However, the fate of universality does not lie in the hands of those who betray it. Instead, as a multi-year ambitious project for humanity, its power rests, above all, in its ceaseless proclamation and its persistent defense. During the twentieth century, the principle of universality had numerous failures, but the general direction was towards its proclamation, confirmation and defense. This changed, however, in the early years of the twenty-first century, with the launch of the “war on terror” following the tragic events of 11/XNUMX.
Removing the gloves
Over the past 20 years, the doctrine and methods of the "war on terror" have been adopted or emulated by governments around the world. They have been used to extend the reach and scope of state "self-defense" measures and to prosecute, with the slightest restraint, any people or authorities deemed to fall under the loosely defined but widely applied label of "terrorist threat."
The extremely large number of civilian murders in Gaza committed in the name of self-defense and the fight against terrorism is a logical consequence of that framework, which has perverted and almost dismantled international law, and with it the principle of universality.
US airstrikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria have resulted in massive civilian casualties. The US military has always maintained that it took the necessary steps to protect civilians. But she offered little explanation about how exactly she distinguished civilians from combatants and why, if she distinguished correctly, so many civilians were killed.
With good reason, one could argue that universality has never been applied to the Palestinians, who, as the Palestinian-American intellectual Edward Said described it, have since 1948 been "victims of victims, refugees of refugees
Over the past 20 years, governments around the world have adopted similar methods. In Syria, Russia's relentless bombing of civilian infrastructure has led to thousands of civilian casualties. Yet in cases documented by Amnesty International, Russian authorities claimed that their armed forces were targeting "terrorist" targets, even as they destroyed hospitals, schools and markets. Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is also justified by baseless arguments of self-defense and exceptions to the ban on the use of force. Its indiscriminate attacks have resulted in thousands of civilian casualties, amid mounting evidence of crimes under international law, such as torture, deportation and forcible transfer, sexual violence and unlawful killings. China has also invoked the "fight against terrorism" to justify a widespread crackdown on Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, resulting in crimes against humanity.
The roots of Israel's massive bombing of Gaza go deeper into history than the long-running "war on terror," including the expulsion of some 750.000 Palestinians from their homes in 1948, which became known as the nakba, or catastrophe. But it is also a fundamental manifestation of the erosion of international law from the 21st century, in which the limitations set by the post-World War II system are little or not respected: neither those from the UN Charter, in international human rights law, or even from the Genocide Convention, as claims South Africa.
Where is the protest?
In the immediate aftermath of October 7, Western governments condemned Hamas' crimes and expressed unconditional support for Israel, an understandable and predictable response to the horror inflicted on the population of a close ally. But they should have changed their rhetoric when it became clear, which it did very quickly, that Israel's bombing of Gaza had killed thousands of civilians. All governments, especially those with influence over Israel, should have unequivocally and publicly condemned Israel's illegal actions and called for a ceasefire, the return of all hostages, and accountability for war crimes and other violations on both sides.
That didn't happen. During the first two months of the war, the Joe Biden administration largely downplayed the loss of life in Gaza. She did not condemn the relentless Israeli bombing and devastating siege. It did not acknowledge the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including 56 years of Israeli military occupation, and instead embraced Israel's counter-terrorism framework.
And as the war continued, the Biden administration defended Israel's tactics. She repeated some of the unverified and later rejected Israeli claims about Hamas crimes. Although the US eventually became more vocal about protecting Palestinian civilians, it refused to publicly support key steps that would help save their lives. Instead, at the UN, the US vetoed Security Council resolutions calling for humanitarian pauses in the war. Only on December 22 did they allow, when they abstained, the Security Council to adopt a compromise resolution calling for "urgent steps to immediately allow safe and unhindered and expanded humanitarian access" to Gaza and "conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities." They have never publicly considered stopping sending arms to Israel.
Days after the International Court of Justice's ruling and its calls for interim measures to prevent the genocide in Gaza, the US and a number of other Western governments have canceled funding to the UN agency that is providing relief to the people of Gaza. That decision not only ignores the obvious risks of genocide, but serves to amplify and accelerate them. The US's status as a superpower and its influence over Israel means that Washington is in a unique position to change the reality on the ground in Gaza. More than any other country, America can prevent its close ally from continuing to commit atrocities. But so far she has decided not to.
This pattern of behavior comes at a huge cost. As one G-7 diplomat said: “We have definitely lost the battle in the Global South. All the work we did with the Global South (around Ukraine) was lost. ... Forget the rules, forget the world order. They will never listen to us again”.
A change of era
Although there have been rehearsals for the events in Gaza that have shown an utter disregard for international law, the war there could spell the end of the show. The risk of genocide, the gravity of the committed violations and the flimsy justifications of elected officials in Western democracies warn of a change of era. The rules-based order that has governed international affairs since the end of World War II is on the wane, and there may be no return.
The consequences of this abandonment are all too obvious: more instability, more aggression, more conflict and more suffering. The only mechanism to control violence will be more violence. The end of the rules-based order will also bring widespread and palpable anger in all walks of life, in all corners of the planet, except among those in a position to reap any tainted rewards that can be derived from the collapse of the international system.
However, steps can be taken to prevent this worst-case scenario. They begin with the immediate cessation of all military operations by both Israel and Hamas, the immediate release of all remaining civilian hostages kidnapped by Hamas and all Palestinians illegally detained by Israel, and the lifting of the siege of Gaza. The ICC's interim measures to prevent genocide in Gaza must be fully implemented.
Israel and its biggest backer, the US, must accept that the declared military objective of destroying Hamas has caused a huge cost in civilian life and infrastructure, which is probably not justifiable under international law. It is now more important than ever that the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court act decisively to bring charges for crimes committed by all parties to the conflict.
Neither the historical injustices nor the long-term prospects for peace in the Middle East, and perhaps beyond, can be resolved without an international and inclusive process that defines the dismantling of the Israeli apartheid system and enables the protection of the security and rights of all populations.
Painful memories of injustices, both recent and long ago, can help save lives today, and in the future, in Israel, the Palestinian territories and beyond. However, that process must begin immediately, as time is running out. If history does indeed repeat itself, as we are often told, then we should consider ourselves well warned. As the universal application of international law is likely on the wane, with nothing in sight to replace it except brutal national interests and sheer greed, the widespread anger can be, and will be, exploited by many who are prepared to foment even wider instability on an even larger scale. on a global scale.
The author is the Secretary General of Amnesty International. From 2016 to 2021, she was the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial and arbitrary executions
The article was published in the magazine "Foreign Affairs"
Translated and edited by: A. Šofranac
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