Norvergian Peacebuilding Resource Centre.
Executive Summary
Expert Analysis
Gaza and the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood
Henry Siegman, 21 August 2014
The slaughter of Palestinian civilians and the Dresden-like reduction to rubble of large parts of Gaza by Israel’s military forces in the name of its own citizens’ security has exposed the hypocrisy at the heart of Israel’s dealings with the Palestinians. Israel’s claim to the right of self-defense in order to prevent its victims’ emergence from under its occupation is the ultimate definition of chutzpa.
Without entering the debate over whether those rocket assaults were precipitated by Israel’s own violations of truces and cease-fire accords it negotiated with Hamas, as documented by various analysts (including Amira Hass, Peter Beinart, Nathan Thrall, Sara Roy and others), Israel’s claim to self-defense is based on a glaring falsehood.
An occupying power is under obligation in international law to do two things: to end the occupation, and until it does so, to protect the population under its occupation.
Israel is in blatant violation of both of these obligations. The security threats to its own citizens it invokes to justify its assaults which regularly result in the killing of far more Palestinian non-combatants than militants are triggered by its occupation. An occupied people told by its occupiers its subjugation is permanent, and that they will never be allowed to exercise the right to national self-determination and sovereign existence on territories recognized by the international community as their rightful patrimony, has every right to resort to resistance, including violent resistance, to achieve its freedom, for they are reacting to the violence that is keeping them illegally under occupation. It is a right exercised by the Jewish people when their own struggle for statehood was challenged.
Without entering the debate over whether those rocket assaults were precipitated by Israel’s own violations of truces and cease-fire accords it negotiated with Hamas, as documented by various analysts (including Amira Hass, Peter Beinart, Nathan Thrall, Sara Roy and others), Israel’s claim to self-defense is based on a glaring falsehood.
An occupying power is under obligation in international law to do two things: to end the occupation, and until it does so, to protect the population under its occupation.
Israel is in blatant violation of both of these obligations. The security threats to its own citizens it invokes to justify its assaults which regularly result in the killing of far more Palestinian non-combatants than militants are triggered by its occupation. An occupied people told by its occupiers its subjugation is permanent, and that they will never be allowed to exercise the right to national self-determination and sovereign existence on territories recognized by the international community as their rightful patrimony, has every right to resort to resistance, including violent resistance, to achieve its freedom, for they are reacting to the violence that is keeping them illegally under occupation. It is a right exercised by the Jewish people when their own struggle for statehood was challenged.
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