Israel doesn’t have the right to self-defence

THE EDITOR, Madam:

The Gleaner editorial of April 5 was generally correct and well-needed. Notwithstanding, a statement made in the editorial that “Neither do we question Israel’s right, within the confines of international law, to respond”, is incomplete and inferred Israel was justified in a military response on the basis of self-defence.

The statement is incomplete because it should have been made clear that international law does not afford Israel a right of self-defence. Palestine, including Gaza, is occupied, Israel being the occupiers and colonisers. The position under international law, supported by scholars and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is that Israel, the occupying power, has no such right.

In 2004 the ICJ, in case YEAR 2004 9 July General List No. 131, ruled Israel had no right to self defence, and said:

“139. The Court also notes that Israel exercises control in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and therefore Israel could not in any event invoke those resolutions in support of its claim to be exercising a right of self-defence”.

The editorial propagates the fallacy that colonial powers have a right to self-defence against the people who resist their colonisation. Patrick Gathara, in his article in Al-Jazeera titled ‘The fallacy of the colonial right to self-defence’, wrote:

“The idea that imperial land grabbers have the right to terrorise, brutalise, torture and murder those whose land they steal under the rubric of “self-defence” flies in the face of UN General Assembly Resolution 37/43 of 1982 which recognised “the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle”. That resolution specifically reaffirmed this right in the case of the Palestinian struggle.

It is well settled that resistance to, and even armed struggle against, a colonial occupation force is a recognised human right. Pursuant to Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, wars of national liberation have been expressly embraced.

UNGA resolution 3314 states in relevant part the right “to self-determination, freedom and independence […] of peoples forcibly deprived of that right, […] particularly peoples under colonial and racist regimes or other forms of alien domination” and stated the right of the occupied to “struggle … and receive support” in that effort.

Under international law, Israel has no right to self-defence as it relates to occupied Palestine. Therefore, it is a fallacy that Israel is exercising any right to self-defence.

That fallacy must not be propagated, or peace will never be achieved.

JALIL DABDOUB

Attorney-at-Law