Will western hypocrisy wither under the penetrating gaze of the rest of the world or will the moral standing of European countries die in a ditch in Gaza?
In 2003 the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s “apartheid wall” being built through Palestinian territory was a violation of international law and should be dismantled. Israel ignored the ruling and 20 years later the wall remains a potent symbol of Israeli policies of segregation based on ethnicity.
Last month Israel was taken to the court again, this time by South Africa which argued Israel was committing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza with genocidal talk from Israeli leaders and indiscriminate killing of civilians – over 26,000 killed so far including more than 12,000 Palestinian children.
The charge of genocide against Israel will take years to be heard and decided upon but in the meantime South Africa argued for the court to issue interim orders to require Israel to end its military operation and allow desperately needed humanitarian assistance to flow freely into Gaza.
Last Friday the ICJ gave an interim ruling and although it did not demand an immediate ceasefire, it agreed with South Africa’s case that there was evidence to suggest Israel had breached the genocide convention and requiring Israel to report back to the Court within a month on the steps it was taking to protect Palestinian lives and their very existence in Gaza.
Israel is now on probation. What happens in the coming weeks will determine whether Israel ends its killing spree in Gaza or shows the ICJ its middle finger as it did in 2003.
Commentary on the ICJ decision indicates the huge moral weight the decision carries for Israel and its small coterie of supporters in western countries (including my own country New Zealand which has been complicit through its silence) to end the war on Gaza.
The only way Israel will follow the ICJ ruling is if it comes under enough pressure from western countries who have for decades refused to set any accountabilities for Israel’s occupation of Palestine and its naked brutality against the Palestinian people.
Western countries have previously called on other countries to abide by ICJ rulings – such as the ruling that Russia must end its invasion in Ukraine and withdraw from its troops. Will western countries make the same strong demands of Israel or will we look the other way at the behest of the US?
It’s not looking promising.
For example, in deliberately misleading comments the US says “the ICJ didn’t find Israel guilty of genocide” Australia says is “doesn’t have much to say about the ICJ ruling” and so far New Zealand has been equivocal with Foreign Minister Winston Peters making a few obligatory tweets calling on all parties to follow the ICJ ruling but nothing more. The contrast with how these same countries dealt with Russia compared to Israel could not be clearer.
In our Foreign Minister’s case, our stance seems more aimed to avoid difficult conversations with US representatives at diplomatic cocktail parties than pressure to end the killing of Palestinian children.
With Israel’s long history of ignoring international law and thumbing its nose at United Nations resolutions western countries will lose even more of their credibility if they continue to shield the apartheid state from accountability. Already the awful stench of political hypocrisy is hanging in the air.
To blow the stench away western countries must speak out in a principled, assertive way. The alternative is to be silent and to suffer the justified derision for what would be cowardly, obsequious behaviour.
At the moment the West is continuing to swim against the tide of world opinion. Here in New Zealand we have refused to criticise the killing of Palestinian civilians by Israel despite loudly condemning the killing of Israeli civilians in the October 7th attack. We have also refused to condemn other war crimes such as “collective punishment” of Palestinians through the withholding of food, water and the necessities of life. We haven’t even made an unequivocal call for an immediate, permanent ceasefire or called for an International Criminal Court investigation into war crimes on and after October 7th. We did this for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine so why the reticence over the Middle East?
Our embarrassing history is one of selective morality – condemning human rights abuses by countries the US sees as enemies and turning a blind eye when friends of the US are the culprits.
In 2014 when Israel launched a war on Gaza with similar mass killing of Palestinians our then government called in the Israeli ambassador and made clear New Zealand’s expectations. The current right-wing government has failed to take even this most rudimentary measure of accountability for Israel.
The time for doing that is now well past. Western countries must indicate to Israel that its behaviour is morally and ethically reprehensible to humanity. Acting together the west must make clear to Israel that it will be a friendless, pariah state until it is in full compliance with the ICJ decision as well as the boarder provisions of international law such as allowing Palestinian refugees the right to return to their land and homes in Palestine, ending the military occupation of Palestine and revoking Israel’s apartheid policies against Palestinians.
But let’s not hold our breath waiting. We need concerted international action for this to happen.
Western racism and “white-is-right” hypocrisy must not be allowed to override or sidetrack the significance and critical importance of this historic ICJ decision.
Israel is a European colony in the oil-rich Middle East. Many of the western countries providing cover for Israeli crimes such as the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand share a similar European colonial history. The Eurocentrism with which they view the world, along with a good dose of anti-Palestinian racism are the key drivers of policy on Palestine.
The ICJ decision has discomforted the West which is now under an intense international spotlight.
Will western hypocrisy wither under the penetrating gaze of the rest of the world or will the moral standing of European countries die in a ditch in Gaza?
