April 10, 2025
Michael Morrill
In the fractured and scarred landscapes of Palestine, where the earth’s skin is etched with memories of violence, dispossession, and resistance, there lies an unspoken tragedy. An ecological tragedy. Beyond the suffocating walls of the occupation, beneath the rubble of homes and the twisting olive trees, there is a landscape slowly being strangled, not only by military might but by the relentless, invisible hand of environmental degradation. This is a tale not just of loss—of life and liberty—but of a land under siege, of natural resources turned into tools of war and power.
Michael Morrill
In the fractured and scarred landscapes of Palestine, where the earth’s skin is etched with memories of violence, dispossession, and resistance, there lies an unspoken tragedy. An ecological tragedy. Beyond the suffocating walls of the occupation, beneath the rubble of homes and the twisting olive trees, there is a landscape slowly being strangled, not only by military might but by the relentless, invisible hand of environmental degradation. This is a tale not just of loss—of life and liberty—but of a land under siege, of natural resources turned into tools of war and power.
In Palestine, the land is not simply earth. It is history, identity, and memory that is saturated with the blood of ancestors and the hopes of the dispossessed. But in the hands of occupation, it is rendered mute, violated, and endlessly exploited. For the people of Palestine, the environment is both a battleground and a metaphor for their struggle for sovereignty. The occupation, in its systematic devastation, turns every blade of grass and every spring of water into a prize to be controlled, manipulated, and consumed.
Water, that essential lifeblood of the land, has been weaponized in Palestine. The Oslo Accords, in their half-hearted attempt to divide and conquer, left the water resources of the region in a state of absurd fragmentation. Oslo outlines a significant disparity in water resource allocation, with Israel receiving a much larger share, approximately four times the Palestinian portion, of the joint aquifer resources.
The West Bank’s aquifers, once shared by both Palestinians and Israelis, have been effectively monopolized. While Israeli settlements plunge deep into the earth to siphon the precious liquid, Palestinian communities are left to endure shortages, rationing, and, for many, complete deprivation.
In Gaza, the situation is more desperate. The coastal aquifer is polluted, tainted by both saltwater intrusion and sewage, leaving an entire population with undrinkable water. Children grow sick, their small bodies poisoned by the very liquid that should sustain them. The Israelis, meanwhile, extract desalinated water to their own citizens, the shimmering promise of technology and science keeping them shielded from the ecological despair that engulfs Gaza.
But water is not the only casualty of occupation. The once-thriving agricultural lands of Palestine are slowly disappearing, gobbled up by the insatiable hunger of settlement expansion. The olive tree, a symbol of endurance and defiance, has become a casualty of war. Over the past decades, thousands of olive groves have been uprooted or burned, not simply as an act of destruction, but as a deliberate erasure of Palestinian life. These trees, planted by ancestors who cultivated their lands with the sweat of their brows, have become markers of resistance. To destroy the olive groves is not merely to strike at the heart of Palestine’s agriculture, but to wound its soul. It is to sever the connection between the land and its people. The scars of this deforestation are not only visible in the charred remains of trees, but in the bodies of Palestinian farmers who stand, helpless, as bulldozers tear through their history.
The environmental toll of occupation, however, is not simply a matter of lost resources. It is a slow, creeping form of violence that permeates every aspect of daily life. The air, the soil, the water are all tainted by the structures of control. Military checkpoints, illegal settlements, and the so-called security barrier cut through the landscape like open wounds, creating a fractured topography of confinement. Roads built for settlers bypass Palestinian communities, cutting them off from their land and from each other, making the movement of goods and people a daily struggle. The ecology of Palestine is one of division, a land balkanized not only by fences and walls but by a political order that seeks to turn the environment into another instrument of domination.
Perhaps the most insidious aspect of this ecological destruction is the quiet way in which it has become invisible to the outside world. While the world’s attention is often focused on the violent clashes, the bombings, the endless cycle of occupation and resistance, the environmental catastrophe plays out in the shadows. It is not the bombs that kill, but the slow suffocation of life; the slow, deliberate erasure of an ecosystem that once thrived.
This ecological violence is, at its core, an extension of the broader political and military violence that defines the occupation. It is a means of control, a way of reminding Palestinians that they are not just dispossessed of their land, but dispossessed of their connection to it. The land is a place of memory and belonging; it is the repository of stories and dreams. To occupy the land is to steal not just the physical earth, but the very soul of its people.
But amidst this devastation, there is something else: a quiet resistance. The Arabic word for this resistance is “Sumud” (صمود). The people of Palestine have not only fought with guns and stones, but with seeds and soil. They have continued to plant, to nurture, to cultivate even as their lands are stolen from them. They have organized, not only to resist the physical occupation, but to reclaim their environment. Through initiatives to preserve water, to fight against illegal land grabs, and to replant olive groves, Palestinians continue to assert their sovereignty over the land.
Yet, the struggle is not only for the preservation of a culture and a way of life. It is also, fundamentally, a struggle for the very future of the earth. The land may be a prisoner of occupation, but it is not yet conquered. For as long as the people continue to resist, the land, too, continues to resist. This sumud persists through nonviolent protests, through agricultural resistance, and through every act of daily defiance.
The ecology of Palestine may be scarred, but it is not broken. The olive trees may fall, but their roots run deep. The water may be stolen, but the rivers will never forget the taste of their rightful owners. In the end, the struggle is not only for the liberation of a people, but for the liberation of a land; the land that has long stood as a witness to a history of pain and hope, of destruction and renewal.
And so, in the land of Palestine, amidst the rubble and the ruins, a quiet revolution stirs. It is not just for the reclamation of power, but for the reclamation of life itself, in all its fragile, pulsing, and unyielding beauty.
Water, that essential lifeblood of the land, has been weaponized in Palestine. The Oslo Accords, in their half-hearted attempt to divide and conquer, left the water resources of the region in a state of absurd fragmentation. Oslo outlines a significant disparity in water resource allocation, with Israel receiving a much larger share, approximately four times the Palestinian portion, of the joint aquifer resources.
The West Bank’s aquifers, once shared by both Palestinians and Israelis, have been effectively monopolized. While Israeli settlements plunge deep into the earth to siphon the precious liquid, Palestinian communities are left to endure shortages, rationing, and, for many, complete deprivation.
In Gaza, the situation is more desperate. The coastal aquifer is polluted, tainted by both saltwater intrusion and sewage, leaving an entire population with undrinkable water. Children grow sick, their small bodies poisoned by the very liquid that should sustain them. The Israelis, meanwhile, extract desalinated water to their own citizens, the shimmering promise of technology and science keeping them shielded from the ecological despair that engulfs Gaza.
But water is not the only casualty of occupation. The once-thriving agricultural lands of Palestine are slowly disappearing, gobbled up by the insatiable hunger of settlement expansion. The olive tree, a symbol of endurance and defiance, has become a casualty of war. Over the past decades, thousands of olive groves have been uprooted or burned, not simply as an act of destruction, but as a deliberate erasure of Palestinian life. These trees, planted by ancestors who cultivated their lands with the sweat of their brows, have become markers of resistance. To destroy the olive groves is not merely to strike at the heart of Palestine’s agriculture, but to wound its soul. It is to sever the connection between the land and its people. The scars of this deforestation are not only visible in the charred remains of trees, but in the bodies of Palestinian farmers who stand, helpless, as bulldozers tear through their history.
The environmental toll of occupation, however, is not simply a matter of lost resources. It is a slow, creeping form of violence that permeates every aspect of daily life. The air, the soil, the water are all tainted by the structures of control. Military checkpoints, illegal settlements, and the so-called security barrier cut through the landscape like open wounds, creating a fractured topography of confinement. Roads built for settlers bypass Palestinian communities, cutting them off from their land and from each other, making the movement of goods and people a daily struggle. The ecology of Palestine is one of division, a land balkanized not only by fences and walls but by a political order that seeks to turn the environment into another instrument of domination.
Perhaps the most insidious aspect of this ecological destruction is the quiet way in which it has become invisible to the outside world. While the world’s attention is often focused on the violent clashes, the bombings, the endless cycle of occupation and resistance, the environmental catastrophe plays out in the shadows. It is not the bombs that kill, but the slow suffocation of life; the slow, deliberate erasure of an ecosystem that once thrived.
This ecological violence is, at its core, an extension of the broader political and military violence that defines the occupation. It is a means of control, a way of reminding Palestinians that they are not just dispossessed of their land, but dispossessed of their connection to it. The land is a place of memory and belonging; it is the repository of stories and dreams. To occupy the land is to steal not just the physical earth, but the very soul of its people.
But amidst this devastation, there is something else: a quiet resistance. The Arabic word for this resistance is “Sumud” (صمود). The people of Palestine have not only fought with guns and stones, but with seeds and soil. They have continued to plant, to nurture, to cultivate even as their lands are stolen from them. They have organized, not only to resist the physical occupation, but to reclaim their environment. Through initiatives to preserve water, to fight against illegal land grabs, and to replant olive groves, Palestinians continue to assert their sovereignty over the land.
Yet, the struggle is not only for the preservation of a culture and a way of life. It is also, fundamentally, a struggle for the very future of the earth. The land may be a prisoner of occupation, but it is not yet conquered. For as long as the people continue to resist, the land, too, continues to resist. This sumud persists through nonviolent protests, through agricultural resistance, and through every act of daily defiance.
The ecology of Palestine may be scarred, but it is not broken. The olive trees may fall, but their roots run deep. The water may be stolen, but the rivers will never forget the taste of their rightful owners. In the end, the struggle is not only for the liberation of a people, but for the liberation of a land; the land that has long stood as a witness to a history of pain and hope, of destruction and renewal.
And so, in the land of Palestine, amidst the rubble and the ruins, a quiet revolution stirs. It is not just for the reclamation of power, but for the reclamation of life itself, in all its fragile, pulsing, and unyielding beauty.
April 9, 2025
M. Reza Behnam
In the Orwellian world in which we now dwell, countries and groups that uphold international law are labeled terrorists or supporters of terrorism, while those that commit unspeakable crimes, flagrantly violating international and humanitarian laws, remain unlabeled and unpunished.
What the last year and a half in Gaza has glaringly demonstrated is how little the United States cares about upholding international law. And that its outpost, Israel, continues to operate lawlessly outside international rules and moral norms. In Palestine, Israel has been the executioner and the United States has been the executor of ethnic cleansing and genocide.
Both the Biden and Trump administrations have been breaking the law for Israel.
Unlike his predecessor, however, who attempted to hide or disguise his breach of international and U.S. laws, the Trump White House overtly and brazenly violates both.
The United States continues to provide lethal weapons for Tel Aviv’s engineered humanitarian catastrophe despite the fact that it is a signatory to the 1948 “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” known as the Genocide Convention, a binding treaty which established a “responsibility to protect” obligation on state parties, whether they ratified it or not.
The Convention defined genocide and definitively recognized it as crime. It also criminalized complicity and established duties on state parties to take measures to prevent and to punish perpetrators.
In addition to the above treaty, the 1945 U.N. Charter, 1949 Geneva Conventions, as well as other binding U.N. documents established a collective “responsibility to protect” against genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The obligation was meant to insure that the international community never again, as it did during World War II, failed to act.
History will harshly and rightly judge those countries and officials who have failed to fulfill their moral as well as their legal obligations to end the genocide. And it will heap praise on those who did.
Unfortunately, no one has asked why the United States has been battering and mercilessly penalizing countries and groups that have been faithfully upholding their obligations under Article I of the Convention to “prevent and punish genocide.”
To counteract the Orwellian distortions that frame Israel’s ongoing atrocities it is important to give recognition to those who have acted on their moral and legal obligations under international law.
In a world where powerful nations act with impunity, some have acted to end the genocide: Ansar Allah (also known as Houthis) in Yemen; Hezbollah in Lebanon; the Islamic Republic of Iran and South Africa.
Resistance to oppression has been central to their identities and it is what has united them in solidarity with Palestinian resistance movements. They have paid a great price for carrying out the mandates of international and humanitarian laws.
The United States designates any country or group that struggles against and opposes Israel terrorists.
Ansar Allah (Supporters of God) in Yemen
In response to Israel’s invasion and humanitarian blockade of Gaza, Ansar Allah entered the Gaza war on 31 October 2023. It began missile/drone attacks on commercial and military vessels linked to Israel in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The attacks were halted when the ceasefire agreement went into effect on 19 January 2025. When Israel violated the ceasefire in mid-March and restarted its genocidal campaign and blockade of food and medicine to Gaza, Ansar Allah resumed its attacks.
Its Humanitarian Operations Coordination Center explained: “We hope it is understood that the actions taken by the [Ansar Allah military]… stem from a deep sense of religious, humanitarian and moral responsibility toward the oppressed Palestinian people and aim to pressure the Israeli usurper entity to reopen the crossings to the Gaza Strip and allow the entry of aid, including food and medical supplies.”
The U.S. corporate media has disparagingly framed Ansar Allah as a regional proxy of Tehran. They have failed, however, to report on Yemen’s historical solidarity with Palestine.
In 1947, for example, Yemeni representatives to the United Nations opposed the partition of Palestine and during the 1973 October War, the Bab al-Mandab strait was closed to ships carrying fuel to Israel. Also, the Republic of Yemen, following unification in 1990, pushed for U.S. diplomatic recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization; and it extended the same rights and resources to Palestinian refugees as they did to their own citizens.
Hezbollah (Party of God) in Lebanon
Like Ansar Allah in Yemen, Hezbollah has been painted by the United States and the West as a terrorist organization. It is in reality a national political party and military force dedicated to the defense of Lebanon and Palestinians against Israeli expansion and aggression.
The Israeli invasions and siege of Lebanon in 1982 drove the resistance. Hezbollah officially announced its existence in 1985 in an “Open Letter to the Downtrodden in Lebanon and the World.” In the letter, they declared their intent to remove the Israeli occupiers from Lebanon, Palestine and Jerusalem. The manifesto was revised in 2009 to reflect the organization’s commitment to work within the multi-sectarian Lebanese state.
Hezbollah, in solidarity with the Palestinians, began a campaign of attacks against the Zionist regime one day after the Al-Aqsa Flood operation on 7 October. They began shelling Israeli forces in the occupied Shebaa Farms area, opening a front in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah refused to stop the attacks until Tel Aviv ended its genocide against the Palestinians. During the brief ceasefire, they paused fighting.
Israel has assassinated a number of Hezbollah leaders, including popular secretary-general, Sayeed Hassan Nasrallah in 2024, believing it could crush the resistance.
The concept of resistance has been a guiding ideology of Hezbollah. Its image in the Muslim world has been reinforced by its example of liberating Lebanese land in 2000 and 2006 through armed struggle against the Israeli occupiers, its unconditional support for the liberation of Palestine, and in its opposition to U.S.-Israeli regional hegemony.
The ideas and ideals of the 1979 Iranian Revolution have driven Hezbollah’s evolution, which Iran has supported since the group’s early days.
Islamic Republic of Iran
Iran has, since 1979, come to be defined by its culture of resistance to U.S.-Israel hegemony and its commitment to Palestinian self-determination. Resistance has been central to its foreign policy. Article 152 of the December 1979 Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran declares that resolution:
“The foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran is based upon the rejection of all forms of domination, both the exertion of it and submission to it, the preservation of the independence of the country…the defence of the rights of all Muslims, nonalignment with respect to the hegemonist superpowers, and the maintenance of mutually peaceful relations with all non-belligerent States.”
Additionally, Article 154, which states that Iran will refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of other nations, underscores the country’s support for “the just struggles of the mustad’affun [oppressed] against the mustakbirun [oppressors] in every corner of the globe.”
Iran has been fulfilling its responsibilities under international law to oppose Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. Consequently, placing it at odds with U.S. administrations and under crippling economic sanctions since its history shifted from monarchy to an Islamic Republic.
Republic of South Africa
South Africa, on 29 December 2023, filed an application to institute proceedings against Israel before the judicial organ of the United Nations, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. It brought the case by invoking its “obligation to prevent genocide” as a signatory to the UN Genocide Convention.
In “South Africa v. Israel,” lawyers for the High Court of South Africa argued that the “The intent to destroy Gaza has been nurtured at the highest levels of the state.”
Although the ICJ ordered (26 January 2024) Israel to take all measures to prevent acts of genocide, to punish those committing such acts and to enable the provision of humanitarian assistance and basic services, Israel has never complied with the Court’s legally binding ruling.
Since its initial application, South Africa has filed three other petitions to the ICJ for additional emergency protections for the Palestinians and 13 countries have filed declarations of support.
South Africa has, furthermore, refused to be bullied by the United States. Despite threats from the current administration, including cuts to financial aid, Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola emphasized South Africa’s principled commitment to the rule of law and refusal to withdraw its case before the ICJ.
Conclusion
Ironically, while protestors on U.S. university campuses are kidnapped, illegally detained by the government for opposing the genocide in Gaza, the American president, disregarding international law, welcomes, rather than arrests, indicted war criminal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to the White House.
The obligation under customary international law to investigate and prosecute war criminals has been firmly established. It is found in a number of treaties, in numerous resolutions adopted by the UN Commission on Human Rights, and reaffirmed on several occasions by the UN Security Council. In addition, the preamble to the Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has confirmed “the duty of every State to exercise its criminal jurisdiction over those responsible for international crimes.”
Non-party states to the ICC, like the United States, are obliged to cooperate with the court not only in cases referred by the Security Council but also under provisions in the 1949 Geneva Conventions whereby states must “respect and ensure” deference for international humanitarian law.
With regard to the actions of Palestinian resistance movements, it should be noted that the UN General Assembly has passed a number of resolutions recognizing the legitimacy of armed resistance as a means of oppressed peoples to achieve self-determination and independence.
The official silence of the so-called civilized world, particularly the United States, regarding Israel’s campaign of terror and barbarity in Gaza and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories has set a dangerous precedent. Rather than execute its obligations under the Genocide Convention to prevent and protect Palestinians from genocide, Washington has waged war against those who have.
The United States has, to its misfortune, invested heavily in its Zionist outpost, masquerading as a law-abiding moral country. Israel has no written constitution and no defined borders; with that, it has lived outside the rules and laws of international conventions.
As a colonial entity, Israel’s leaders have known that in order to complete their supremacist aims in Palestine, they would have to operate outside international and humanitarian laws. Unrestrained, that is what it has done for more than eight decades.
The fate of Gaza, dictates the future not only for Palestinians but for Zionist Israelis and Americans as well. Most importantly, it asks the question will the new international order be one in which “might makes right” or “right makes right?”
M. Reza Behnam
In the Orwellian world in which we now dwell, countries and groups that uphold international law are labeled terrorists or supporters of terrorism, while those that commit unspeakable crimes, flagrantly violating international and humanitarian laws, remain unlabeled and unpunished.
What the last year and a half in Gaza has glaringly demonstrated is how little the United States cares about upholding international law. And that its outpost, Israel, continues to operate lawlessly outside international rules and moral norms. In Palestine, Israel has been the executioner and the United States has been the executor of ethnic cleansing and genocide.
Both the Biden and Trump administrations have been breaking the law for Israel.
Unlike his predecessor, however, who attempted to hide or disguise his breach of international and U.S. laws, the Trump White House overtly and brazenly violates both.
The United States continues to provide lethal weapons for Tel Aviv’s engineered humanitarian catastrophe despite the fact that it is a signatory to the 1948 “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” known as the Genocide Convention, a binding treaty which established a “responsibility to protect” obligation on state parties, whether they ratified it or not.
The Convention defined genocide and definitively recognized it as crime. It also criminalized complicity and established duties on state parties to take measures to prevent and to punish perpetrators.
In addition to the above treaty, the 1945 U.N. Charter, 1949 Geneva Conventions, as well as other binding U.N. documents established a collective “responsibility to protect” against genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The obligation was meant to insure that the international community never again, as it did during World War II, failed to act.
History will harshly and rightly judge those countries and officials who have failed to fulfill their moral as well as their legal obligations to end the genocide. And it will heap praise on those who did.
Unfortunately, no one has asked why the United States has been battering and mercilessly penalizing countries and groups that have been faithfully upholding their obligations under Article I of the Convention to “prevent and punish genocide.”
To counteract the Orwellian distortions that frame Israel’s ongoing atrocities it is important to give recognition to those who have acted on their moral and legal obligations under international law.
In a world where powerful nations act with impunity, some have acted to end the genocide: Ansar Allah (also known as Houthis) in Yemen; Hezbollah in Lebanon; the Islamic Republic of Iran and South Africa.
Resistance to oppression has been central to their identities and it is what has united them in solidarity with Palestinian resistance movements. They have paid a great price for carrying out the mandates of international and humanitarian laws.
The United States designates any country or group that struggles against and opposes Israel terrorists.
Ansar Allah (Supporters of God) in Yemen
In response to Israel’s invasion and humanitarian blockade of Gaza, Ansar Allah entered the Gaza war on 31 October 2023. It began missile/drone attacks on commercial and military vessels linked to Israel in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The attacks were halted when the ceasefire agreement went into effect on 19 January 2025. When Israel violated the ceasefire in mid-March and restarted its genocidal campaign and blockade of food and medicine to Gaza, Ansar Allah resumed its attacks.
Its Humanitarian Operations Coordination Center explained: “We hope it is understood that the actions taken by the [Ansar Allah military]… stem from a deep sense of religious, humanitarian and moral responsibility toward the oppressed Palestinian people and aim to pressure the Israeli usurper entity to reopen the crossings to the Gaza Strip and allow the entry of aid, including food and medical supplies.”
The U.S. corporate media has disparagingly framed Ansar Allah as a regional proxy of Tehran. They have failed, however, to report on Yemen’s historical solidarity with Palestine.
In 1947, for example, Yemeni representatives to the United Nations opposed the partition of Palestine and during the 1973 October War, the Bab al-Mandab strait was closed to ships carrying fuel to Israel. Also, the Republic of Yemen, following unification in 1990, pushed for U.S. diplomatic recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization; and it extended the same rights and resources to Palestinian refugees as they did to their own citizens.
Hezbollah (Party of God) in Lebanon
Like Ansar Allah in Yemen, Hezbollah has been painted by the United States and the West as a terrorist organization. It is in reality a national political party and military force dedicated to the defense of Lebanon and Palestinians against Israeli expansion and aggression.
The Israeli invasions and siege of Lebanon in 1982 drove the resistance. Hezbollah officially announced its existence in 1985 in an “Open Letter to the Downtrodden in Lebanon and the World.” In the letter, they declared their intent to remove the Israeli occupiers from Lebanon, Palestine and Jerusalem. The manifesto was revised in 2009 to reflect the organization’s commitment to work within the multi-sectarian Lebanese state.
Hezbollah, in solidarity with the Palestinians, began a campaign of attacks against the Zionist regime one day after the Al-Aqsa Flood operation on 7 October. They began shelling Israeli forces in the occupied Shebaa Farms area, opening a front in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah refused to stop the attacks until Tel Aviv ended its genocide against the Palestinians. During the brief ceasefire, they paused fighting.
Israel has assassinated a number of Hezbollah leaders, including popular secretary-general, Sayeed Hassan Nasrallah in 2024, believing it could crush the resistance.
The concept of resistance has been a guiding ideology of Hezbollah. Its image in the Muslim world has been reinforced by its example of liberating Lebanese land in 2000 and 2006 through armed struggle against the Israeli occupiers, its unconditional support for the liberation of Palestine, and in its opposition to U.S.-Israeli regional hegemony.
The ideas and ideals of the 1979 Iranian Revolution have driven Hezbollah’s evolution, which Iran has supported since the group’s early days.
Islamic Republic of Iran
Iran has, since 1979, come to be defined by its culture of resistance to U.S.-Israel hegemony and its commitment to Palestinian self-determination. Resistance has been central to its foreign policy. Article 152 of the December 1979 Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran declares that resolution:
“The foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran is based upon the rejection of all forms of domination, both the exertion of it and submission to it, the preservation of the independence of the country…the defence of the rights of all Muslims, nonalignment with respect to the hegemonist superpowers, and the maintenance of mutually peaceful relations with all non-belligerent States.”
Additionally, Article 154, which states that Iran will refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of other nations, underscores the country’s support for “the just struggles of the mustad’affun [oppressed] against the mustakbirun [oppressors] in every corner of the globe.”
Iran has been fulfilling its responsibilities under international law to oppose Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. Consequently, placing it at odds with U.S. administrations and under crippling economic sanctions since its history shifted from monarchy to an Islamic Republic.
Republic of South Africa
South Africa, on 29 December 2023, filed an application to institute proceedings against Israel before the judicial organ of the United Nations, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. It brought the case by invoking its “obligation to prevent genocide” as a signatory to the UN Genocide Convention.
In “South Africa v. Israel,” lawyers for the High Court of South Africa argued that the “The intent to destroy Gaza has been nurtured at the highest levels of the state.”
Although the ICJ ordered (26 January 2024) Israel to take all measures to prevent acts of genocide, to punish those committing such acts and to enable the provision of humanitarian assistance and basic services, Israel has never complied with the Court’s legally binding ruling.
Since its initial application, South Africa has filed three other petitions to the ICJ for additional emergency protections for the Palestinians and 13 countries have filed declarations of support.
South Africa has, furthermore, refused to be bullied by the United States. Despite threats from the current administration, including cuts to financial aid, Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola emphasized South Africa’s principled commitment to the rule of law and refusal to withdraw its case before the ICJ.
Conclusion
Ironically, while protestors on U.S. university campuses are kidnapped, illegally detained by the government for opposing the genocide in Gaza, the American president, disregarding international law, welcomes, rather than arrests, indicted war criminal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to the White House.
The obligation under customary international law to investigate and prosecute war criminals has been firmly established. It is found in a number of treaties, in numerous resolutions adopted by the UN Commission on Human Rights, and reaffirmed on several occasions by the UN Security Council. In addition, the preamble to the Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has confirmed “the duty of every State to exercise its criminal jurisdiction over those responsible for international crimes.”
Non-party states to the ICC, like the United States, are obliged to cooperate with the court not only in cases referred by the Security Council but also under provisions in the 1949 Geneva Conventions whereby states must “respect and ensure” deference for international humanitarian law.
With regard to the actions of Palestinian resistance movements, it should be noted that the UN General Assembly has passed a number of resolutions recognizing the legitimacy of armed resistance as a means of oppressed peoples to achieve self-determination and independence.
The official silence of the so-called civilized world, particularly the United States, regarding Israel’s campaign of terror and barbarity in Gaza and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories has set a dangerous precedent. Rather than execute its obligations under the Genocide Convention to prevent and protect Palestinians from genocide, Washington has waged war against those who have.
The United States has, to its misfortune, invested heavily in its Zionist outpost, masquerading as a law-abiding moral country. Israel has no written constitution and no defined borders; with that, it has lived outside the rules and laws of international conventions.
As a colonial entity, Israel’s leaders have known that in order to complete their supremacist aims in Palestine, they would have to operate outside international and humanitarian laws. Unrestrained, that is what it has done for more than eight decades.
The fate of Gaza, dictates the future not only for Palestinians but for Zionist Israelis and Americans as well. Most importantly, it asks the question will the new international order be one in which “might makes right” or “right makes right?”
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