Good invasion and bad invasion
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Four days ago, Israeli troops killed eleven Palestinians in a military offensive in Nablus, a part of West Bank, Palestine. Five of them were civilians and more than a hundred people were injured. Following this, Gazan fighters hit back by firing rockets at Israel. Seeing it as a perfect opportunity, Israel launched airstrikes against Gaza. This has been the practice for years. Israel always claim that the airstrikes were in retaliation to Palestinians' attacks. If at all the Palestinians occasionally retaliate with limited resources, Israel’s modus operandi has always been to oppress the inhabitants by violating all international laws, denying them their basic rights and freedom, and resorting to aggressive attacks and massacre by taking their retribution as an excuse.
Many countries continue to display gross injustice by giving approval and support to Israel for this. Palestinians are living as second-class citizens in their own country. In this case, the issue is not any dearth of international law. The United Nations had determined that the actions of the invaders must be subject to the Geneva Conventions (1949). The invading country has no sovereignty over the occupied territories; invasion should not be permanent; it is the responsibility of the occupiers to ensure the safety of the citizens; people should neither be displaced nor forcefully driven away from their homes; collective punishment is not allowed; there should be no confiscation of private property; cultural assets should be respected- Israel has violated many a time these terms specified in the Geneva Conventions. Even as this 75-year-long brutal invasion continues unabated even on a daily basis, the prominent world powers not only refuse to oppose Israel but also openly support it.
It has been only a year since the Russian invasion of Ukraine started. The ongoing war which has rattled the world and raised nuclear threats continues to have repercussions all over the world. The U.N. has been intervening, echoing the demand that the occupation be stopped immediately. In addition, popular demonstrations have been taking place in Western countries demanding an end to the provocative actions by the US allies by aiding Ukraine and developing NATO. The UN General Assembly has called on Russia to end the war and withdraw from Ukraine.
It is all fine, but according to a recent report, the United States put pressure on Palestinian Authority (PA), the ‘puppet government’, to stall a resolution in the UN Security Council condemning Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine. With this, the world's nations are making clear that Ukraine gets one justice, and Palestine another. In 1967, the United Nations Security Council unanimously decided that no foreign territory would be taken over by war. Russia’s takeover of Crimea and Ukraine is a violation of this agreement. Similarly, Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories and its possession of East Jerusalem and the Golan heights amounts to a violation of the Security Council resolution. Today, countries that forcefully advocate on behalf of Ukraine and even talk about military intervention, have limited their response to Israel's invasion of Palestine to occasional paper resolutions. Not only Russia but Israel has also been accused of war crimes. But the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has declared that it would look into the crimes Russia committed in Ukraine, is delaying the investigation into the war crimes committed by Israel despite years of appeal by Palestinians.
Israel has also been accused of a more serious crime that has not been raised against Russia: they have been committing racial discrimination (apartheid) in the land they have invaded. This was confirmed by UN officials. Under the United Nations, the world's nations had imposed a joint blockade on South Africa to free it from Apartheid. But today, many are bizarrely convinced that even the idea of imposing a sanction against Israel is a sin. However, the West have with alacrity announced sanctions against Russia for invading Ukraine.
Today, there are more than 300 illegal settlements which are now home to 700,000 Israeli settlers, and they continue to migrate. There is not even a fraction of the hullaballoo compared to that in the case of Ukraine. The year 2023 marks the 75th anniversary of the adoption of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. In January alone, 3,532 human rights abuses were committed by Israel against Palestinians in East Jerusalem and West Bank. The international community which is trying to put an end to invasion and injustice in Europe refuses to see the injustice endured by Asia’s ‘Middle East’ region. When will the world realize that injustice to a few is akin to injustice to all?
