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Lawless in Gaza: Why the West Backs Israel No Matter What
Cook, Jonathan
http://consortiumnews.com/2023/10/13/lawless-in-gaza-why-west-backs-israel-no-matter-what/Date Written: 2023-10-13 Publisher: Consortium News Year Published: 2023 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX24973 As Western politicians line up to cheer on Israel as it starves and bombs Gaza's civilians, it's important to understand how we reached this point -- and what it means for the future. Abstract: - Excerpt: One of the fundamentals of international law -- at the heart of the Geneva Conventions -- is a prohibition on collective punishment: that is, retaliating against the enemy's civilian population, making them pay the price for the acts of their leaders and armies. Very obviously, Gaza is about as flagrant a violation of this prohibition as can be found. Even in 'quiet' times, its inhabitants -- one million of them children -- are denied the most basic freedoms, such as the right to movement; access to proper health care because medicines and equipment cannot be brought in; access to drinkable water; and the use of electricity for much of the day because Israel keeps bombing Gaza's power station. Israel has never made any bones of the fact that it is punishing the people of Gaza for being ruled by Hamas, which rejects Israel's right to have dispossessed the Palestinians of their homeland in 1948 and imprisoned them in overcrowded ghettos like Gaza. What Israel is doing to Gaza is the very definition of collective punishment. It is a war crime: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks of every year, for 16 years. And yet no one in the so-called international community seems to have noticed. Subject Headings |