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The International Criminal Court and Palestine: Systemic Lying in the name of justice as a way to maintain the Nakba

1/21/2015

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The International Criminal Court's involvement on the issue of Palestine is another farce and diversion tactic facilitated by the international community to deflect from responsibility to the past and continued Nakba.

Following the International Criminal Court's acceptance of Palestine within its jurisdiction after the Palestinian Authority had submitted a request asking for same, the court has recently initiated a probe to determine preliminary findings meriting potential and evident war crimes in Palestine.[1] Given the Israeli response to the Palestinian Authority's submission whereby the Palestinian tax revenues were withheld in retaliation to the ICC move[2] Israel also submitted their accusations of war crimes committed by Palestinians clearly stating that Israel will not allow its soldiers to be dragged to the said court.[3]

Judges and lawyers have a duty and responsibility to uphold justice and the rule of law. Justice is the attachment of truth to affairs and law is the attachment of respect to affairs. When it comes to the International Criminal Court and its current conduct with the issue of Palestine, both respect and truth for Palestine and the Palestinian people's affairs are null and void; covered under the veil of justice and law. The institutionalization and facilitation of an international conspiracy and lie in relation to Palestine, also known to the Palestinians as Al Nakba, started from 1799 and executed in 1948, exacerbated in 1967 and continuing to this day in both military and bureaucratic forms.[4] And yet, the response to this fact that is rendered as a fiction by both the international community and the instruments of the international law regime such as the International Criminal Court is the continued manufacturing of "justice" to the Palestinians through a reciprocal mechanism whereby fictitious narratives are painted as factual and packaged as truth and respect.

The Nakba and the manufacturing of facts through fictitious narratives.

The next lie is the narrative that Palestinians and Palestine is a fiction in itself; that there was no such thing as Palestine or Palestinians and that they are a politically motivated and politically invented people as per the statements of former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir during the 1960's and U.S. Republican candidate Newt Gingrich in the 21st century.[5] After the launching of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1960's and enforcing and representing Palestinians distinctive identity and attempt to restore their rights as a nation and a people through various revolutionary operations and guerilla tactics, Israel decided to occupy and incrementally squeeze and enforce the genocide of the Palestinians out of what was left of the historic land of Palestine from 1967 to the present in the name of fighting the Palestinians "anti-Semitic terrorism."

In response to Israel's genocidal occupation, oppression and colonization in the remaining Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the Palestinians had an intifada or uprising in 1987 which lasted to 1991 where the next lie was born which was the Peace Process and Oslo Accords whereby negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis was to take place. It is a lie due to the fact that the so called "peace process" turned out to be a mechanism to maintain the Nakba of the Palestinian people through Israel's constant annexation of land and settlement building along with recognizing their right to exist in exchange for nothing other than co-opting the Palestine Liberation Organization as a corrupt leadership that facilitates the Nakba as well as the interests of the State of Israel whilst having Palestinian resistance efforts halted, paused or distracted by the so called negotiations.[6]

Following the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and the democratic elections that took place during the leadership vacuum as a result of his death, the democratic principles of the international community turned out to be a lie as the election win of Hamas was not accepted and therefore promise for the fulfillment and restoration of Palestinians democratic aspirations was also a lie. The international community since the Oslo Accords to date wanted the co-opted and corrupt PLO to be a permanent dictatorship or one party rule to be the sole representatives of the Palestinian people.

Given the leadership circumstances which resulted in a divide and conquer reality where the Palestinians started fighting each other over leadership-distracted from the real and common problem-the Israeli colonization and occupation- this division included the isolation of the Gaza Strip from the world through an eight year blockade continuing to date as a collective punishment measure against the Palestinians for choosing democracy. After three military campaigns against the blockaded strip and the failure of Israel at weakening Hamas both militarily and in popularity along with the transparent reality of the uselessness and oppression of the negotiation process another lie was created specifically after Operation Protective Edge and that is going from the "negotiations" to the "recognitions."

"Recognition" of Palestine is another fiction like the negotiations and "peace process" due to the fact that there is nothing to recognize about Palestine. They don't need to be discovered, they were already there before and after Operation Protective Edge and they know who they are and why they are there, given the fact that their existence has been their resistance. Further to this fictitious reality from a political standpoint, it is fictitious from a legal standpoint as it is a non-binding recognition and therefore non-enforceable among other legally problematic matters related to this issue.[7] It is another diverting and distracting tactic implemented and facilitated by the international community towards the Palestinians as a demonstration of a supposed action and results oriented solution in connection to justice for the Palestinians, with the International Criminal Court as the guilt management tool used by the international community to maintain this reality.

The International Criminal Court: Fact or Fiction?

Given the above mentioned information, what can be expected from an institution like the International Criminal Court when it accepts the submission of jurisdiction of Palestine by a leader who is illegitimate and was not democratically elected-therefore farcical. Or when it recognizes Palestine as a state meaning two things; that it is only within the territories or borders of 1967 ignoring the Palestinians within the territories of Israel and the rights of the refugees in diaspora as well as the fact that due to the permanent occupation of the 1967 borders by Israel through the annexation of land and settlement building; one of the criteria needed for Palestine to be a "state" within those borders is a "defined territory" that is no longer so due to the settlements and occupation by the State of Israel.[8] Therefore, based on the criteria used by the courts and the international law regime the statehood of Palestine is a lie and a falsehood both historically, politically and legally and yet the court continues to accept fiction as fact.

For justice to be served, it requires the truth to be recognized and accepted and therefore rendering it non-negotiable; meaning either the implementation of a genuine and successful transitional justice process that would through a Truth Commission acknowledge, recognize and accept the Nakba of the Palestinian people that has been facilitated and imposed both in the past and in the present. In other words, putting an end to the Nakba through this justice process based on restorative justice, restitution and compensation or be faced with the continued resistance of the Palestinians against the institutionalized injustice of the international law regime. The instruments of the international law regime such as the International Criminal Court are guilty of factual discrimination; continuing in the implementation of the Nakba through the fictitious pursuit of justice expecting the Palestinians to accept crumbs out of the bread of justice and the rule of law. With no real and genuine justice, there will be no real and genuine peace; meaning the lies have to stop starting with the international community and their instruments such as the International Criminal Court to truly start working for justice by ceasing in their politics of self-lying.

This entails accepting the factual reality that Israel is a terrorist, settler colonial state born out of the international community's collusion; guilty of countless past and present war crimes and crimes against humanity including ethnic cleansing and apartheid[9] and a permanent violator of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in relation to the Palestinians. Anything different is fiction.

[1] http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2015/01/icc-probe-possible-war-crimes-palestine-2015116151720780168.html

[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israel-withholds-tax-revenues-from-palestinian-authority-as-dispute-escalates/2015/01/03/3718e5c4-9378-11e4-a66f-0ca5037a597d_story.html

[3] http://www.thenational.ae/world/middle-east/israel-wont-allow-soldiers-to-appear-in-front-of-icc-pm

[4] http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2013/05/20135612348774619.html

[5] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-david-liepert/palestinians-are-not-an-i_b_1140705.html

[6] http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/07/2011749271104114.html

[7] http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/12/enough-symbolic-votes-it-time-20141216111530843246.html

[8] https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/mlg09/state_international_law.html

[9] http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/06AE69A80B959A3D85257C86006D89A7


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    Ahmad Moussa

    A writer, scholar and a human rights activist on international political and legal affairs with a particular focus on indigenous and Middle Eastern issues.  

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