‘International Law’, Colonisation, Oppression, Resistance

Still from The Battle of Algiers - British Film Institute

“Everything that is happening now in Israel-Palestine is taking place within the context of colonisation, occupation and apartheid, which according to international law, are illegal. Israel is a colonising power and the Palestinians are the colonised indigenous population. Any reference to international law that does not recall these circumstances is a distortion of the story.

The context of colonisation and occupation was brushed to the side with the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, which was presented to the international agreement as a ‘peace agreement’ that put an end to the ‘Palestinian-Israeli conflict’. It, of course, did no such thing.

The focus on the humanitarian element perpetuates aid dependency and sidelines demands for accountability and reparations.

The laws of war were put together during colonial times to regulate the use of force between sovereign states. The colonies were obviously not considered sovereign equals, and the laws were designed to maintain domination over the indigenous peoples, territories and resources.

These laws do not account for asymmetry in power between parties to a conflict. They do not respond to the technological changes in warfare. They are not designed to account for economic and political interests shaping war. Over the last 75 years, significant efforts have been made to challenge these shortcomings, but states of the Global North systematically undermined them.”

—Dr Shahd Hammouri, a Lecturer in International Law at the University of Kent

But the law is like a spider’s web, the weak get caught in it, the powerful sweeps it away.

“If the U.S. says “please use small bombs,” and then hands Israel extremely large bombs, Israel will quite reasonably assume that the U.S. does not actually care whether Israel uses small bombs. In fact, the U.S. must want Israel to use 2,000 pound bombs, because presumably it gives them weapons it intends to have them actually use.

Let’s just make sure this is spelled out as clearly and logically as possible: Israel is dropping giant bombs on Gaza. Those bombs inevitably cause huge civilian casualties. The U.S. says it wants fewer casualties. Yet the U.S. gives Israel the bombs that inevitably produce the opposite result. My conclusion from this is that the U.S. does not mean what it says.”

—Nathan J. Robinson

“The truth bears repeating: many Palestinians realise that the Israeli regime responds only to the language of violence and force. So long as Palestinians live under a constant state of oppression and provocation, armed resistance will remain inevitable.”

—Tariq Kenney-Shawa

The resilience of the Palestinians, tenacious, irrepressible, stubborn always amazes the occupiers and appears shocking in the eyes of many Westerners. As at the time of the first Intifada in 1987, or the second in 2000, at the time of the armed actions on the West Bank or the mobilisation in favour of Jerusalem or the clashes around Gaza, under siege since 2007 and which has suffered six wars in 17 years (400 dead in 2006, 300 in 2008–2009, 160 in 2012, 2,100 in 2014, nearly 300 in 2021 and several dozen in the spring of 2023). The Israeli rulers accuse their enemies of ‘barbarity’, of disrespect for human life, in a word, of ‘terrorism.’

The accusation allows the accusers to wrap themselves in the cloak of righteousness and a clear conscience, camouflaging the apartheid system of an unbelievable brutality which oppresses the Palestinians every single day of their lives.

Let me remind readers once again that many terrorist organisations, pilloried as such in the course of recent history, have ceased to be pariahs and become legitimate interlocutors. The Irish Republican Army (IRA), the Algerian National Liberation Front, the African National Congress (ANC) and many others have been by turns described as ‘terrorists’, a word which serves to depoliticise their struggle, to present it as a confrontation between Good and Evil.

In the end the power structures had to negotiate with them. In 1967, following the Israeli aggression, General de Gaulle spoke these premonitory words: ‘Now Israel is organising, on the territories it has conquered, an occupation which will necessarily involve oppression, repression, and expulsions. If they encounter any resistance, they will call it terrorism…”

—Alain Gresh

The Battle of Algiers. In the film, there is a dramatic moment when Colonel Mathieu, a thin disguise for the real-life General Massu, leads the captured FLN leader Larbi Ben M’Hidi into a press conference at which a journalist questions the morality of hiding bombs in women’s shopping baskets. “Don’t you think it is a bit cowardly to use women’s baskets and handbags to carry explosive devices that kill so many people?” The reporter asks. Ben M’hidi replies: “And doesn’t it seem to you even more cowardly to drop napalm bombs on defenseless villages, so that there are a thousand times more innocent victims? Give us your bombers, and you can have our baskets.”

Denouncing and singling out the violence of the oppressed and colonized is not just immoral, but racist. Colonized people have the right to resist with any means necessary, especially when all political and peaceful avenues have been stymied or obstructed. Over the past 75 years, every Palestinian attempt to negotiate a peace deal has been rebuffed and undermined. Every non-violent means has been blocked, including the “March of Return” endorsed by Hamas in 2018 (savagely repressed, with more than 200 people killed and tens of thousands wounded and maimed) as well as the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which has been made illegal in several Western countries under pressure from the Zionist lobby.

Amid a barbaric, colonial occupation, and Apartheid conditions, it would be fitting for any talk about justice and accountability for violence against civilians to start with the oppressor. As Fanon’s rationality of revolt and rebellion puts it, the oppressed revolt because they simply can’t breathe.

Choosing to focus on denouncing Palestinian violence is akin to asking them to passively accept their fate—to die quietly and not resist. Instead, let us focus on an immediate ceasefire, halting the unfolding second Nakba, and ending the siege and the Occupation, while showing our solidarity with Palestinians in their struggle for freedom, justice, and self-determination.

—Hamaz Hamouchene, author and activist

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