A specter travels the world. And it is not, as Marx and Engels said, that of communism but the ghost of palestinian genocide. The Minister of Education of Ireland, Simon Harris, accused, on November 27, the Israeli Government of “overacting” by the Israeli Executive in response to the statements of the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, and that of Belgium, Alexander de Croo in Rafah, at the border crossing from Gaza to Egypt, in which they warned against the killing of civilians, women and children in the operation that seeks to raze what remains of the Palestinian city Gaza and its inhabitants. The Irish minister was referring to the accusation by the Israeli Foreign Minister, Eli Cohen, of accusing both politicians of justifying terrorism.
Neither Sánchez, nor De Croo, nor the majority of politicians who have visited Israel and Gaza They have stopped condemning the emergence of Hamas militias on October 7 and the murder of civilians in Israeli territory.
But what’s more: they support Israel’s “right” to end Hamas. They only ask that ending Hamas does not mean taking the lives of the citizens of Gaza. “The number of Palestinian deaths is truly unbearable. A clear distinction must be made between military objectives and the protection of civilians,” Sánchez said in his meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Neanyahu on November 23.
After that date there are several thousand more and there are now almost 16,000 dead in Gaza, almost half of them children (under 18 years of age), 35,000 injured and more than 200 dead in the West Bank, the other large Palestinian territory, as of the October 7 offensive. The warnings to the Israeli authorities are, therefore, a toast to the sun. And yet, the Israeli Government overreacts. The reason: the demonstrations around the world do not stop and the word genocide It is beginning to become widespread in almost all of them, starting with those that have taken place in Washington, New York, other US states and in England.
Diplomatic scuffle
Israel, Spain and Belgium, to take the three countries protagonists of the Rafah diplomatic row, are three countries that have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide adopted on December 9, 1948, a crime that can be committed either in times of war and peace. The UN General Assembly, precisely, agreed in 2015 to celebrate the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Crime every December 9. Genocide and Prevention of this crime. In a few days, therefore, the day that marks the 75th anniversary of the 1948 Convention will be celebrated.
According to article number 1 of the Convention, ratified by 153 countries, the obligations of states consist of not committing genocide, preventing it and punishing those responsible for genocide. In 1949, in article 33 of the Geneva Convention or fourth convention, the “protection of civilians in times of war” was agreed upon.
The four conventions, known as the Geneva law, were ratified by Israel in 1951 and by Spain and Belgium in 1952. We must add to this legal framework the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which typifies both crime of genocide As the crime against humanity. While Israel is not a party, Spain and Belgium are. And Palestine, recognized by the United Nations, has been so since 2015. The Court has kept an official investigation open since 2021 into the territories occupied by Israel, but already in 2014, as a result of Operation Protective Edge, where 2,000 Palestinians and 100 Israelis died, The CFI conducted a preliminary investigation.
The Tribunal’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, visited Rafah on October 29 and confirmed that he is competent regarding both the actions of Hamas and those of Israel. “We are in a moment of reflection and it is a moment in which the international community and the structures of this international community, built on the rubble of the Second World War, guarantee that [no ocurra] never again,” Khan said.
Palestinian genocide
Precisely, it is these “structures” in force on paper that shine for their non-compliance. Far from never happening again, the palestinian genocide It is developed in an open way. This was what Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, head professor of Law at the University of Jerusalem and the University of London, denounced when she spearheaded a manifesto – an initiative of researchers and specialists in children’s and childhood health – that has already been running for 2,000 years. signatures of academics and students since last October 26.
“The intolerable consequences of genocide in Gaza They not only affect children, but their parents, grandparents, relatives and adult neighbors. Stop it genocidal war now it is crucial for the survival and well-being of children,” the manifesto maintains. Then there were 7,000 dead in Gaza, half of whom, they noted, were children. Professor Asher Cohen, president of the University of Jerusalem, and rector Tamir Sheafar, wrote to his colleague that “your horrible claim that Israel is allegedly carrying out genocide is not too far from the incitement of crimes of incitement to rebellion, crimes that would allow us to take her before a disciplinary court and request her suspension or expulsion from the Hebrew University. You may know that Israel adopted the United Nations convention on the prevention of genocide in 1950. This covenant was agreed upon primarily because of the murder of the Jewish people in the Holocaust. The military campaign that Israel is developing with the aim of defeating the Hamas terrorist murderous organizationis not close to the definition of genocide… “We are saddened and ashamed that the Hebrew University has members like you on its staff, and in light of your feelings we consider it appropriate for you to leave your position at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.”
UN criticism
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António Guterres, the Secretary General of the UN, was the first target of the attacks by the Government of Israel, explaining – as the manifesto headed by Professor Shalhaoub-Kervokian also does – that what happened on October 7 and now has no place in a vacuum, which is why Israeli ministers have asked for his resignation and declared the UN persona non grata. The UN, then, has become Israel’s bête noire. The Israeli Government, precisely as a result of Guterres’ complaints, has allowed him to exhibit something of relevance these days.
Look where, for ten months, the Guernica tapestry, which reproduces the pictorial work made by Pablo Picasso days after the bombing by the German Condor Legion and the Italian legionary aviation, which caused the destruction of a large part of the city and deaths in the Basque city of Guernica since midday on April 26, 1937, was removed from the entrance to the UN Security Council – where it had been since 1985 – but has been loaned again by the magnate owner, Nelson Rockefeller Jr. in February of 2022, and has returned to its place. The bombing of Guernica lasted around three hours and the official death toll was 1,645 dead and 889 wounded.