Once again Zionists seek to deny that Zionism is a settler colonial movement, but early Zionists and British commissions of inquiry were clear about the colonial nature of Zionism: 🧵
Zionist leaders like Ben-Gurion and Weizmann were clear about the colonial nature of their project and the historical examples that resembled their colonising activity, see:
During the British Mandate over Palestine, the British set up several commissions of inquiry to examine causes of violence in Palestine. All these commissions described it as a conflict between colonists and natives.
Let us start with the Palin report of April 1920: natives v. "Jewish colonial enterprise" "native population"
The Haycraft 1921 report: "Jewish colonies", "the colony" of Kfar Saba, of "Petach Tikva"
The Shaw Report 1929: colony, colony, colonies, colonies...
The Shaw Report 1929: "the problem of Jewish colonisation in Palestine"
The Hope Simpson Report 1930: "Zionist colonisation", "Zionist colonies"
Peel report 1937: "colonists"
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"Various testimonies revealed repeated use of sexual violence, in varying degrees of severity, by soldiers or prison guards against Palestinian detainees as an additional punitive measure... The testimonies also reveal cases of gang sexual violence and assault"
🧵 1. This news of armed conflict from Myanmar is a reminder of how lame are the attempts by some legal scholars to deny the charge of Israeli genocide, distinguishing it from Myanmar, because of "armed conflict" in Gaza: 1/19 apnews.com/article/myanma…
2. The conflict in Myanmar is often dubbed "the longest civil war" in the world, with no less than 35 ceasefires since 1989. In fact, in October 2023 Myanmar witnessed a military offensive by three armed groups apnews.com/article/shan-a…
3. Let us focus, however, on the Myanmar's "clearance operations" against the Rohingya. How does the pro-Israeli propaganda echo Myanmar's? I will be using quotes from the @CIJ_ICJ minutes from 11 December 2019:
How does @CIJ_ICJ advisory opinion refute Israel's invocation of "security" or "self-defence", including arguments since October that "we cannot reward murderers with a state": a thread:
1. To begin with, ICJ emphasises that Palestinian territories are a single territorial unit, including East Jerusalem and Gaza. Israel cannot annex E. Jerusalem and discard Gaza behind a siege. It needs to withdraw from all OPT and allow self-determination.
2. First, ICJ says that security cannot justify permanent evacuations or forcible transfer on the Palestinians.
The "law, at all scales" is not "always a servant of power" because it can be "a tool for political contestation". If law can be wielded by opposing parties then it is not "always a servant", definitely not "all law", as the ruling yesterday shows.
"Law" should not be reified (in the same way we should not reify other fields of social action, e.g. politics or academia) as if it is devoid of human agency and disagreement.
The big news is that the court determines that Israel is exercising an unlawful occupation that violates prohibition on discrimination and apartheid, that it should withdraw as rapidly as possible, including from Gaza, dismantle settlements, pay reparations and restitution
As regards Gaza, Court makes clear that Gaza is occupied and thus the lack of clarity (or disagreement in the ICC OTP panel on status of Gaza for the purpose of arrest warrants is immaterial)
Moreover, this highlights again the fact that western media and government concealed from the public since Oct 7: that Gaza is occupied.
What I will be looking for in the ICJ advisory opinion to be delivered today:
First: Gaza. In the Genocide case the ICJ focused on the "immediate context", but how will Gaza feature in this case?
Recall that the UNGA referral to the Court (Dec 2022) mentioned Gaza 17 times, including the illegal siege and the repeated brutal military operations against the Strip.
The question then is will the court be explicit about the fact that the reason why the Court is considering whether Genocide is now underway is the long-standing impunity and illegality, and the long-term denial of freedom. Not "security".