Last week Israel promptly refused to abide by the UN Security resolution calling for an ‘immediate and durable’ ceasefire in their war on Gaza. It proceeded to kill civilians and bomb institutions in clear violation of international humanitarian law. Now it has announced a unilateral ceasefire. But it still refuses to withdraw its troops and reserves the right to attack again if it thinks it necessary to do so. In short, Israel acts as and how it likes undeterred by any UN resolution. This defiance is an open challenge to the world community acting to preserve peace and protect civilians.
This is not the first time that Israel has acted in contempt of UN decisions. Indeed, it has a disturbingly long and consistent history of snubbing UN Security Council resolutions, especially since 1967 when it forcibly expropriated even larger chunks of Palestinian territory.
It refuses to withdraw from these territories as ordered to do so by UN Security Council resolution 242 of 1967. It refuses to acknowledge UN Security Council resolution 298 of 1971 that declared as illegal its take over of Jerusalem. It snubbed UN Security Council resolution 478 of 1980 that condemned its act of making Jerusalem the capital of Israel. And it has refused to dismantle settlements it built in occupied Palestinian territory as ordered to do so by UN Security Council resolutions 452 of 1979 and 465 of 1980.
Nor has it complied with the 2004 decision of the judicial organ of the UN – the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – ordering it to pull down the 190 km ‘Wall’ that it has built on occupied Palestinian territory and pay compensation for the lands it expropriated.
And of course, Israel is playing deaf to the condemnation of the UN Emergency Special Session General Assembly a few days ago.
Now the issue is: can a member State of the UN act in such utter disregard and with impunity? Is the world completely helpless when a war crime and a violation of international humanitarian law of such a catastrophic magnitude took place last week? And the threat of a repeat disaster remains with Israel’s troops refusing to leave.
The UN Security Council can act to enforce its decision. But the US is complicit with Israel in this war. And the US veto power guarantees Israel that no such action will be authorized. The critical question then is: could Israel’s past action have been stopped without the approval of the Security Council? And can it be similarly stopped in the future?
The crisp answer is: yes it can.
This has indeed been done before. Not once but several times. Force can be used by a group of countries in extreme cases to avert a humanitarian crisis. It can even be used to justify action against activities being done within a sovereign country. This was the basis of NATO’s action against Serbia – to save the 1.7 million Kosovars who were in the process of being murdered. India intervened in 1971 to stop genocide in Bangladesh. Even Israel went into Uganda on this basis to rescue hostages at Entebbe airport.
This encapsulates the evolving principle in international law of ‘humanitarian necessity’. Countries have the legal right to use proportionate force to prevent or stop a human catastrophe that is serious and imminent.
There are of course limits to the exercise of such a power. There must first be a general consensus that the action to be stopped was wrong. In the Gaza war this is amply shown by both the UN Security Council and the General Assembly resolutions. The UN President has said that the violations of international law ‘have been well documented: collective punishment, disproportionate military force and attacks on civilian targets … homes, mosques, universities, schools’. He categorized the action as amounting to genocide.
Secondly the countries that act collectively to intervene must represent an alliance of countries with no objective but to save those being killed in violation of international law. And finally they must deploy proportionate force that has a reasonable prospect of stopping or deterring the perpetrators.
All the requirements for collective coercive intervention against Israel existed in this case. And will equally be satisfied if there is a continuation or repeat of this 22-day war on civilians by Israeli troops still on Gaza soil. All that remains then will be for the collective will and verve to stop these crimes against humanity – even without Security Council approval.
Can Israel Be Stopped? - By Prof. Gurdial Singh Nijar (LATEST UPDATE - 20/1/09)
January 19 2009, Law faculty, University of MalayaLast week Israel promptly refused to abide by the UN Security resolution calling for an ‘immediate and durable’ ceasefire in their war on Gaza. It proceeded to kill civilians and bomb institutions in clear violation of international humanitarian law. Now it has announced a unilateral ceasefire. But it still refuses to withdraw its troops and reserves the right to attack again if it thinks it necessary to do so. In short, Israel acts as and how it likes undeterred by any UN resolution. This defiance is an open challenge to the world community acting to preserve peace and protect civilians.
This is not the first time that Israel has acted in contempt of UN decisions. Indeed, it has a disturbingly long and consistent history of snubbing UN Security Council resolutions, especially since 1967 when it forcibly expropriated even larger chunks of Palestinian territory.
It refuses to withdraw from these territories as ordered to do so by UN Security Council resolution 242 of 1967. It refuses to acknowledge UN Security Council resolution 298 of 1971 that declared as illegal its take over of Jerusalem. It snubbed UN Security Council resolution 478 of 1980 that condemned its act of making Jerusalem the capital of Israel. And it has refused to dismantle settlements it built in occupied Palestinian territory as ordered to do so by UN Security Council resolutions 452 of 1979 and 465 of 1980.
Nor has it complied with the 2004 decision of the judicial organ of the UN – the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – ordering it to pull down the 190 km ‘Wall’ that it has built on occupied Palestinian territory and pay compensation for the lands it expropriated.
And of course, Israel is playing deaf to the condemnation of the UN Emergency Special Session General Assembly a few days ago.
Now the issue is: can a member State of the UN act in such utter disregard and with impunity? Is the world completely helpless when a war crime and a violation of international humanitarian law of such a catastrophic magnitude took place last week? And the threat of a repeat disaster remains with Israel’s troops refusing to leave.
The UN Security Council can act to enforce its decision. But the US is complicit with Israel in this war. And the US veto power guarantees Israel that no such action will be authorized. The critical question then is: could Israel’s past action have been stopped without the approval of the Security Council? And can it be similarly stopped in the future?
The crisp answer is: yes it can.
This has indeed been done before. Not once but several times. Force can be used by a group of countries in extreme cases to avert a humanitarian crisis. It can even be used to justify action against activities being done within a sovereign country. This was the basis of NATO’s action against Serbia – to save the 1.7 million Kosovars who were in the process of being murdered. India intervened in 1971 to stop genocide in Bangladesh. Even Israel went into Uganda on this basis to rescue hostages at Entebbe airport.
This encapsulates the evolving principle in international law of ‘humanitarian necessity’. Countries have the legal right to use proportionate force to prevent or stop a human catastrophe that is serious and imminent.
There are of course limits to the exercise of such a power. There must first be a general consensus that the action to be stopped was wrong. In the Gaza war this is amply shown by both the UN Security Council and the General Assembly resolutions. The UN President has said that the violations of international law ‘have been well documented: collective punishment, disproportionate military force and attacks on civilian targets … homes, mosques, universities, schools’. He categorized the action as amounting to genocide.
Secondly the countries that act collectively to intervene must represent an alliance of countries with no objective but to save those being killed in violation of international law. And finally they must deploy proportionate force that has a reasonable prospect of stopping or deterring the perpetrators.
All the requirements for collective coercive intervention against Israel existed in this case. And will equally be satisfied if there is a continuation or repeat of this 22-day war on civilians by Israeli troops still on Gaza soil. All that remains then will be for the collective will and verve to stop these crimes against humanity – even without Security Council approval.
Di pos oleh Arbain Muhayat pada 22 January 2009