Demonstrations in Britain against the Israeli aggression on Gaza (Al Jazeera)
On Friday, January 26, 2024, the International Court of Justice issued its decision regarding the lawsuit filed by the State of South Africa against Israel regarding its commission of genocide in Gaza, and called for an immediate ceasefire.
This came after nearly four months of continuous aggression against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
The war, due to its atrocities against the Palestinians up to the present moment, has led to the death of nearly thirty thousand martyrs and more than sixty-seven thousand wounded, with the complete destruction of the conditions and components of life and the prevention of medicine and food for the people of the Gaza Strip.
This ongoing war, with official cover from a number of major countries, was accompanied by ongoing protests in most of the cities and capitals of the world, especially the protests that included major cities in Europe and America, which reveals a paradox between an official West that is mostly supportive and absolutely biased towards Israel, and between forces, actors, and society. Civil and public opinion that supports the liberation of the Palestinian people and opposes the crimes of the occupation, and among actors and public opinion that supports Palestinian rights, and an international organization that provides political cover for Israel in its aggression against Gaza, and in everything it has committed against the Palestinians over the decades, despite the sudden awakening of the International Court of Justice under pressure. , which may open the horizon towards the authority of international law and justice and non-impunity.
Through these paradoxes, how can we understand the internal contradictions within the West itself, or what can be called the West against the West?
What impact could this have on the Palestinian issue and its path as a liberation issue?
1- The Court of Justice’s decision...and its impact on changing the prevailing narratives
The International Court of Justice ordered that all actions and measures be taken to prevent genocide in Gaza, and what could lead to it. The Court also called on Israel to commit to avoiding everything related to killing, assault and displacement, and to ensure the immediate provision of the necessary humanitarian needs.
It appears from the issued decision that the court did not respond to the demand for an immediate cessation of the aggression against Gaza, but at the same time it demanded that Israel submit a report within a month, to confirm compliance with the announced measures, which are measures that are impossible for Israel to undertake without a ceasefire and allowing humanitarian aid to enter. Gaza to alleviate the catastrophic situation left by the war.
Although what was issued by the International Court of Justice contained double treatment, compared to what was issued by the same court regarding the Russian-Ukrainian war, which at that time called for an immediate ceasefire, it contained great importance in two respects:
The first approach:
with regard to the rights of the Palestinian people and preventing the achievement of the declared goals, and in particular the declared will to displace the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, which may represent a new catastrophe in the history of the Palestinian people.
Therefore, the legal movement, despite its weak effectiveness and practical effectiveness - due to its need for a binding resolution issued by the Security Council - gains new momentum for Palestine in the global conscience and public opinion as a whole, and brings about a radical change in the struggle at the level of the circulating narratives and the prevailing perspective regarding the conflict on the land of Palestine. The intervention of the International Court of Justice alerts public opinion - and supports it in the path of growing and rising sympathy - to the reality of the suffering of the Palestinian people with the occupation, and their right to freedom and self-determination.
Shedding light on the suffering of the Palestinian people from an international institution, as much as it has an effective impact in dismantling and clarifying the aspects of falsity and deception in the prevailing narrative that the international media has worked to promote and direct public opinion through, it also puts politicians and decision makers in the dark. States and international institutions, facing the public in the Western context.
This was evident in the clear impact on the image of Western leaders before their people, as a result of the narrative shifting in favor of the Palestinian cause, and the choices of a number of countries to move to Israel in a crisis in the face of the process of killing and devastation that cannot be justified by any reason for the Western peoples.
Perhaps the involvement of UNRWA, the refugee relief agency in Gaza, comes in the context of media and political pressure and propaganda.
To cover up what was presented at the International Court of Justice, in order to achieve counter-gains, and then to damage the image of the Palestinian people, which has gained momentum and spread in wide circles.
But what was issued regarding the refugee relief agency from a number of countries, in fact, makes it clear that what is being talked about, about the necessity of introducing humanitarian aid, by the politicians of the major countries, does not fall outside the circle of political and media lies, and the attempt to embody deceptive humanitarianism in front of the internal political public. The truth lies in the unconditional support for the aggression against Gaza with weapons, the distortion of facts in the media, and the restrictions on public opinion that supports Palestine.
The second approach:
distorting the prevailing image of Israel in the international community and Western public opinion, because the Western imagination maintains that Israel is the only democratic state in a Middle East saturated with hatred, violence, and backwardness.
The possibility of putting war leaders on trial for genocide removes the mantle of the meek and persecuted lamb from Israel, as public opinion follows the systematic destruction of life in Gaza, an unlimited thirst for blood, and wreaking havoc on humanity and civilization, in an unequal conflict between an occupying force supported politically and militarily by states. Greater, and the will of liberation among two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, who have been suffering from killing and starvation for nearly a century, and the comprehensive siege of the Gaza Strip for 17 years.
In this regard, international laws obligate the occupation to fully respect the covenants that regulate the relationship with the Palestinian people as victims of occupation.
This highlights the image of Israel as an occupying force that resorts to all methods of killing and destruction with an extremist right-wing discourse that derives its statements from biblical religious prophecies, stripping the people of the Gaza Strip of humanity and humanity, as opposed to the Palestinians as an oppressed people aspiring to freedom, justice, and fairness.
Rather, it brings to mind the memory of long-lasting pain since the beginning of the twentieth century until the partition decision, and then later with the massacres committed, which leads to the formation of a new narrative that removes the image that was created for Israel in the Western imagination, and the reality of the sad image of the Palestinian people, which requires sympathy from public opinion, and from countries. The international organization must establish justice and bear responsibility for the killing of more than thirty thousand people in a horrific massacre, reminiscent of rare atrocities that occurred in history. But what is new is that the genocide committed, the horrific massacres, and starvation take place amidst a glut of talk about freedoms and human and animal rights.
2- The necessity of continuing action in support of Palestinian rights
We are writing this article, and the features of a ceasefire initiative, and ongoing negotiations sponsored by mediators, to stop the aggression on its way to crystallization. This cessation of aggression, which we hope will be achieved sooner rather than later, should not forget to address the humanitarian crisis that has reached a catastrophic extent, and hence the previously announced measures By the International Court of Justice, to the extent that it opens the door to accountability for the leaders of the occupation;
It is a precedent in the history of the occupation, which considers itself above accountability and outside legal prosecution. It also highlights the position of weakness that Israel has become before the world, and mainly before its supporters.
This is because the absolute bias towards Israel has begun to decline.
Because of the scale of the atrocities it commits on a daily basis, which has made Western public opinion form a pressure on the official position of many Western countries on the issue of support and bias.
Despite this, the position in support of the Palestinian cause in the face of the killing machine cannot bear practical fruition without the continuation of the movement in multiple aspects, which are as follows:
In the societal and popular perspective:
This has great importance and impact on Western countries. The transformation that took place within European societies regarding the Palestinian issue during the recent aggression does not limit itself to exposing the aspects of injustice that have befallen the Palestinian people for decades, and striving to achieve the justice that they have continued to do. They demand it without finding deaf ears, in light of an international system governed by a colonial tendency and a logic based on force devoid of morals. Rather, it has become a rejection that points to the underlying contradictions in the major choices of these countries.
While the Palestinians struggled to establish justice, they exposed the ugliness and evil natures of the international system and the balances that govern the world, and made the leaders of these countries naked before public opinion and the justice of history.
Perhaps Palestine, in this way, may be the catalyst for the birth of a new era carrying a human tendency that triumphs for justice, freedom, and fairness, and a motive in the future to dismantle the balances based on injustice, injustice, and enslavement of mankind and to control them through artificial narratives that the media and cultural media work to promote, and to reformulate the aspirations of the public through goals. And the interests of the dominant forces in the economy/market and politics, which stem from determinants that seek to shape the destinies of peoples and control their choices.
This model carries an authentic liberation tendency for humans and societies.
It is not a false expression of freedom and human rights. It can develop further to carry its broad and extended impact over time, but it needs the continuation of the cultural, legal and political dynamics of resistance and rejection of various forms of persecution and forced assimilation into the prevailing narrative with soft or rough tools, which will express the alertness of the moral conscience of everyone. Forces supporting Palestinian rights.
The legal and human rights perspective:
What South Africa did will remain a prominent milestone in curbing aggression and winning the Palestinian cause, and it could constitute an incentive for a number of countries and organizations to investigate the war crimes that will be revealed in the future, after the aggression stops, and thus work will be on the path. Legal, confirming the societal dimension, and at the same time fueling the tendency of political rejection, a tendency that serves the issue of justice in the future, and is fair to Palestinian rights.
The political aspect:
It is not strange to see the major countries turning against the Palestinians and completely biasing towards Israel, as it is both an extension and a tool in the region, but the strangeness lies in the Arab position, as the war would not have continued if there had been a unified Arab position supporting the Palestinian right. Which means that a number of Arab countries are complicit in the tragedy to which the Palestinians are exposed.
Due to the stagnation of the situation or a silent shift in the other direction.
In summary;
If we look at the political position of a number of Western countries, it is with the continuation of the war.
There was division and disparity, as happened with the suspension of support for UNRWA, as a number of countries refused to suspend support, and the comprehensive involvement in propaganda at the beginning of the war declined in the face of the catastrophic situation left by the aggression, which gives a horizon for the Palestinian right, and reminds of the nature of the issue, not its merits. A relationship with a state on paper whose flag is raised in the United Nations without a realistic impact on the ground, but rather regarding the determinants that continued to govern these states with the rights of the Palestinian people and with Israel itself.
A shakeup of the prevailing narrative or a change in its course inevitably leads in the long run to a revision of the situation, especially under the pressure of public opinion, which may not be subject to interest calculations, but rather to a psychological and mental formation that opposes totalitarianism and war, as a result of bitter experiences.
3- The other West... which opposes aggression and supports freedom and justice
Some may see that what was issued by the International Court of Justice has no importance, as long as this institution is one of the manifestations of the dominant international system since World War II, and that the enforcement of its rulings requires a decision from the Security Council, and this is all true and beyond doubt.
But the most important thing that should be noted is that the West is not a single bloc, but rather diverse blocs that are overlapping and disparate at the same time. The official position of a number of Western countries is in embarrassment and dilemma before public opinion due to its inhuman impulses in supporting aggression, and public opinion is an effective authority within a fabric of awareness. Western opposition to wars and destructive tendencies with moral and historical motives.
The other West, which opposes aggression, and which rises up with moral motives to stop the war and do justice to Palestinian rights, carries in its consciousness a memory of bloody wars, devastation and humiliation, from which it entered into contracts that protect the drift towards selfishness that dominates politics and the market, and works to engineer the world and control it to the rhythm of interests in their complete absence. For morals, values and the rule of law.
That bitter experience produced a system at the level of the civil, social, and cultural fabric, which makes it effective whenever a deviation appears that harms the moral and humanitarian background, and threatens the foundations of the contract that saved these societies from the tendency of totalitarianism and ruin, which is what appeared in the unconditional bias against the Palestinian cause, which meets with a variety of resistance from A living moral and humanitarian conscience that extended throughout Western capitals, which was unfortunately absent in various Arab countries.
Due to the absence of democracy and the authority of public opinion/general will.
In conclusion;
This does not imply glorification, but rather an understanding of the position between displacement and official bias and the popular and societal position, so that awareness is gained of the possible intersections, which may constitute common ground with the East and its forces and active elites in just causes, foremost of which is Palestine and the Palestinian right, and then in issues of thought, politics and society.
This is because engineering the world politically and culturally according to a single template in a way that serves the interests of the dominant powers, at the same time constitutes a threat to the Western fabric, which invokes the standardization of its own values, just as it threatens the East with its colonial tendency and its dissolution of cultural differences, and in other words, the cultural and political engineering of the entire world from a standpoint of power and not right.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.