Whatever the conclusion, South Africa’s case before the International Court of Justice, claiming that Israel violated the Genocide Convention, will go down in history. It will be remembered either as the first step toward finally holding a rogue state accountable for repeated and long-standing violations of international law; or as the last gasp of a dysfunctional Western-led international system.
For the hypocrisy of Western governments (and the Western political elite as a whole) has ultimately brought the so-called “rules-based world order” that they claim to be driving to the point of no return. The West’s massive support for the Israeli genocide in Gaza has truly exposed the West’s double standards when it comes to human rights and international law. There is no going back and the West has only its own arrogance to blame.
The litany of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israel in Gaza is clear as day to anyone with access to a smartphone. Social media is full of video clips showing hospitals and schools being bombed, fathers pulling the lifeless bodies of their children from under destroyed buildings, mothers crying over the corpses of their babies. And yet the response of Western governments – aside from seemingly unlimited military and political support – has been to characterize any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism and attempt to outright ban any expression of solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Regardless of this oppression, tens of thousands of people take to the streets day after day to express their disgust at Israeli atrocities and Western complicity. Desperate to regain some semblance of credibility, Western governments (including the United States) have recently begun to marginally criticize Israeli attacks. But it’s too little, too late. Western credibility has been irrevocably destroyed.
Of course, Western hypocrisy is nothing new. According to Western governments, the world should speak out against Russian aggression, but should be content with Israeli brutality and disregard for international norms. Ukrainians who throw Molotov cocktails at Russian occupying forces are heroes and freedom fighters, while Palestinians (and others) who dare to speak out against Israeli apartheid are terrorists. White-skinned refugees from Ukraine are more than welcome, while black- and brown-skinned refugees from conflicts in the Middle East, Asia and Africa (most of which lag behind the West) can sink to the bottom of the Mediterranean. The Western attitude has truly been: the rules are for you, not for me.
The Western position towards China shows the same lack of sincerity. China is virtually surrounded by American and allied military bases, armed to the hilt. Yet it is China that is guilty of… what? Unable to report any concrete infraction, Western governments and media can only accuse China of “being more assertive,” that is, of not knowing its assigned place in the order. Western hegemony.
International justice has become a bad joke. If the International Criminal Court (ICC) was functioning effectively, Israeli leaders would be on trial as we speak, and South Africa would not have needed to approach the ICJ. As it stands, the ICC has only indicted Africans until 2022, when it announced an investigation into the Russian invasion of Ukraine less than a week after it began. The ICC has issued indictments, including against Russian President Vladimir Putin, in less than a year. Conversely, it took more than six years for the ICC to open an investigation into the situation in Palestine, and even today, years later, no significant action has yet been taken. As Israel continued its orgy of violence against the people of Gaza, Karim Khan, the British prosecutor general of the ICC, visited Israel and stressed the need to prosecute Hamas’ crimes, while being lenient towards Israeli crimes. It is no wonder that many civil society organizations are calling for his dismissal.
Of course, Western hypocrisy is nothing new. From the start, international legal standards were supposed to apply only to so-called “civilized” peoples, that is, white people. Savages didn’t count, and powerful Western states could – and did – do whatever they wanted to them. Native people certainly did not “own” land or natural resources, and colonial powers were free to steal and exploit them as they pleased. Zionism was also founded on such racist attitudes – attitudes which still remain at the heart of Israeli politics today.
These double standards are evident when it comes to the right to national self-determination – the fundamental right of all people to choose their own political system and control their own natural resources. After World War I, US President Woodrow Wilson insisted that self-determination should be the guiding principle of the new world order – but of course only for Europeans. Palestinians and other Arab peoples discovered the hard way that colonialism was alive and well: they were subject to the mandates of the League of Nations, which justified colonial rule for “peoples who are not yet capable of self-sufficiency.” themselves “. The United Nations Charter also included provisions on trusteeship, essentially along the same lines as the mandates of the League of Nations.
The wars of independence in Asia and Africa put an end to this. Newly independent countries successfully demanded that self-determination be elevated to a right for all. The two international human rights covenants, adopted in 1966, both stipulate the right of all peoples to self-determination in their common first article, making clear that only with political self-determination and economic than any other human right can have meaning.
The debate on the right to self-determination has gone further, to the great dismay of Western governments. The United Nations General Assembly has repeatedly declared that the armed struggle (including that of the Palestinian people) against colonial rule is legitimate. And the 1977 Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, on the law of war, also declares that struggles against colonial and racist regimes are valid. International law has definitely evolved in the right direction.
Yet the systems for implementing international law remain weak. This is intentional, and it allows powerful countries to act with impunity and protect their protégés – as we see with the United States and Israel. Even if the ICJ issues an interim order for Israel to end its violence, and even if years later it finds Israel guilty of genocide, without any enforcement, Israel can (and probably will) simply ignore these rulings. This would surely be the end of the current world order, as any facade of fairness would collapse.
The application of international law is in the hands of the UN Security Council, but with its veto power for the five countries that found themselves on the winning side in 1945, this body has repeatedly shown itself incapable to fulfill its mandate. The General Assembly has no executive power. And the UN, ICC, and most other international organizations are persistently underfunded, meaning they rely largely on voluntary contributions from states. This makes them vulnerable to the undue influence of the rich and powerful: in other words, wealthy Western countries.
At a more fundamental level, these international institutions are not representative. Although civil society organizations can contribute to most debates, only governments have a say in the decision-making process – although, as we see in the case of Gaza, even the governments of ostensible democracies do not represent not necessarily the will. of their people.
Israeli aggression and colonization must end, and perpetrators of human rights violations in Palestine must be held accountable – including Western leaders complicit in the genocide. However, we should not stop there. We must demand revolutionary reform of international institutions. They must become truly democratic and egalitarian. They must reflect the voice of the people, through civil society organizations and other modes of democratic representation – not governments which are too often in the pocket of rich and powerful interests.
Creating a world order that guarantees justice and equal rights for all will not be easy. This will require sustained efforts by global citizens, lobbying governments and international organizations for change. However, this is the only way to ensure that “never again” becomes a reality.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.
