Tracking state reactions to the ICC Arrest Warrants against Netanyahu, Gallant, & Deif 🧵 Methodology notes:
Except for key actors (Israel, Palestine, US) I will only track MFA, HoS and HoG statements.
Simple retweets of the ICC press release are not counted

Hen likes to portray himself as the friendly face of genocide denial, which is why him joining the talking point du jour, about the CIA estimating population growth in Gaza as proof there is no genocide, is rather out of character. It is a really bad & violent argument 🧵

https://twitter.com/henmazzig/status/1859239312950239618

Hen doesn’t specifically say it, but the claim is there between the lines: “if population grew, there can’t be a genocide under way”. This is of course patently false from the definition of genocide alone. Population decrease is simply not part of it

In celebration of @FranceskAlbs recent standing ovations at both LSE and SOAS, let me highlight the main contributions her Reports have made to the way we understand the genocide of the Palestnian people in Gaza 🧵 .@FranceskAlbs' first and perhaps most important contribution is to put the issue of settler-colonialism front and centre of the discussion of genocide. In essence, genocide is not an accident, but a feature of colonialism; and it is not a rare find in colonial societies

Many accounts have began to erase Palestinian history these past few days. One common take is the equation of Arabization with modern settler colonialism, as if Palestinians were the result of waves of population transfer from the Hejaz, replacing local communities. This is not only wrong, it is also dehumanising 🧵 Pre-modern conquests (like the Arab conquests) often (but not always) involved a change in elites and the establishment of some form of tributary system. In the Levant, this change of elites led the local population to “Arabize” over the centuries.

Listening to people tell me “this is not what happened” reminds me of how I too grew up with a sanitised version of my country’s history, where the Spanish conquest of the Inca led to the creation of a post-racial Peruvian identity, where colonialism and racism play no role 🧵

https://twitter.com/alonso_gd/status/1844348004201005161

Powerful cultural forces reinforce this idea. In this narrative, Peruvian indigenous people are the “minorities” that failed to acculturate into our post-racial, Western(ised) society and are thus misguidedly “opposed to progress”

scielo.org.pe/pdf/anthro/v27…

Israel’s post Oct 7 policy has led to:
- 80k displaced Israelis
- Tel Aviv bombarded
- Hezbollah hitting Haifa
- Diplomatic isolation
- Pariah status among Gen-Z
- ICJ/ICC cases
- Downgraded credit ratings
- GDP growth stalled
Unrestrained war has shown it’s obvious uselessness Anyone who tells you all of this was “part of the plan” or “to be expected” is lying to you. Israel expected to recover what its strategic security doctrine calls “strategic deterrence” - the belief that “teaching the enemy a lesson” is a security imperative.

I’m rly tired of the “what else where they supposed to do” brigade. The main reason why they are comfortable with Israel’s response is because it is happening “over there” where it is acceptable to bomb human beings into oblivion. Nobody would suggest doing this in London or NY🧵

https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1841211109237203130

It was patently obvious from the beginning that a broad and intense military response was, even under the most expansive definitions of self-defence, difficult to justify; not just because Israel is unlawfully occupying Gaza but bc of the urban nature of the conflict

Tracking State reactions to recent attacks on Lebanese pagers 🧵 Lebanon 🇱🇧
“serious violation of Lebanese sovereignty and a crime by all standards”
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

Re Israel's pager attack (I'm assuming it was Israel?), there’s two separate sets of applicable rules: the Jus in Bello (JIB) asks “was this a war crime?” and the Jus ad Bellum (JAB) asks “was this a violation of Lebanese sovereignty?”

Some initial thoughts 🧵: In theory, and provided certain conditions are met, it’s possible that an attack like this one could be legal under JIB.

Now, these are strict conditions. We don't know if Israel followed them and given past practice, we shouldn't assume it did

So, when you read the actual decision, it is clear that what is at stake here is a concerted campaign to doxx a police officer and his family members to a group of people who recently tried to violently take over government institutions and where the risk of harm is significant

https://twitter.com/alexandrefiles/status/1830351108516270306

Thanks to Musk sharing this decision online unaltered, for instance, I know now this police officer’s wife profession, I know the maiden name she uses to protect herself from attacks and I know which account I need to go visit to find her picture

Adam Kirsch expands the logic of his argument re settler clolonialism in this interview for @TimesofIsrael.
It reveals many more fundamental misunderstandings about the concept, so I thought I’d offer some clarity 🧵

timesofisrael.com/a-literary-cri… Let’s start with his definition of colonialism, which once again unjustifiably constrains it to “societies founded by European colonization”. Describing the origin of anticolonial theory as a type of self-reflexivity by the colonial societies themselves is itself colonial

I agree, we do not do enough to end gender apartheid in Afghanistan. So, let's see what is it we do thus far, so that we can understand what "too little" means, shall we? 🧵

https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1826965651639922764

The Taliban have been subjected to sanctions for their treatment of Afghan women since 1999, through UNSC Resolution 1267.

Stares in...
- Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth (1961)
- Pablo González Casanova's Sociología de la Explotación (1969)
- Edward Said's Zionism from the Perspective of its Victims (1979)
- Aníbal Quijano's Colonialidad y Racionalidad/Modernidad (1991)

AND SO MANY OTHERS Um... no. The whole point of the emergence of coloniality as a concept was that it is a set of relations, not a specific political process. You don't need "European settlers claiming res nullius" to establish a colonial relation. That just happens to be common in history.

Judge Sebutinde’s Dissent has resurrected old claims that Israel is entitled to all of Palestinian Territory under the doctrine of uti possidetis juris. While this has encouraged many anti-Palestinian-rights actors, the argument remains as unconvincing as ever 🧵 Uti Possidetis is a doctrine that originates in the early 1800s during the independentist processes in Latin America, whose leaders used this Roman law concept to claim that colonial internal borders would continue after independence as the int’l borders of the new Latin states

Tracking state reactions to the ICJ's Advisory Opinion on Israel's Policies and Practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory 🧵 Qatar 🇶🇦

https://x.com/MofaQatar_AR/status/1814559924904480870

From reading the Separate Opinions, it seems that except for Judge Sebutinde, the Court did not have many profound disagreements. This is important considering prior experience with the Court (remember Comma-Gate). Here, things seemed pretty straght-forward. Some thoughts 🧵 Abraham (🇫🇷), Tomka (🇸🇰) and Aurescu (🇷🇴) disagreed with the majority that the occupation could become illegal as a whole. They rather believed that Israel was doing illegal things in the context of an otherwise normal occupation

"yeah yeah but it doesn't matter anyway"
Sure, this Opinion will not stop Israel in Gaza. But there's some things you should consider before dismissing this historic Opinion... 🧵 This case was never meant to be a reaction to Gaza. It began in Jan. 2023 as part of a broader effort to use the law in defence of Palestinian rights. It is meant to help increase the tools at the disposal of Palestinians. In this regard, it has been extremely successful

This is where I will be posting my thoughts on the upcoming ICJ Advisory Opinion on Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. You can follow the Court's live stream here, starting in 10 min: webtv.un.org/en/asset/k13/k… Just as a reminder, the Court has been asked to answer the following two legal questions. An Advisory Opinion is not "binding" but it is "authoritative", in that it reflects the Court's understanding of current international law

More Fun Fact: if a Palestinian citizen of Israel marries a West Bank Palestinian, the latter is legally barred from obtaining Israeli citizenship or permanent residence in Israel through marriage /1

https://twitter.com/adamrfisher/status/1806317196961824982

Even More Fun Fact: that same Palestinian citizen of Israel cannot legally marry a Jewish citizen within Israel. Since 2006, they are allowed to marry abroad and, since 2010, they are allowed to sign a civil union, but this affords them less rights than a married couple /2

People are trying to construct an image of Balfour that simply is not there. His Zionism was not the result of anti-racist convictions, but rather religious belief. His support for Jewish causes was conditional on how they complimented his racist and xenophobic views For instance, between May and July 1905, he is on record condemning “[t]he medieval treatment of the Jews” as “a permanent stain on European annals” and as a “disgrace which tarnishes the fair fame of Christianity even at this moment”.

Wait, we’re sanitising Balfour now? That quote comes from his Introduction to Nahum Sokolow’s “History of Zionism”. The text is essentially Balfour’s explanation as to why it is correct for the Jews to “colonise Palestine” but not say to “plant Buddhist colonies in India” /1

https://twitter.com/efischberger/status/1803130880765903315

For Balfour, this is because Jews are different than other “races” in that they had been severed from their ancestral lands and yet retained “to the full its racial self-consciousness”