Now I shall turn straight to Professor Richard Falk who is
going to be talking to us about genocide self defence under
international law. As I mentioned before, Richard
is a renowned international expert, the UN rapporteur on on
the Palestine case for the United Nations and he's going to
talk to us about the question of genocide, what we're seeing at
the moment, question of self defence and where we're going in
terms of the International Court of Justice and the South African
attempts, so. Richard, thank you Piers.
I'm very honoured and pleased to be part of this panel and I
think it's very crucial to link the genocidal events in Gaza and
in a sense in all of occupied Palestine to the configurations
of empire in the post 911 post Cold War international
environment and not forgetting the Ukraine dimension.
While we focus on the Middle East.
The Hamas attack on October 7th, which is itself surrounded by
suspicious circumstances of Israeli foreknowledge and
therefore allowing these horrific events to unfold, and
being very slow to respond to the actuality of the attack and
the quickness with which it converted a limited instance of
Palestinian resistance under Hamas's leadership into the
pretext for launching this vengeful and genocidal onslaught
on the civilian population of Gaza.
That's a shocking sequence of events on its own.
And then when you consider the magnitude of the violence that's
been inflicted on Gaza and the population, the whole of the
population, you have to understand that this is a
horrific, transparent and in a way, original confrontation with
the crime of crimes, genocide. In the past, genocides have been
known mainly in retrospect and indirectly, and we have not had
the experience of the unfolding before our eyes on nightly
television. The imagery of bombing hospitals
and refugee camps, of babies being buried in mass graves is
something grotesque that not only is occurring as a result of
Israeli actions, but enjoys the complicity of important
countries in what I would call the settler colonial states of
the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, plus the main members
of NATO which include Germany, UK and France, who are also
colonial powers. And so this has to be seen as
part of the post colonial effort by the global white W to
maintain hegemonic control over the whole world system.
If we look at the casualties and the damage that has been done in
Gaza up to this point, in the three months that these
horrendous events have unfolded and multiply them
proportionately to the population of country like the
United States, which has supported materially and
diplomatically at every stage so far, the occurrence of such
violence, we would multiply the death totals of over 20,000 by
175 to take proportional account of the relative populations.
That's a shocking total and predominantly civilians, and
seemingly having only a marginal connection with Israeli
security. If Israeli security was the
dominant motive, they would do differently what might prevent
some similar act of resistance to take place in the future.
They would first of all correct the bureaucratic process that
led to this so-called security lapse and that would probably be
sufficient to re establish their security.
They would also try to accommodate the needs of the
people of Gaza by lifting the 15 year old blockade and make any
acts of resistance seem less like a jailbreakout than a
isolated instance of violence. When we look at the Genocide
Convention itself, we see that both Israel and the United
States and the leading NATO members and those settler
colonial states are all parties to that convention, which was
viewed as a key element in creating a kind of wall against
the repetition of what happened in the Holocaust And what we've
seen not only in Gaza now but elsewhere, in Rwanda, in
Malaysia, in in Myanmar, not Malaysia, is an inadequate
capacity to implement the intention of the Genocide
Convention to prevent its recurrence.
But what is clear is that the facts of bombing so
indiscriminately and so persistently and
disproportionately in opposition to international humanitarian
law, the civilian population of 2.3 million Gazans is creates
the factual foundation of the genocidal allegation.
And that factual allegation is reinforced by the statements of
the highest Israeli leaders, Prime Minister Netanyahu, the
President Herzog and the Minister of Defense Yoav Galant.
All of them have articulated views about the total decimation
and devastation of Gaza. The destruction of up to 80% of
the housing in northern Gaza, which was, which was part of a
deliberate policy of forced evacuation with the evident
intention of ethnic cleansing. In other words, all the evidence
we have points to the fact that the October 7th Hamas attack
served as a pretext for the completion of the Zionist
project by the dispossession of Israelis.
Dispossession by Israelis of Palestinians living not only in
Gaza, but in the West Bank, which has experienced
unrestricted settler violence in this period and has also
suffered unusually severe casualties during this time.
So what we have is a transparently evident instance
of genocide that has been defended very weakly and without
a substantive argument, as in case of self-defense.
We know from international law that self-defense does not allow
the the the state that claims it to engage in disproportionate
and unlimited violence or to commit what would otherwise be
crimes under the under the cover of claiming self-defense.
And in this instance, the claim of self-defense is particularly
weak because Gaza and the West Bank are occupied territories
and under the administrative responsibility of Israel as the
occupying power Since 1967. Israel has not implemented the
unanimous Security Council Resolution 242 back in 1967,
which called upon it to withdraw to the 67 borders, and instead
has used that period to engage in unlawful territorial
encroachments on the occupied territory of the West Bank
through its extensive settlement network, which has 650,000
Israelis living there. And is really the death warrant
of any realistic hope that A2 State solution could be achieved
in light of this kind of territorial ambitious
expansionism? So that it's questionable under
any circumstances that a claim of self-defense is appropriate
in an occupied territory governed by the 4th Geneva
Convention. Because in effect, self-defense
is only a tactically available if the combatants are both in
some sense political actors of an international status.
You cannot defend yourself against part of what you are
administering within your own territory.
You can make reasonable claims to establish security or to re
establish security, but as I've suggested, Israel has not tried
to do that. As shocking as these genocidal
crimes have been, I find as disturbing the complicity of the
these countries in the world that have held themselves before
international public opinion as models of democracy, of
champions of human rights, of supporters of the rule of law.
For the United States to undermine its own reputation by
supporting this sort of transparent genocide should be
shocking to the peoples of the world.
And it has been if one takes account of the popular
demonstrations all over the world.
And this these acts of complicity go against the
obligations of the Genocide Convention, which require
parties to the convention, all of which encompass both Israel
and the US, as well as the members of NATO and the settler
colonial states. All of them are expected, as a
matter of law, to take what action is reasonably possible in
order to prevent or disrupt the continuation of genocide.
They are all perpetrating crimes of being accessory to genocide.
And it is an act of shame that they have done little to
distance themselves or to actively oppose the the
continuation of these developments and to use their
leverage at the United Nations to disempower the Security
Council that sought, by an overwhelming vote of 14 to 1 to
establish a ceasefire weeks ago. This is not only failing to
prevent genocide, it's a matter of facilitating genocide.
And that should be taken into our political imagination and
our moral imagination when we think about accountability for
the crimes that are being committed.
South Africa has recently initiated under Article Three of
the Genocide Convention. It's right as a party to the
Convention to call for the International Court of Justice
to impose provisional measures of a character that would
instruct Israel as a matter of. International Court of Justice
authority to immediately cease any kind of violent activity
that is part of the crime that is being committed and would
also consider whether Hamas should fall within the scope of
such a crime. This this is a serious challenge
both to the complicit countries to stand aside If the rulings
that are expected in the coming weeks of the World Court do
uphold the South African application that is calling for
these immediate measures. As a prelude to a decision on
whether the allegation of genocide, which is contained in
a 94 page document that goes through in agonizing detail the
facts of genocide that have transpired in this period,
starting with the day after October 7th.
There. There is also the question of
who will endorse this South African initiative.
Turkey so far is the only NATO member that has endorsed it.
Jordan and Malaysia have joined in that endorsement.
And we noticed that none of the European colonial powers and
none of the settler colonial states have seen fit to uphold a
judicial determination of whether action should be taken
to prevent this genocide from going on.
So what is presented to the world is a crisis of
implementation and accountability.
There's no doubt that a crime of a high magnitude is being
committed, and indeed is virtually confessed to be
committed, despite Israel's record of defiance of
international law throughout its occupation.
And it's allegations that any criticism, wherever it emanates
from, is an instance of anti-Semitism.
It called the International Criminal Court's decision to
investigate crimes against Israel Crimes by Israel alleged
by Palestine subsequent to 2014. Before these recent events,
Prime Minister Netanyahu reacted by saying this is pure
anti-Semitism, as if the Internet respected international
institution is motivated by such base intentions.
Similarly, they've attacked the South African initiative as a
blood libel against the Jewish people.
A blood libel was the kind of anti Jewish allegation made in
the early Christian period. The Jews were guilty of
murdering Christian babies and it and it was genuine
anti-Semitism of a extreme sort to make these false allegations.
But to but to contradict what we see before our eyes and call
that a blood libel is itself something that suggests an
unwillingness of Israel to accept any authority that
challenges its policies, however unlawful and criminal.
And it's done that throughout the occupation.
It has made life miserable for people like myself who acted as
special rapporteurs that were expected to report as honestly
as we could on violations of human rights associated with the
Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.
So we have a situation where the prospects of implementing A
favorable International Court of Justice decision against Israel
will depend on the willingness of the Security Council to use
its authority and to take the steps necessary to implement
that decision. And once again, it will.
That will hinge on whether the permanent five members of the
Security Council will either abstain or at least by and
thereby suspend their right of veto or actually vote in favor
of implementing the findings and the orders of the International
Court of Justice. And in the longer run, there
seems to be a need for some kind of accountability procedure to
address these crimes, both the crime of genocide as perpetrated
by Israel, and the crimes of complicity as led by the US and
supported in various ways by the United Kingdom, France and
Germany. So this is a crisis of not only
conscience, but of law and of the protection of vulnerable
people in a world that is beset by a variety of challenges,
including the ongoing Ukraine War, and is seeking a new kind
of way of managing power and security that doesn't depend on
the unipolar imperial authority that has been exercised by the
United States since the end of the Cold War and the implosion
of the Soviet Union. A new phase of international
relations will emerge out of this crisis.
In bringing my remarks to a close, I would also say there's
a great danger that Israel will seek to widen the war in the
region because it will be cornered politically, which is
beginning to be evident in some of the violence beyond the
borders of Gaza itself. And it's cornered, because it
can neither prevail and convincingly declare some kind
of victory that is credible, nor can it afford to lose.
Given the investment it's made in terms of its own law, the
lives of Israeli soldiers and citizens, and the damage it's
done to its global reputation, it's no longer a legitimate
state. After this form of sustained
behaviour, it is condemned almost universally and the
peoples of the governments that are condemning it are seeking to
exert pressure for some sort of implementation.
So there is this moment of crisis and appeal to the peoples
of the global W to rise in a way that put exerts pressure on
their own governments to take international law seriously to
promote, at this late toxic stage, justice for the
Palestinian people. Let me stop there.
Thank you, Richard, for that forensic and unequivocal
assessment of what is happening at the moment in relation to the
question of genocide. We'll also have many questions
at the end in the panel discussion.
Just strikes me the weaponization of the term.
Anti-Semitism I think is wearing thin given what we're seeing in
in the Middle East at the moment, but that was a fantastic
presentation.