Human rights discourse serves the two-state paradigm, not the Palestinian people

Since Israel commenced with its genocide in Gaza, Israeli leaders openly spoke of ethnic cleansing and forced displacement. Protected by a web of international complicity, Palestinians who were not killed during the genocide are now living in around 30 per cent of what remains of Gaza which is not militarily occupied by Israel. 

As winter draws near, Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory stated, “Those displaced before the announcement of a ceasefire have little to no prospect of return to the areas they fled, most of which are inaccessible because they fall beyond the so-called yellow line. And they continue to be displaced again and again.” 

This is the brutality of colonial violence. It is understandable that current concerns are contextualised within the immediate. Yet the UN’s main objective since the 1947 Partition Plan was to enable Zionism to retain both land and demographic majority.

If the UN wants Israel to remain a colonial entity in Palestine, then automatically it is tacitly in favour of the Palestinian people’s forced displacement from Palestine, in this case, from Gaza.

UN-affiliated agencies operate within this contradiction in which human rights have become a travesty. No matter how many times these agencies warn about human rights violations and war crimes, the colonial politics upheld by the UN take precedence.

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In terms of international law violations, including allowing genocide to proceed unhindered, the UN should have much to answer for. However, the UN evades all scrutiny as there is no control mechanism that keeps it in check for all its complicity in international law violations, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Politically, the UN’s protection of Israel also offers the international community the easiest way to maintain complete adherence to the two-state paradigm. It does not contradict the 1947 Partition Plan after all, even though the resolution itself is replete with the beginnings of colonial violence. 

In its statement, the OHCHR stated that Israel must stop forced transfer and “facilitate Palestinians’ safe and dignified return to their homes and areas the fled.” Of course, this will not happen. The genocide happened to facilitate forced transfer, while the UN itself advocate for a very conditional right of return which was further diluted by the two-state paradigm. 

The two-state does not cater for Palestinian refugees; it is merely a concept that buys time for Israel’s colonial expansion. Yet the UN perpetuates the contradiction by refusing to state what the two-state politics and the international community seek to achieve.

Language has proved a valuable arsenal in protecting Israel. Who can complain about calling upon Israel to stop the forced transfer of the Palestinian people? However, the complaints should happen, because each call either contributes to forced transfer, or finds itself up against a political trajectory that only speaks dominance and violence. 

The recurring formula is to call upon Israel to cease its violations, when the same violations serve international diplomacy. Meanwhile Palestinians remain forcibly displaced to accommodate both Israel’s colonial expansion and the reality of the two-state paradigm. If warnings don’t work with Israel, is it not time to rethink the entire approach to human rights?

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