Historic hearings commenced on Monday at the United Nations’ highest court in Hague, Netherlands, focusing on the legality of Israel’s 57-year occupation of territories seized in 1967, including the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and annexed East Jerusalem.
The International Court of Justice is conducting these hearings in response to a request from the UN General Assembly for a non-binding advisory opinion on Israel’s policies in these occupied territories. The hearings are anticipated to span six days.
This is a moment of global conscience, revealing systemic racism and corruption within the international framework. Otherwise, the Israeli occupation of Palestinian and Arab lands wouldn’t necessitate debate. It stands as an unequivocal testament to racist and barbaric colonialism. The referral to the UN court serves as a stark reminder of the international community’s reluctance to take a firm legal stance against the 75-year plight of the Palestinian people under brutal Israeli colonial rule. Israel’s colonisation of Palestine wouldn’t be up for debate if not for the prevailing double standards within the global system, which selectively upholds international law and humanitarian principles to serve its colonial and racist agendas.
It’s ironic that more than fifty nations deliberate whether the Israeli occupation constitutes colonialism while 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, half of whom are children, endure siege, bombings, killings, injuries, starvation, and displacement. Similarly, over 3.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, suffer from the colonisation of their territories and face incessant racist violence on a daily basis.
How can the international community question the unparalleled nature of racist Israeli colonialism, when most nations acknowledge it as annexationist and supremacist? The United Nations itself enshrines in its charter the rights of all peoples to self-determination, the right to defend their lands, and to resist occupation. The current situation in Palestine represents a worldwide crisis of morality, underscored by a global system riddled with racism and political hypocrisy. Under these circumstances, the matter of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian and Arab territories stands as an undeniable instance of racist and barbaric colonialism, a reality that cannot be negotiated or dismissed. Bringing this issue to the UN court reflects a deliberate attempt by the international community to evade taking a decisive legal stance on the enduring suffering of the Palestinian people for more than 75 years of oppressive Israeli colonial rule.
The international community must abandon double standards, break free from the complex of shielding Israel, and stop justifying its crimes with flimsy pretexts. It must recognise the rights of Palestinian children to live in peace, and stability, rather than viewing them as demographic or security threats. True peace and security for Israel can only be achieved when the same is secured for the Palestinians.
