Articial Intelligence translation of my opinion piece of this week published in Portuguese in daily national newspaper Diário de Notícias (26 JAN 2024)
Gaza: an earthquake in international politics
Victor Angelo
The Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs was in Brussels this week, at the invitation of Josep Borrell. The purpose was to allow the minister to discuss three major issues with his European counterparts: the dramatic situation in which the population of Gaza finds itself, within the framework of the enormous military intervention ordered by Benjamin Netanyahu; the requirements for an immediate ceasefire; and the dimensions and phases of preparing a peace plan.
Borrell was aware of Security Council Resolution 2720 (2023), which approved on December 22 the implementation of humanitarian pauses and the opening of corridors that would allow essential goods for their survival to be delivered to the inhabitants of Gaza. The Security Council had recognized the extreme urgency of humanitarian assistance.
A month later, it is undeniable that the situation continues to worsen. Israel reveals absolute disrespect for the Security Council. Controls became even tighter. The hundreds of humanitarian trucks that should enter Gaza daily are faced with a tragically different reality. Borrell mentioned that the average would be around eighty trucks a day. Calls for “humanitarian pauses” have been met with an intensification of military operations and the continuation of attacks against civilian targets, including UN installations, which prefigure war crimes. Resolution 2720 has been simply ignored, despite its mandatory nature.
Regarding peace, the approach proposed by Europeans would be multidimensional. The first concern would be the creation of a sovereign State of Palestine, capable of peacefully coexisting with the State of Israel. This idea is nothing new. It was approved in 1947 by the United Nations General Assembly (Resolution 181) and reaffirmed in the 1993 Oslo Accords and at the Camp David Summit in the USA in 2000. But it never went beyond paper, with both sides accusing each other for failures.
The international community is firmly committed to this solution – two independent states. This is the only viable, albeit complex, solution that can lead to the construction of a peaceful neighbourhood. It will only happen if there is an unquestionable commitment from interested parties, as well as from countries in the region and the main members of the UN. It needs, above all, Israeli and Palestinian leaders of exceptional vision and calibre.
The current Israeli government does not accept this solution. And contrary to the Palestinian National Authority, there are Palestinian extremists who also do not accept it. This shows that the tragedy that is taking place in Gaza, and to a certain extent in the other occupied Palestinian territories, in the West Bank, can seriously contribute to a radicalization of positions.
The Israeli minister did not understand the message that awaited him in Brussels. He talked nonsense about strange, meaningless things, such as the construction of an artificial island off Gaza and a railway corridor that would connect this territory to the rest of Palestine. In my opinion, it was a way of conveying to Europeans a clear position from the Netanyahu government, for whom the EU is seen as a featherweight.
Borrell responded, at the press conference after the meeting, that Europe has “a moral responsibility”. He spoke of looking for a path to peace. I would respond that the moral responsibility that must weigh on our consciences is not only to fight for peace, but also to ensure that humanitarian laws and the laws of war are respected. And bring individuals suspected of having violated these international rules to the attention of Karim Ahmad Khan, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). That's what the ICC is for, to judge political leaders. It is a separate instance from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which judges conflicts between States, as is now the case of South Africa against Israel and which today issues a first Order on the accusation of genocide. Khan, who is a British citizen, was very active in the case of the accusations against Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova. He did what he was expected to do. But he has been as low as a stone in the face of the atrocities committed on October 7th and ever since. The credibility of the ICC is thus called into question.
We live in a time of great dangers and enormous challenges. Anyone who has their eyes open and sees beyond their parish knows that this is the case. Extraordinary times require extraordinary political courage. And serious justice, impartial and expeditious.
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