Israel does not have a right to defend itself, as our PM keeps saying

By Paul Heywood-Smith

Israel has no right of self-defence against resistance to the illegal occupation. Israel cannot both occupy Palestinian lands, and then launch an attack on those lands by citing ‘self-defence’ when occupied populations resist. Neither can Israel treat those resisting in occupied territories as enemy combatants.

Consider this scenario: the Prime Minister states in response to a question from a journalist: “Israel has a right to defend itself”. That assertion followed a question on Israel/Palestine.

One thing is clear, particularly if the journalist asking the question was from the ABC. The question was certainly not as follows: “Prime Minister, the ICJ has ruled that Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian lands, and has established an apartheid state through its occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. Both of these practices are illegal and must end. What is Australia doing to promote that end?”

The reader would be justified in thinking that the answer to this question would not be “Israel has a right to defend itself. It has a right to exist”.

Now let us get serious.

The following cannot be challenged.

Israel is illegally occupying the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has so found, and has ordered that that occupation must end immediately, and that all settlers must evacuate Palestinian lands. The ICJ has found that Israel has established an apartheid state on Palestinian lands.

An apartheid state is a criminal state and cannot be allowed by the international community to exist. Ergo, Israel has no right of self-defence against resistance to the illegal occupation. Israel cannot both occupy Palestinian lands, and then launch an attack on those lands by citing ‘self-defence’ when occupied populations resist. Neither can Israel treat those resisting in occupied territories as enemy combatants. Israel has the right to protect its citizens within its own borders but it does not have the right to use overwhelming military force against people under its occupation. Nor, under international law, does Israel have the right to wage a war of collective punishment on the West Bank, Gaza, or, indeed, Lebanon, when it resists the illegal occupation of Lebanese territory – the Shebaa Farms – or when it comes to the aid of its brothers in Gaza and the West Bank.

The ICJ relied inter alia on the following established instruments of international law:

• Security Council Resolutions 242 (following the 1967 Six Day War), 338 (following the 1973 Yom Kippur War), and 2335 (the 2016 Resolution calling for the end of settlements),
• Article 3 of the UN Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination,
• Apartheid Convention – UN 1973, Article 1,
• Rome Statute, Article 7, establishing and defining the crime of apartheid.

It also relied upon its own 2004 judgement re the Wall, the Wall built on Palestinian land and found to have been illegally so built.

The matter has of course been taken further by the General Assembly of the UN. On September 18 it adopted a resolution which overwhelming endorsed the findings of the ICJ, necessarily calling for every soldier and settler to be removed from Palestinian territory, and Palestinians compensated and allowed to return to their homes. Further, the resolution affirmed that all countries are legally obliged to cease any recognition of or support for the Israeli settler-colonial project, to work to end Israel’s racial segregation and apartheid, to ban any products from settlements, to sanction settlers and others involved in the occupation, and to cut off all military, diplomatic, economic, commercial, financial, investment, trade, political, and legal relations with the Israeli occupation. The resolution required and was adopted by a two-thirds majority of the States present and voting. It was a significant resolution.

The Australian government has not sought to challenge these findings or directions. It says nothing against them. It has a history of so acting. Readers may recall attempts to establish any basis for the Australian government to challenge earlier findings, by B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International to the effect that Israel is an apartheid state in articles such as FOI exposes Australia’s attempts to protect Israel on apartheid status, March 28, 2023.

What can decent, humane, Australians do to address this situation? There are two essential things which must be done.

The first is that at the next election the last two preferences of the voter must be the ALP, then the Coalition. The first preferences can be the Greens, or Senator Payman’s new party, or a Teal candidate, provided the voter has assured him/herself that the Teal candidate is like minded.

The second is that you must inform yourself of how to adopt and engage in or implement the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) strategy.

Please do these things for humanity, for the Palestinian people, and for Australia’s self-respect.

Finally, Prime Minister, understand this: In the context of what we are seeing today in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon, Israel does not have a right to defend itself!