Podcast here: https://soundcloud.com/user-280580802/214-the-gaza-crisis-the-global-north-and-global-south
On January 26, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), an organ of the United Nations, ruled that Israel must not commit genocide in its military campaign in Gaza, where they intend to wipe out Hamas as a political and military organization. In the process, they have destroyed 70% of all the buildings in Gaza, and killed nearly 30,000 people, while wounding more than 60,000. Israel responds to the October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attack that resulted in 1,400 deaths and over 100 hostages from Israel. The Israelis claim that they have not committed and will not commit genocide, although leading Israeli officials have made salacious statements about cutting off food, fuel and medicine in Gaza, or realizing a new Nakba, the Arab word for “catastrophe”, i.e. the original expulsion of the Palestinians from their homeland with the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. The South Africans, who brought the case in front of the ICJ, promptly quoted these Israeli official statements in their lawsuit.
The positioning of the world’s countries in response to the ICJ ruling reveals the global political divide between the Global North and the Global South. The rich, powerful Northerners defend Israel and do not think that it can do anything wrong, while the poor Global South back Palestine in their quest for statehood and protecting their human rights.
Key: Blue countries oppose South Africa’s case, Green countries support South Africa’s case. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_v._Israel_(Genocide_Convention)
On the pro-South African side, Brazilian president Lula da Silva remarked that genocide must be stopped. Russia did not take a formal position on the case but was favorable to South Africa in its statements. The Ugandan judge Julia Sebutinde voted against the ICJ ruling, but the Ugandan government emphatically stated that Sebutinde’s views do not match the government’s.
On the pro-Israeli side, Austrian chancellor Karl Nehammer and Czech prime minister Petr Fiala claim that the ICJ is “politicized”, thereby delegitimating the ICJ. If the Arabs get killed, this should not be politicized, but Jews getting killed is an antisemitic tragedy. British Foreign Secretary David Cameron found the genocide case to be “nonsense”. He argued that Israel is “a democracy, a country with the rule of law, a country with armed forces that are committed to obeying the rule of law”. Therefore, a democracy can never violate the rule of law, similar to Britain and France toppling Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi during Cameron’s tenure as British prime minister. The Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said: “I would be a little bit uncomfortable about accusing Israel, a Jewish state, of genocide given the fact that six million Jews – over half the population of Jews in Europe – were killed.” In Varadkar’s logic, the past victim can never be a future perpetrator, even though this happens all the time: the most violent people tend to have a violent childhood with abusive parents. Hurt people hurt people.
The west is willfully turning a blind eye to Israel’s destructive and murderous ground offensive in Gaza in large parts because of the guilt they are carrying from centuries of European antisemitism. Pogroms, ghettoization and exiling of Jews throughout the centuries culminated in Arthur Balfour’s declaration handing Palestine to the Jews in 1920. It is noteworthy that this British politician who organized the British Mandate over Palestine was an antisemite, who wanted the British Jews to move to Palestine. The Nazi Holocaust was the straw that broke the camel’s back: the murder of 6 million Jews produced the impetus for the collective west, especially the United States, to support the creation of the State of Israel. As the Jews moved in especially from Europe, they were supplied by the American military and expelled the Arabs that have lived in Palestine for many years. The US has provided Israel with $260 billion in foreign and military aid from its founding until 2023. The US also blocked any sanctions for human rights violations by Israel. The Germans have financially underwritten Israel by paying 82 billion euros in reparations. Germany is extinguishing its guilt by financially compensating the Holocaust survivors. Guilt is a terrible principle of foreign policy: two wrongs do not make a right. Atoning for the Holocaust does not mean approving of Nakba.
Even as the Global North countries are unhappy about Israel’s heavy-handedness and appearing as hypocrites for being silent, they have another reason for backing Israel no matter what: the US believes that Israel is the major political ally in the region allowing the US to project its power in the Middle East region. The Americans have suspicions about Islamic groups in Middle East and North Africa, and they want to counterbalance the Iranians, who are supporting their proxies among the Hezbollah (in Lebanon and Iraq) and the Houthis (Yemen) among others. These militias are now attacking trading ships traversing the Red Sea, and the US retaliates with airstrikes against the militia bases. The outcome of these bombing raids is uncertain. Iran-backed militias, in turn, state that they will only stop these attacks if Israel stops its ground offensive in Gaza. The US is unwilling to do it even though it is the only power that could stop it, effectively by cutting off the military and financial aid to Israel.
In contrast, the Global South will back the Palestinians, especially the neighboring Arab and Muslim countries, although countries like UAE or Saudi Arabia would rather see the Palestinian issue go away, as they enjoy the intermediate position in the global economy, taking advantage of the western rule of law and trading system and keeping their business options open with China in the intensifying Cold War. For the Global South, the Palestinian plight, ranging from starvation, homelessness, death to statelessness, is reminiscent of the colonial oppression that many Global South countries have struggled to escape in the second half of the twentieth century. The Global North created the nation-state global order, and the Global South has to operate under the rules set by the Global North. South Africa might have the moral upper hand in the ICJ case but the Global North has the instruments to effect any changes on the ground.
The Global North promptly snubbed the ICJ ruling against Israel by eliminating UNRWA funding. UNRWA is the UN agency that was established in 1949 immediately after the Nakba with the task to provide education, medical care and shelter to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, West Bank and nearby countries with Palestinian refugee camps like Lebanon, Syria or Jordan. UNRWA has been funded by the Global North countries that have the most resources. It was a form of western atonement for supporting Israelis in expelling the Palestinians from their land. Over the years, Israel has accepted UNRWAs mission because it would provide the Palestinian people with welfare that the Israelis do not want to provide themselves.
But in recent years, Israel has voiced more and more suspicion against UNRWA for aiding Hamas, who carry out terrorist attacks and shoot missiles against Israel. In response to the ICJ lawsuit, Israel has countered that 12 UNRWA aid workers participated in the October 7 terrorist attack. UNRWA promptly fired these aid workers, but the US immediately agreed with Israel’s sentiment and suspended funding for the agency. The US is the largest contributor to UNRWA. The European allies (or vassals) immediately took the cue and cut UNRWA funding as well. UNRWA has already been hobbled in providing humanitarian relief in the midst of Israel’s Gaza campaign but now the humanitarian situation will be even worse with fewer resources to help the Palestinians. The Global North decided to snub the ICJ by condoning the Israeli perpetrators and defunding the Palestinian aid agency at a time of its greatest need!
Michael Fakhri, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, said on X that a day after the ICJ “concluded that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza, some states decided to defund UNRWA for the alleged actions of a small number of employees. This collectively punishes +2.2 million Palestinians.” Sadly, the ICJ is in no position to enforce its court order given that the UN is dominated by the five permanent members of the Security Council. Three permanent members (US, UK, France) are fully behind Israel.
While life for Palestinians is going to be catastrophic in the months and years ahead, Israel’s backing by the Global North and its impunity against the Palestinians does not mean that their path is sustainable. If full-scale genocide or expulsion are not feasible (the latter is blocked by neighboring Egypt and Jordan), the Israelis have no choice but to create a new governance model probably under the inclusion of the Palestinian Authority. The Israelis can attempt to rule over the Gazans directly, and they will surely control public security and the external borders as they are doing in the West Bank already. But how are the survivors of Israel’s genocidal campaign going to behave? Will they take it easy to be ruled over by Israeli authorities who brought them so much suffering?
In terms of domestic politics, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party support declined from 30% to less than 20%, which meant the decline of more than one third of his supporters. The poll leader is National Unity with more than 35% polling support. It is led by Benny Gantz, the former defense minister and currently a member of the war cabinet of Netanyahu. If an election were held today, it is hard to conceive of Netanyahu ever returning to the premiership.
He retained his popularity by promising a hardline approach of expanding Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and prior to the terrorist attack supporting Hamas as a political entity. The split between Hamas and Fatah would make it difficult to create a united front against Israel and thereby prevent a true two-state settlement. A genuine two-state settlement would abruptly end Netanyahu and other right-wingers vision for a unitary Israeli state covering the entire territory of historic Palestine. Netanyahu was also known as the law-and-order politician who would keep the Israelis safe from foreign harm, e.g. against Iran. But with the October 7 attack, that veneer of Israeli safety has been blown away, and the Israeli public make that clear by protesting against Netanyahu. The vision of a unitary Israeli state without regard for Palestinian interests has turned out to be an illusion. Israel retains control over the guns and the money, but all the resources in the world will not buy them peace but rather endless war and Palestinian hostility.
When it comes to upholding the international order, the west/ Global North is primarily interested in (1) one-sidedly atoning for its previous guilt (of antisemitism) at the expense of the Palestinians and (2) retaining US hegemonic dominance in the Middle East region by backing up its Israeli ally at all costs, even if it means the “sacrifice” of the Palestinian people, the loss of rule of law standards and the ill-will of the Global South that lacks the means to challenge the folly of the Global North.
Further readings:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNRWA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_v.Israel(Genocide_Convention)
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