Collective punishment is a war crime under international humanitarian law as per Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. When Palestinians are punished in this way the international community is cautious enough to avoid the subject and focus instead on Israel’s &ldquosecurity&rdquo narrative and purported &ldquoright to defend itself&rdquo. As an occupying power it has no such right to claim self-defense against the people living under occupation.
Yesterday Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered a total blockade of Gaza. &ldquoThere will be no electricity no food no fuel everything is closed&rdquo Gallant asserted. &ldquoWe are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.&rdquo
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that he is &ldquodeeply distressed&rdquo about this. However the collective punishment of Palestinians plays into the UN’s humanitarian agenda which has been in place since the establishment of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in December 1949. Forcing Palestinians in Gaza into unprecedented levels of hunger and deprivation will only entrench their need for humanitarian aid. And when the international community talks about humanitarian aid and funding &mdash the effect of which is always negligible in comparison with Israel’s colonial violence &mdash the focus remains constantly misplaced: Israel’s security narrative must be defended and Palestinian humanitarian needs are a perpetual afterthought.
Moreover normalizing Israel’s security narrative also means normalizing the deprivation that Palestinians face as a result of colonial violence. Hence when Gallant announced the total blockade and called Palestinians &ldquohuman animals&rdquo there was no sense of shock within the international community at this dehumanization of the people of Palestine because the UN has long established its position as a willing accomplice in colonial violence either by aiding Israel actively staying silent or passing non-binding resolutions for future futile reference purposes.
In 2006 Dov Weisglas adviser to the then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert began normalizing the starvation of Palestinians in Gaza. A considerable deficit in daily calorie intake was planned as collective punishment to create a rift between Palestinians and Hamas which had just won the &ldquofree and fair&rdquo elections in occupied Palestine. His intention was &ldquoto put the Palestinians on a diet but not to make them die of hunger.&rdquo The subsequent 2007 blockade of Gaza served a similar purpose after Hamas had established itself as the government post-election. While Palestinians suffered intense hardships the international community ensured the promotion of Israel’s security narrative sustaining a discrepancy that prevails today. Palestinians are associated with humanitarian aid and the purported neutrality that donors insist upon. Meanwhile the politics of collective punishment and humanitarian aid are woven together seamlessly to support the UN’s major endeavor of ensuring that the application of human rights remains selective.
Guterres isn&rsquot &ldquodeeply distressed&rdquo or even remotely concerned about Gallant’s announcement. For the Israeli government to announce a complete siege on Gaza without the slightest international ripple let alone repercussions required the prior normalization of depriving Palestinians of their basic needs. That’s how Gallant got away with calling Palestinians &ldquohuman animals&rdquo. How does the UN view them? Their dehumanization began decades ago with the acceptance of Israel as a UN member state and its settler-colonial violence. With colonialism dictating what happens to Palestinians and the UN dancing to the settler-colonial tune the dehumanized humanitarian agenda is every bit as dangerous as Israel’s siege on the enclave. One bolsters the other while making sure that the Palestinians are trapped.
– Ramona Wadi is an independent researcher freelance journalist book reviewer and blogger. Her writing covers a range of themes in relation to Palestine Chile and Latin America. Her article appeared in MEMO.
