First Anniversary of Al-Aqsa Flood
What Has Been Learned in Past Year
Craig Mokhiber is a renowned specialist in international human rights law. He was the Director in the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) until October 28, 2023 when he announced his resignation to protest the genocide in Gaza and the inability of the UN to stop it. In an interview on the YouTube channel Jadaliyya, he discusses the moment in history which has laid bare the essence of Western power, the disenfranchisement of people and the global rise of humanity for fundamental change.
Mokhiber covers the origins of Zionism and recalls the 1975 UN resolution that Zionism is racism.
He delves into the implications for international law and says that if institutions such as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and International Criminal Court (ICC) fail to hold Israel to account they will be finished. He points out that UN institutions such as the UN Security Council (UNSC) and General Assembly need reform but the reforms which are currently being discussed would only result in the equivalent of rearranging chairs on the deck of a sinking ship. They simply do not address the actual problem, he says, adding that if these institutions cannot deal with a genocide being livestreamed in front of our eyes they will not survive.
Mokhiber underscores who bears responsibility for the genocide that is taking place. While Israel is the immediate perpetrator of genocide, complicity is also a separate crime in the UN Convention on Genocide. The U.S., Germany, UK and others are actively complicit by providing arms, intelligence, diplomatic and media support and sustaining the Israel genocide in myriad ways. Western media organizations are also complicit under the international genocide convention.
Mokhiber decries the fact that conceptions inherent to "settler colonialism" and racism are now seen to be "Western values." Israel is promoted as the expression of Western values. Human rights are for "us," who espouse "Western values," not for the "others," who are standing up against the genocide.
In the face of this genocide "Western values" are seen for what they are and they will never recover from it, Mokhiber points out.
Mokhiber points out that the corporate media is legally accountable too under the genocide convention. Any attempt to claim that they do not know what is happening is not credible, he says. They are consciously misrepresenting, denying, disinforming which makes them legally accountable and complicit. He references historical precedents established during the Nuremberg Trials and Rwanda Genocide Trials.
In terms of what comes next, Mokhiber says that in the immediate term the situation is headed toward more terror, more horrific violence. The movement for Palestinian freedom, for an end to genocide, end to apartheid is growing and it will prevail. Where it heads in the long term is yet to be seen. The proposal for a two-state solution is in reality finished, he says. There is nothing left for a two-state solution which cannot resolve any of the key questions such as the rights of the Palestinian nation, the right of return, compensation, and many more basic matters.
The Resistance Movement is the most important development and trend today which insists on new international law which holds the perpetrators of genocide accountable.
To watch the interview, click here.
This article was published in
October
5, 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/ITN2024/Articles/TI54255.HTM
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