The Government of Israel resumed the genocidal onslaught it inflicted on
Palestinians in Gaza after a much overdue but brief “humanitarian pause.”
In doing so, Israel has ignored the worldwide protests of people as well as
the fervent pleas of moral, religious, and political authority figures
throughout the world to convert the hostage/prisoner exchange pause into
a permanent ceasefire. The overriding intention was to avert the worsening
of the ordeal of the Gazan population. Israel was urged to choose the road
to peace not only for humanitarian reasons but also for the sake of achieving
real security and respect for both Palestinians and Israelis. Yet now the
bodies are again piling up, the Gaza medical system can no longer offer
treatment to most of those injured, and threats of widespread starvation and
disease daily intensify.
Under these circumstances, this Declaration calls not only for the
denunciation of Israel’s genocidal assault but also for taking effective action
to permanently prevent its repetition. We come together due to the urgency
of the moment, which obliges global intellectuals to stand against the
ongoing horrific ordeal of the Palestinian people and, most of all, to implore
action by those who have the power, and hence the responsibility, to do so.
Israel’s continuing rejection of a permanent ceasefire intensifies our
concerns. Many weeks of cruel devastation that Israel’s grossly
disproportionate response to the Hamas’ October 7 attack continues to
exhibit Israel’s vengeful fury. Indeed, even the pause seems to have been
agreed upon by the Israeli government mainly to ease pressures from Israeli
citizens demanding greater efforts to secure the release of the hostages.
United States government evidently reinforced this pressure in its eagerness
to show the world that it was not utterly insensitive to humanitarian
concerns. Even this gesture was undercut before the pause started by the
defiant public insistence of Prime Minister Netanyahu to resume the war
immediately after the pause. It is more appropriate to interpret these seven
days without combat as a pause in Israel’s genocidal operations in Gaza
rather than a humanitarian pause. if truly humanitarian it would not have
crushed hopes of ending the genocide and conjointly with resuming efforts
to negotiate the conditions for an enduring and just peace between Israelis
and Palestinians.
The revival of this military campaign waged by Israel against the civilian
population of Gaza amounts to a repudiation of UN authority, of law and
morality in general, and of simple human decency. The collaborative
approval of Israel’s action by the leading liberal democracies in the Global
West, particularly the US and UK, accentuates our anguish and disgust.
These governments pride themselves on adherence to the rule of law and
yet limit their peacemaking role to PR pressures on Israel to conduct its exorbitant actions
in a more discreet manner. Such moves do little more than soften the
sharpest edges of Israel’s genocidal behavior in Gaza, while continuing to
endorse Israel’s false rationale of self-defense and shield this brazenly
criminal conduct from legal condemnation and political censure at the UN and
elsewhere.
We deplore the reality that these governments continue to lend overall
support to Israel’s announced intention to pursue its combat goals, which
lead to severe war crimes that Tel Aviv does not even bother to deny. These
crimes include the resumption of intensive bombing and shelling of civilian
targets, the continued reliance on the cruel tactics of forced evacuation, the
destruction of hospitals, bombings of refugee camps and UN buildings that
sheltering many thousands of civilians and entire residential
neighborhoods, as well as greenlighting settler-led violence and escalating
ethnic cleansing efforts in the West Bank. Given these developments we
urge the national governments to embargo and halt all shipment of weapons
to Israel, especially the US and UK, withdraw their provocative naval
presences from the Eastern Mediterranean, and urge the UN Security
Council and General Assembly to so decree without any delay.
We also support the Palestinian unconditional right as the indigenous
people of the land to give or withhold approval to any proposed solution
bearing upon their underlying liberation struggle.
The deteriorating situation poses a humanitarian emergency challenging the
UN System to respond with unprecedented urgency. So moved, we call
particularly on UNICEF to help wounded children as well as children whose
parents were killed or seriously injured, on WHO to do all in its power to help
injured Palestinians, especially pregnant women and children, and to insist
as effectively as possible on the immediate reopening of hospitals destroyed
by Israeli attacks, and on UNRWA to continuing the sheltering of refugees in
Gaza displaced by the war and by providing other relief. Beyond this,
UNESCO should recognize threats to religious and cultural sites, and give
the highest priority to their protection against all manner of violation,
especially the Masjid al-Aqsa; Government of Israel should be reminded of
its unconditional legal accountability for protecting these sites.
We also propose that the UN Human Rights Council should act now to
establish a high-profile expert commission of inquiry mandated to ascertain
the facts and law arising from the Hamas attack and Israel’s military
operations in Gaza since October 7, 2023. The commission should offer
recommendations in its report pertaining to the responsibility and
accountability of principal perpetrators for those violations of human rights
norms that constitute war crimes and genocide.
We also view the desperation of the situation to engage the responsibility of
governments, international institutions, and civil society to act as well as to
speak, and exert maximum diplomatic and economic pressure to bring the
violence in Gaza to an end now!
To this end we the signatories of this Declaration unequivocally call for an
immediate ceasefire and the initiation of diplomatic negotiations under
respected and impartial auspices, aimed at bringing about a rapid end to
Israel's criminally abusive occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and East
Jerusalem. This process must uphold the inalienable Palestinian right to
self-determination in accordance to UN resolutions.
Richard Falk,
Professor of International Law
Emeritus,
Princeton University
Prof. Dr. Ahmet Davutoğlu,
Former Foreign Minister and
Prime Minister,
Turkiye
No comments:
Post a Comment