Juveriah Alam says the International Court of Justice’s landmark anti-Israel ruling vindicates pro-Palestinians, destroys Israeli propaganda and heaps pressure on the UK to stop aiding and abetting Tel Aviv.
Zionists, through extensive media training, have for some time been the masters of getting across their message to the world. But ultimately winning a debate on television has no bearing on who is correct. Right and wrong is secondary – some people are just better at constructing a convincing argument.
And often through underhanded tactics, including all sorts of well-disguised logical fallacies, we have seen pro-Palestine advocates shouted down, shamed and ridiculed.
Even for the past nine months, when the Zionist argument has become impossible to defend, anti-Zionists have still found ourselves labelled extreme, intimidating and aggressive.
But the long campaign of gaslighting ends now. The damning ruling of The International Court of Justice on Friday vindicates every single pro-Palestine activist across the world.
The World Court ruled that Israel’s continued presence in occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful and should come to an end “as rapidly as possible.”
The judges pointed to a wide list of policies – including the building and expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, use of the area’s natural resources, the annexation and imposition of permanent control over lands and discriminatory policies against Palestinians – all of which it said violated international law.
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The court also said Israel has no right to sovereignty of the territories, is violating international laws against acquiring territory by force and is impeding Palestinians’ right to self-determination.
And it said other nations were obliged not to “render aid or assistance in maintaining” Israel’s presence in the territory.
Brave activists
This was all music to our ears. We have been protesting in our thousands and in our millions, through different means ranging from social media content, fine art, comedy, and, for some of the bravest amongst us, civil disobedience.
In May, when Zarah Sultana MP stood up and asked the then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak whether the UK is prepared to uphold international law regarding Israel and to end arms sales, Sunak simply replied with a sneer: “It’s always nice to see the changed Labour Party in action.”
That the Labour Party was required to “change” in the first place is the result of the nefarious practices of the Israel lobby here in Britain. A manufactured antisemitism scandal was all that was needed to take down Jeremy Corbyn and bring in a pro-Israel centrist – with some naive but well-meaning people joining in for fear of being labelled racist.
We’ve been told we’re far-left cranks, Islamists and terrorist-sympathisers for being impassioned about a genocide happening before our eyes. Yet the latest ICJ ruling has confirmed what we knew all along: that all this time, we have been right.
We were right that Israel’s long-term occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal. We were right that Palestinians are due reparations for this occupation. And most relevant, we were right that the UK should not be helping Israel maintain a presence in the territory.
That means anyone who called on Britain to suspend arms sales to Israel was on the right side. And, while Britain refused to do so, it could be argued that those members of Palestine Action who took matters into their own hands were absolutely acting in good faith.
Amongst us are simple folk who may not be able to interpret international law or deal with judgments of international courts, but we know inherently that carpet-bombing children is wrong and we’re willing to do all that is in our power to stop this injustice. It’s our moral conscience that makes us right.
Now our new Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who infamously stated that it can be “legally justified” for Israel to bomb refugee camps in Gaza and falsely claimed that Hamas raped babies, seeks praise for restoring funding to UNRWA – a funding that was halted on spurious evidence in the first place. He made this statement after visiting and shaking hands with wanted war criminal, Benjamin Netanyahu.
However in light of the ICJ ruling, Lammy will feel immense pressure to comment on our overall relationship with Israel and back away from his previous pro-Israel comments.
So far only a few brave Labour MPs have commented on the ICJ ruling calling for the UK government to take action and hold Israel accountable. These include Melanie Ward, Nadia Whittome and Apsana Begum.
Perhaps the rest of them are waiting for the right way to spin this ruling so as not to be accused of antisemitism by the pro-Israel lobbyists from whom many of them have received generous donations.
As we anticipate the official government response to the ICJ ruling, let us congratulate those new independent MPs who, barely a week after being elected, came together to demand that the government take decisive action against Israel.
Jeremy Corbyn, Adnan Hussain, Ayoub Khan, Iqbal Mohamed and Shockat Adam wrote a letter listing some crucial steps for the government to implement in order to bring about justice for the Palestinian people.
It is clear that, the ICJ ruling has effectively highlighted those amongst us who have a moral conscience and those who are severely lacking in it.
