ICJ says Israel has no right of self-defense relative to Occupied Territory like Gaza

04.11.2023

Israel is inflicting genocide on the population of Palestine, in particular in Gaza right now. The Israeli State’s leaders and its military top brass have again and again emphasized their intent to get rid of the whole of the Palestinian population. ‘Getting rid of’, for Israeli leaders, means causing Palestinians to flee Palestine, as they were forced to in 1948 and 1967, or else killing them. Both constitute genocide.

Israel claims it is merely exercising “self-defense”. It says it is relying on section 51 of the UN Charter. That is its defense. 

Biden and Blinken, and all the war-hounds that surround them, again and again mouth the terrible claim: Israel has the right to self-defense”, they whine. “Israel can do what it likes” they add, “in self-defense”. Do they know what they are saying?

Then, people in their own ignorance, or worse still, from a sadistic disposition and knowing nothing about international law, and not getting the gist of even elementary logic, blather on, echoing and re-echoing this Israeli-USA propaganda. We hear and read it in the Western media every day. The staff and guests of the CNN and BBC, or French TV programs mimic the erroneous line of “Israel has an inherent right to self-defense” against Hamas. But this is just not international law. Nor is it even a logically possible statement. How can an occupying power, Israel, have the “right to self-defense” against Gaza that it already occupies illegally?  Gaza is not only occupied but is under total siege by Israel. What is this “self-defense”? Are we all going mad? Do we have to listen to this drivel? And drivel with such cruel and inhuman, such genocidal, effect?

Here is the truth:

A state has the right of self-defense against another state. 

But, no state has a right to self-defense against a people that it already holds under military occupation or, worse still, under siege. This is why Israel does not have that right. No state has. To say that it does have a right to self-defense, is an assertion that is erroneous, harmful and illogical. It is a mad assertion. It implies that human beings living under military occupation, and under siege even, are not allowed to use armed struggle against their oppressor? When they rise up, they become the aggressor, and the aggressor screams, “Self-defense under section 51!”  Alice in Wonderland?

This faulty logic and ignorance of international law should be obvious to us in Mauritius, as we had to put up with people who know nothing about international law nor have any sense of elementary logic, when they went on and on about “Bolom Ramgoolam inn fini vann Diego ar Angle”. No he didn’t. And no, he couldn’t have, even had he wanted to or tried to. The head of state of both Mauritius and Britain were the same person, the Queen. She could not very well have sold herself an archipelago she already owned and at the same time bought it from herself. Try getting that kind of logic to be held up by any Court! It is nonsense. An equally mad assertion.

It is worth us quoting the two or three paragraphs in which the International Court of Justice dismissed Israel’s claim it has the right to “self-defense” against the Palestinians, including Gazans. The 2003 ICJ case was against Israel for building the Apartheid Wall in Palestine. Israel pleaded “self-defense”, under Section 51 of the UN Charter, then too. This is, of course, a claim so flawed it could only ever be proffered by a State that the powers-that-be in the world have granted impunity to. 

Here is what the judgment says about this tendentious claim to “self-defense”:

“Article 51 of the Charter thus recognizes the existence of an inherent right of self-defense in the case of armed attack by one State against another State. However, Israel does not claim that the attacks against it are imputable to a foreign state.

“The Court also notes that Israel exercises control in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and that, as Israel itself states, the threat which it regards as justifying the construction of the wall originates within, and not outside, that territory. The situation is thus different from that contemplated by the Security Council resolutions 1368 (2001) and 1373 (2001), and therefore Israel could not in any event invoke those resolutions in support of its claim to be exercising a right of self-defense.

“Consequently, the Court concludes that Article 51 of the Charter has no relevance in this case.”

The ICJ dismissed the Israeli claim to self-defense – even in the case of building their wall – in less than 150 words. Now Israel is using this same roundly dismissed claim in order to try to justify the totally unjustifiable, unspeakable genocide it is committing? And the USA mouths this cruel defense? And then the lackeys in the Press, on-line, even in diplomatic and academic circles mouth it and re-mouth it? 

The fact is there is no defense against this genocide by the Israeli state. There is no defense for the USA, Britain and others as they continue to arm and re-arm, and fund, and re-fund, and stand-by and re-stand-by Israel. They, too, will have no defense whatsoever for the genocide. There is no defense. they, too, will be found guilty of the genocide.

Self-defense cannot by invoked under international law by an occupying power in relation to those under its military occupation. Even common sense tells us this is not, in any case, logical. It is just a failing attempt to cover for wanton slaughter of innocent people. It aims to mask the cruel death-sentence that the US-funded Israel is inflicting upon children and grandparents alike, on the sick and the healthy, alike. Lock them all in, starve them all out, displace them from A to B by the million, and then bombard the poor people, and do so from land, from sea and from air? How can anyone justify this? It is outrageous. How can anyone believe that there is any defense whatsoever for this?

LALIT

[Corrected spelling "wine" to "whine" on 4th November 2023 @ 10:30 pm]