The intentional abandonment of Palestinians

Addameer has published the text of an open letter by the Palestinian Human Rights Organisations Council (PHROC) to foreign ministers on the “Need for International Intervention in Palestine”. The letter, dated 20 October 2015, requests action from the international community in restraining Israel and its unsustainable “occupation and colonialist enterprise”. It concludes with a list of recommendations mainly requesting compliance, as well as another call for “international protection of the occupied Palestinian population”.

Another public letter addressed to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was also published by Addameer, in which it was requested that a UN Security Council group of experts be established “to identify suitable means of protection for Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).”

The dynamics between international politics and human rights organisations are depicted clearly in the appeals. Dependency is blatantly obvious, as evidenced in the reference to Ban Ki-moon’s recorded address that was published a few days prior to the publication of the letters. While the arguments brought forth by the PHROC are valid and provide a sound basis for legal action. However, legal action is perpetually hampered by international complicity in sustaining Israel’s colonial violence. Therefore resorting to the international community for protection is a treacherous option.

An example of such treachery is the preparation of a UN Security Council resolution drafted by New Zealand which calls on Israel to cease its settlement expansion and for Palestinians to refrain from pursuing their options at the International Criminal Court.

Meanwhile, European Parliament President Martin Schulz has called for a “confederation” in one of his speeches. According to the Times of Israel, Schulz stated: “Peace in the Middle East is possible only if the mother of all conflicts, the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, is resolved and both peoples live together in two states or a confederation.” Perhaps Schulz might do well to refer to the Mapuche population in Chile, who are still resisting and clamouring for land reclamation despite dictatorship legislation during Pinochet’s era refuting the existence of the indigenous population. The refusal to even acknowledge colonial violence, and in return, affirm the Palestinians’ right to anti-colonial struggle invalidates any political hypothesis disseminated by the EU and the UN.

Given the international community’s complicity with Israel, as well as the corruption that sustains international institutions, Palestinians are left with no options for recourse other than self-reliance and Palestinian human rights organisations are trapped within a realm that necessitates both validating their existence through accessible legal channels, as well as attempting to protect the rights of the oppressed population. The former, however, is a futile task which in turn renders any form of protection negligible, due to the manipulation of international law.

Calling for international protection of Palestinians is illogical. It is difficult to comprehend how the UNSC can be trusted with identifying means of protection – their track record of intervention under other guises has been proven to achieve nothing but bloodbaths. UN forces have been accused of many human rights abuses in several countries. If justice had not been disfigured into an aberration, the possibility might have held some validity. However, as things stand, to call for international protection of Palestinians is none other than a clear affirmation of endorsing the eradication of both Palestine and the indigenous population – for the simple reason that “international protection” is nothing other than an extension of the violence that props the institutions thriving upon carnage.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.