Palestinians are unquestionably the most hapless people on earth and have been so since the state of Israel was created in Palestine in 1948. Not only were they slaughtered on an industrial scale in the aftermath of the Second World War to make room for Israelis to return for the creation of the state of Israel, but they have since then been subjected to the most brutal mix of colonial-apartheid domination, the kind that South Africans know so well. The Gaza Strip, that narrow space between the Mediterranean Sea and Israel, where two and half million Palestinians are consigned, is “the largest open air concentration camp” in the history of the world and are subjected to the most inhuman treatment by successive Israeli governments that see them as sub-human species qualified for extermination from the face of the earth.
Lamenting what he calls “the moral failure of Western institutions on Gaza,” in a piece published in Eurasia Review of November 7, Palestinian journalist and writer Ramzy Baroud asks in understandable exasperation: “so, what is the use of the elaborate international political, humanitarian and legal systems if they are unable to stop or even slow down a genocide that is being aired live on TV screens all across the world?”
By Western institutions, he is referring to the multitude of international institutions created since end of WWII to address and resolve critical international issues. The most consequential of these international organizations created ostensibly “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind” is the United Nations.
Its central purpose as stated in Article 1 of its Charter, is “To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace.”
To answer Baroud’s question, I will contend unequivocally that these “elaborate international political, humanitarian and legal systems” did not fail on Gaza. They were created ab initio, solely for the pursuit and satisfaction of the selfish interests of the great powers only, and not what their charters or constitutions make us believe! They are simply not configured to resolve international problems except as it pleases the great powers only. It is pertinent to understand that these international bodies, from the UN, its organs and agencies, and international financial institutions, the WTO, international law, ICC, etc. are all set up to do the biddings of the great powers and also serve as mechanisms for them to impose their will on and bring the lesser members of the international system into perpetual subjection.
Big powers are outside the reach of international law. That is the cruel reality we must all learn to accept. To imagine anything different is to wallow in absolute self-delusion. Why, for example, are the great powers that helped create the International Criminal Court not subject to its jurisdiction? Why do the great powers recklessly engage in trade practices that are detrimental to the interests of the small states despite the elaborate prescriptions in the World Trade Organization rules? Most of US vetoes in the UNSC have been in defence of Israeli positions and interests. Israel is the proverbial tail that wags the big dog, gets the US to do its bidding always.
Like it or not, our world is still a world of power, and as I have stressed in previous articles, the big fish still eats the small fish while small fish eats worms. Thucydides’, the historian of the Peloponnesian War, famous quote never ceases to ring in my ears anytime I am engaged in international relations analysis. According to him, “Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” It is a world where the strong and powerful are never held accountable for their misdeeds, where the justness or otherwise of an action in international relations is rarely settled on points or dictates of the law but on power, and wherever brute power holds sway, morality and justness take a back seat.
What about international law, you would ask: it is those who hold power that make and enforce laws, period. Might is always right. And that’s the way it has been throughout history. That’s why the United States wilfully and without provocation or justification invades, bombs and destroys weak countries, slaughters thousands in foreign lands, impose killer sanctions on them, simply because it can, and also will get away with it.
Dear Ramzy Baroud, that’s precisely why Israel also would conduct genocidal campaigns against innocent and defenceless Palestinians in Gaza on live television – because it possesses the brute military power and would never be held accountable! Not even the UN can do anything about it. Israel not only thumbs its nose at the UN and whatever is called international law but even arrogantly and magisterially demanded the resignation of the Secretary-General. For what crime or offence, you might ask? Simply, because he voiced the truism that the world already knows: that whilst Hamas’ October 7 horrific attacks on Israel is condemnable, “it is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in vacuum.” In response, Israel’s foreign minister, furiously justifying Israel’s genocide, not only refused to meet with the Secretary-General, but instead cold-heartedly asserted that “there is no room for a balanced approach, Hamas must be erased from the world.”
Pray, who will call Israel to order when those who have arrogated to themselves the right to be the custodians of world order are complicit in encouraging the ongoing war crimes – relentless slaughter of children, women, the aged and infirm alike in their homes, on the streets, in schools, hospitals, churches and mosques a mindless orgy of violence.
Has the world failed Gaza? Yes, spectacularly so! And that’s because the rest of the world is powerless to do anything beyond mere expression of moral outrage at the horrific genocide being perpetrated in Gaza. As for the great powers, Israel can do no wrong; it has their backing for the barbarous ethnic cleansing without consequences. In fact, the US is complicit in that the horrendous genocide being carried out with American-supplied weapons and money, as well as American political and diplomatic backing. Who then is going to hold Israel and the US accountable? Hypocritically, America will rail and rant against what it terms Russia’s unprovoked war in Ukraine and ensure that Russian president, Vladimir Putin is indicted for war crimes before the ICC, a court whose jurisdiction the US does not itself recognize. How just is that? Well, justness in world politics is always a one-sided decision: the powerful decide what is fair and what is foul, what is to be accepted and what is not acceptable. The heart bleeds for Palestinians.
- Prof Fawole writes from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife
