Munching on Palestine

Geopolitical disputes in the land of milk and honey

Oct 24, 2023

[Image by Mr. Fish from “NEVER AGAIN (The Sequel)” for ScheerPost.]

Published: 2023-10-25

Playing on Guilt for a Nation State

The continuing State of Israel-Palestinian People shitshow prompted a little investigation, a delve into history and power distribution. What privileges are granted peoples by states or states institutions? Or the other way, what power have people ceded to states and their institutions? What mechanisms exist to enforce obligations on states by peoples or other states? What is a state anyway and when did the concept originate?

When to start the clock? The U.N ratified a 1947 report issued by a sub-body which recommended the partition of the British administered 'mandate' of Palestine into two states, those of Israel and Palestine.

The indigenous people of Palestine and neighbouring states resisted this 1947 proposal. The Zionist settlers with support from the US and others self-declared independence in 1948 pre-empting the U.N. adopted proposal. This is the historically proximate cause of the latest murderous episode in the conflict. Usurped, half-implemented proposal has to be the greatest U.N. fuck up of all time. The U.N. is still atoning for it, as evidenced by their 75th anniversary wake. As a quick aside, if people get ansy with you about using the term Zionist, inform them that this is the term which the political group chose for themselves and is accepted usage in English historical texts. See the Britannica entries on Zionism and Palestine in sources, or the above 1947 U.N. document.

The problem, from a Palestinian perspective does not begin in 1947 or '48. One can rewind the clock to the U.N.'s pre-cursor, the League of Nations. This nascent effort at an international governing body had facilitated the gifting of Palestine as a mandate to the UK from the Ottoman Empire following it's defeat as an ally of Germany in WWI. There is quite a case to be made that WWI was a war created by Britain to prevent the rise of Germany as a colonial power. The point is that the Palestinian people and the land on which they have lived have been a plaything of both versions of an organisation the purpose of which is to administer the behaviour of nations. Interestingly, there has never been an organisation to administer empires. This is impossible, of course, for there is no legal basis for 'empire' even though it is a thoroughly accepted term.

This raises the question of 'nation'. The most commonly cited legal precedent for the concept of a body which governs a fixed area is the 1648 Treaties or Peace of Westphalia. These peace treaties between two regions of modern Germany created the concept of 'territorial sovereignty' which is fundamental to the idea of a nation state and is routinely rolled out by every nation whenever the issue of 'territorial integrity' is raised at the U.N. The treaties or the "peace" also ended a war.

War over Religion and Land or Culture and Land?

When people begin to ramble on about how Islam is a violent religion and imply that life would be better if these Muslim terrorists just accepted the rule of the Jewish Zionists, one may wish to visit the causes of the 30 Years War which the Peace of Westphalia ended. It was another religious war involving a type of settler colonialism, but within Europe. The Protestants were expanding beyond the boundaries which the 1555 Peace of Augsburg had established. Wars between peoples of the Catholic and Protestants churches of Christianity in Europe have killed many tens of millions of people, with the most recent being that in northern Ireland which was settled in 1998, most appropriately on an Easter Friday with the Good Friday Agreement. As an aside, the Good Friday Agreement is two agreements. Why was it important to singularize the name? Secondly, Wikipedia describes 'The Troubles' as an ethno-nationalist conflict with which I strongly disagree. The conflict was not over ethnicity but land and culture, a far more constant historical topic. The U.N.'s role is to supposedly to minimize the likelihood of international conflict by encouraging dialogue and compromise.

Conflicts are over land and something. Religion may have been the 'something' once. Is it not more insightful to generalize that to 'cultural identity'? This is the view 'on the ground'. From the Chessboard view of geopolitics or empire it is the resources or resource flows which the land provides which are the prize.

Independence and Territorial Integrity

WWII was a manifestation, combined with capitalist support for a particularly nasty racial supremacist ideology, of the failure of the settlement of WWI. The founding of the U.N. is, perhaps, a form of atonement for this horrific two part war, the first of which was termed the "Great War" and the "War to End All Wars".

Embedded in the principles of the U.N. are (at least) two conflicting ideas, those of the Westphalian territorial integrity of a nation state and the concept that a people can reject a nation state and declare their independence. A not often stated consequence of this is that either a people form of a new state or join an existing state. Both remove territory from some existing nation state(s) to be contained in/administered by the new or other existing state. Land and people are moved between administrations. This ideological contradiction has been on repeated display, not only with the partition of the Mandate of Palestine, but also the creation of Kosovo, the repression of the movement for Catalonian independence, the continued disapproval by "the west" of the choice by the people of Crimea to join the Russian Federation, the formation of the nation of East Timor, and the declarations of independence by the peoples of the Lugansk and Donetsk oblasts of Ukraine to escape the terror of a Ukrainian government controlled by Nazis, to name a few. It is worth noting that the univerally U.N. Security Council approved Minsk II accords for the retention of the Ukrainian oblasts within the state of Ukraine was supported by the Russian Federation (which is obvious because as a member of the council the vote’s unanimity requires this). The beligerents which started this conflict and continued it to breaking point were repeated governments of Ukraine under the direction of NATO leader the USoA.

During the period of reflection post-WWII a collection of important international agreements were reached. Those of the Geneva Conventions continued work begun in the inter-war period in 1929 to create international humanitarian law for the treatment of victims of war, both international and non-international. These would be obligations on the nation states which signed the conventions if a mechanism existed to enforce them. The only such mechanism is public opinion, or the International Court of Justice (ICJ) aka the "World Court". Public opinion is heavily influenced by the media. The ICJ is one of the 6 arms of the U.N. and was established with it.

Do not confuse the ICJ with the International Criminal Court (ICC, established in 2002). The ICJ is for the resolution of disputes between states or the issuance of opinion on matters of international law. The ICC is a failed body used dominantly by "western" states to prosecute people who they dont like while these states remain outside of its jurisdiction. Of the 5 permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, arguably its most powerful instrument, only 1 of the permanent members (which possess the veto power) is under the jurisdiction of the ICC, France. All of the others, the UK, US, China and Russia, have refused to be legally bound by its judgments. The wonderful US Congress even passed a Bill, the "Hague Invasion Act", which essentially demands a full scale invasion if the ICC attempts to imprison any US citizen. Technically, it is for "any U.S. or allied personnel" which has empire written all over it. So, the US has put up a sign saying "we'll come in all guns blazing" if you imprison us or anyone we consider an ally" while their media happily talk about a Russia Federation President being wanted by the ICC. This is a classic use of media to influence public opinion as those media remain mum about the inherent hypocrisy of the protestations of the politicians which they are 'dutifully' reporting.

With regard to the Israel-Palestine disputes the ICJ has heard one relevant case, number 131. Before we dive into that, recall that the 1947 proposal was for a partition. It envisages two states. Israel declared its and terrorized the Palestinian people. Israel has since exerted all efforts to prevent the Palestinian people from declaring theirs.

Following considerations of the validity of its jurisdiction the ICJ issued a 2004 advisory international legal opinion in response to a request from the General Assembly as to the legality of Israel's construction of the internal walls it was building in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. The courts opinion declares that this wall building is a bad thing, breaking a whole raft of international laws. And that, as they say, is all she wrote. The Fuck-You walls are built in the West Bank part of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The Fuck-You walls built around Gaza or the genocidal abuse handed to the Palestinian refugees contained within them are topics yet to be raised at the ICJ. It will be interesting to see if a) any states are interested in engaging the ICJ on these topics and b) how many judges will recuse themselves should a) occur.

I don't make the above suggestion b) lightly. Recall that José Bustani, Director-General of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, provided statements to Aaron Maté on the Pushback program in which Bustani details threats against his children received from John "Walrus" Bolton. These geopolitical players have no qualms in threatening officers of the U.N. Why should Judges consider themselves exempt?

Re-purposing the U.N.

The new geopolitical power block of BRICS+/SCO lead by China and Russia are speaking of 'cultural nations' and respect among cultures. This is an interesting twist on the nation vs people tension encoded in the U.N. Charter and it does acknowledge that cultural differences are a part, with land, of potential international conflict.

The concept is of cultures respecting each other. Cultures may exist across national boundaries or be largely contained within them. China has 56 different ethnic groups. It is largely dominated by the Han Chinese. In the BRICS view, China's challenges of managing a social or cultural cohesion which knits the different ethnicities together is China's problem and no one else's. Similarly for Russia, India, Brazil, South Africa and every other nation. They are all aware of the standard destabilization efforts run by the existing empire against them individually through exacerbating ethnic tensions to damage the national cultural fabric. Their mission has been to generate sufficient financial and political leverage to escape the domination of the white, christian European/North American colonial block who have been using this tactic. The BRICS+ rhetoric points to engaging with international law and a revival of the U.N. as an institution, with some changes.

A suggestion is for a greater inclusion of African nations. Another is to expand membership of the Security Council. These may be combined. Given the economic power of the block (BRICS is greater than the G7 in Purchasing Power Parity and growing) and their increasing political power after the expansion to include 6 new states, they may wish to engage the ICJ on various topics of international law.

Of course, the first thing to do is get past the current insane risks of starting WWIII because of conflicts in both Israel/Palestine and Ukraine. The hegemon's position is to prevent resolution of these conflicts by never encouraging dialogue or ceasefires and also supplying weaponry to one side. This is nothing new. It is Standard Operating Procedure for the neo-Imperial Hegemon.

If avoiding WWIII is managed it will be interesting to see how the new block chooses to employ the instruments of the U.N. Which inherent contradictions baked into the U.N. Charter will they be interested in exploring? Russia used Article 51 to justify its SMO in Ukraine. This was a valid approach for the Lugansk and Donetsk oblasts. This appears far less legally valid for Zaporozhye and Kherson. To what degree is this 'empire building' when the remaining local population have been terrorized for close to a decade by their national military and chose to join Russia?

This brings us to an aspect of the Israel-Palestinian People conflict which nobody seems to think about. What if the Palestinian people in northern Israel, the Golan Heights which Israel stole during the 1967 war, declare independence from Israel and choose to join Syria? Or perhaps, some want to join Syria and others Lebanon. Or the Palestinians in Gaza do the same and choose to join Egypt, and the Palestinians in the West Bank follow suit and choose to join Jordan and demand contiguous access to East Jerusalem in the process? Could Israel's consumption of Palestine, its decades of slow munching be reversed and Israel's neighbours start eating Palestine away from Israel? It would be very interesting to see how the Zionists would respond to this.

The primary reason that this has been avoided by the Zionist entity's neighbours is because this is seen as giving Israel legitimacy. Given the current situation of the emergence of BRICS+ and the waning of a dangerous US Imperium, could it not be that new SCO/BRICS members/dialogue partners Iran/Syria/Saudi Arabia/Egypt come to an understanding? A series of waves of successions could be facilitated. The Palestinian people have every right to reject the Israelis in just the same way as the Russian ethnic peoples of Donetsk and Lugansk did for Ukraine.

This is just one of many interesting ideas which could become possible in a 'multipolar' world. If this were done and economic prosperity brought to the region as China's BRI project straddles it, while Israel is forced to deal with the consequences of its actions and if the Arab nations show some cohesion under BRICS leadership, would this not be a better outcome?

There are, of course, serious attendant risks, even beyond provoking a dying hegemon. The US is losing control of oil flows and thus its ability to use those as a financial cudgel. If they fall to BRICS they could also do the same. If the planet decides to shift into other distributed energy solutions the threat is removed once the associated infrastructure is built. But, that just shifts the control to the resources for constructing that infrastructure, like the coming geopolitical fight over Lithium.

We are living in fascinating geopolitical times.

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Sources

Zionism, Britannica

UNITED NATIONS SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON PALESTINE, REPORT TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY, VOLUME 1, U.N. 1947

UN marks 75 years since displacement of 700,000 Palestinians, UN News, U.N., 2023-05-15

The WWI Conspiracy, James Corbett, The Corbett Report, 2018-11-19

Palestine: World War I and after, Britannica

Peace of Westphalia, Wikipedia

Thirty Years War, Wikipedia

Treaty of Versailles, Wikipedia

Geneva Conventions, Wikipedia

VIENNA CONVENTION ON DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS, United Nations, 1961

The Role of the International Criminal Court, Claire Klobucista and Mariel Ferragamo, Council on Foreign Relations, 2022-03-15 (first substantive image by archive.org) and last updated 2023-08-24 (says CoFR)

Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, International Court of Justice, U.N., 2003-12-03 (the date of the request by the General Assembly to the court) to 2004-07-09 (the date of the court's the summary of its advisory opinion)

Ex-OPCW chief defends Syria whistleblowers and reveals he was spied on before Iraq war, Aaron Mate, The Grayzone, 2020-10-18