clear

Creating new perspectives since 2009

UNICEF recommendations enforce Israel’s colonial policies

February 26, 2015 at 11:11 am

UNICEF’s latest bulletin has confirmed the systematic violation of children’s rights while they are in Israeli detention. The findings of “Children in Israeli Military Detention” support evidence collected in 2014 by Defence for Children International Palestine (DCIP). Accountability Programme Director Ayed Abu Eqtaish said that, “Despite an ongoing dialogue with UNICEF over nearly two years, the Israeli authorities have failed persistently to implement practical changes to stop violence and ill-treatment against Palestinian child detainees.”

Israel’s attitude towards the intentional violations was summed up succinctly by attorney and international advocacy officer at DCIP, Brad Parker: “The core question is whether the Israeli military court system is even capable of or interested in administering justice. Regardless of changes to Israeli military law or modifications to operating procedures, Palestinian civilians, particularly children, should not be prosecuted in military courts.”

UNICEF’s report fluctuates between development, progress and an admission, through an evaluation of progress regarding the recommendations discussed, that Israel is blatantly enforcing colonial policies.

According to data obtained by UNICEF from Israel’s military prosecutor, in 2013 there were 654 Palestinian children from the West Bank aged between 5 and 17 years arrested by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF); all were referred to the Military Advocate General. This prompted the UN body to embark upon a series of discussions and consultations with Israeli security forces in an attempt to shed light upon the spectrum of violations inflicted upon Palestinian children, as well as urging the government, through its institutions, to protect children’s rights.

The result was UNICEF’s 38 recommendations to the military which have, so far, more or less been subject to intentional bureaucratic delays and negligence in order to synchronise with the violence inherent in the colonial process. “Of the 38 recommendations under review,” said UNICEF, “four are in progress, 15 are partially addressed, 14 are under discussion, four are closed, and one has been rejected.”

The contradictions in the bulletin’s conclusion are evident. Dialogue with Israeli institutions has been deemed “productive” and an engagement which UNICEF intends to continue. One of the forthcoming steps is “to bring to the attention of the IDF, with the consent of children and their parents, specific cases of reports of ill-treatment of arrested children for remedial action by the Government of Israel.” As the IDF is the perpetrator of such violations, the step adds nothing new to UNICEF’s efforts to safeguard Palestinian children from further abuse. Indeed, it could actually threaten them even more.

However, the greatest discrepancy within the report lies in the fact that, as with other international organisations dealing with Israel, UNICEF disregards the foundations of Israel’s colonial existence and the necessity of it having to perpetrate further premeditated violence in order to ensure its continued existence and territorial expansion. The reality of Palestinian children in Israeli military detention has been isolated from the wider framework. While the scope of the bulletin is not to delve into the historical framework of colonial violence, its absolute obliteration of this aspect only serves to distance Israel’s intentional violation of Palestinian children’s rights from its ulterior motive, which remains to crush, by all means possible, the continuity of Palestinian resistance.