By Oyewole Sarumi PhD

A bit of hindsight is needed here though. Palestinian territory – encompassing the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem – has been illegally occupied by Israel since 1967. Since then, the Israeli government has established a two-tier legal and political system that provides comprehensive rights for Jewish Israeli settlers while imposing military rule and control on Palestinians without any basic protections or rights under international law.

The Israeli government has also engaged in a regular practice of inhumane acts, as well as extra-judicial killings, torture, denial of fundamental human rights, arbitrary detention, and collective punishment of the Palestinians. This inhumanity to man being perpetrated by Israelis on the Palestinians led to the recent insurgence of the guerilla warfare tactics of Hamas.

An endless war

Methinks it is wrong to condemn only the actions of Palestinians without also condemning the actions of Israel towards Palestine over the years. Like Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi said recently on Arise, the Palestinians have been sinned against more than sinning. What we are hearing now from the Israeli Prime Minister is that he is going to wipe Hamas off the face of the earth in Gaza.” Is that statement from God? No!

Still quoting Prof. Akinyemi, he opined “Some of the people who are fighting on the side of Hamas today were not even born when this issue began. If Israel wipes out this generation of Palestinians in Gaza, another generation will come up unless Israel decides to wipe out the entire Palestinians from the earth, and they do not have the capability to do that. They will simply be creating a new generation of embittered people who will continue to fight. The United Nations that created Israel has to take responsibility for providing a programme for moving forward.”

What’s the way forward? The debate here is about occupation and not the existence of the Jews. The larger world and Palestinians have accepted the two-state solution, but Israel still wants to continue with occupation. No one wants the killings of innocent civilians be it Jews or Palestinians. The occupation must end and peace must prevail. A two-state solution is the answer – there must be compromises on both sides so that an enduring peace may ensue.

According to a March 2022 report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the OPT, Israel’s political system of entrenched rule in the OPT satisfies the prevailing evidentiary standard for the crime of apartheid. Discriminatory apartheid in the 21st-century world!

The CoI reached similar conclusions in September 2022, reporting that the Israeli government’s policies and actions have led to the permanent occupation and de facto annexation of Palestinian territory, likely constituting crimes under international law, including war crimes. The US always vetoed any resolution against Israel or for a two-nation state in the UN.