Mondoweiss
Palestine is the testbed for Trump's plan to tear up the rules-based
international order
Jonathan Cook on September 20, 2018
U.S. President Donald Trump making the announcement that his administration
is pulling out of the Iran Deal. (Screenshot: YouTube)
Washington's decision to intensify swingeing aid cuts to the Palestinians -
the latest targets include cancer patients and peace groups - reveals more
than a simple determination to strong-arm the Palestinian leadership to the
negotiating table.
Under cover of a supposed peace effort, or "deal of the century", the Trump
administration hopes to solve problems closer to home. It wants finally to
shake off the burden of international humanitarian law, and the potential
for war crimes trials, that have overshadowed US actions in Afghanistan,
Iraq, Libya and Syria - and may yet prove treacherous in dealings with Iran.
The Palestinians have been thrust into the centre of this battle for good
reason. They are the most troublesome legacy of a post-war, rules-based
international order that the US is now committed to sweeping away. Amputate
the Palestinian cause, an injustice festering for more than seven decades,
and America's hand will be freer elsewhere. Might will again be right.
An assault on the already fragile international order as it relates to the
Palestinians began in earnest last month. The US stopped all aid to UNRWA,
the United Nations refugee agency that helps more than five million
Palestinians languishing in camps across the Middle East.
The pressure sharpened last week when $25m in aid was blocked to hospitals
in East Jerusalem that provide a lifeline to Palestinians from Gaza and the
West Bank, whose health services have withered under a belligerent Israeli
occupation.
Then at the weekend, the US revealed it would no longer hand over $10m to
peace groups fostering ties between Israelis and Palestinians.
The only significant transfer the US still makes is $60m annually to the
Palestinian security services, which effectively enforce the occupation on
Israel's behalf. In short, that money benefits Israel, not the Palestinians.
At the same time, the Trump administration revoked the US visa of the
Palestinian ambassador to Washington, Husam Zomlot, shortly after shuttering
his diplomatic mission. The Palestinians have been cast fully out into the
cold.
Most observers wrongly assume that the screws are simply being tightened to
force the Palestinians to engage with Trump's peace plan, even though it is
nowhere in sight. Like an unwanted tin can, it has been kicked ever further
down the road over the past year. A reasonable presumption is that it will
never be unveiled. While the US keeps everyone distracted with empty talk,
Israel gets on with its unilateral solutions.
The world is watching, nonetheless. The Palestinian community of Khan Al
Ahmar, outside Jerusalem, appears to be days away from demolition. Israel
intends to ethnically cleanse its inhabitants to clear the way for more
illegal Jewish settlements in a key area that would eradicate any hope of a
Palestinian state.
Trump's recent punitive actions are designed to choke into submission the
Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, just as Israel once secretly put
Palestinians in Gaza on a starvation "diet" to make them more compliant.
Israel's long-standing collective punishment of Palestinians - constituting
a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention - has now been supplemented
by similar types of collective punishment by the US, against Palestinian
refugees and cancer patients.
Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and adviser, admitted as much at the
weekend. He told the New York Times that the cuts in aid were punishment for
the Palestinian leadership "vilifying the [US] administration".
In an apparent coded reference to international law, Kushner added that it
was time to change "false realities". However feeble international
institutions have proved, the Trump administration, like Israel, prefers to
be without them.
In particular, both detest the potential constraints imposed by the
International Criminal Court at The Hague, which is empowered to prosecute
war crimes. Although it was established only in 2002, it draws on a body of
international law and notions of human rights that date back to the
immediate period after the Second World War.
The crimes committed by Zionist leaders in establishing Israel on the ruins
of the Palestinians' homeland occurred in 1948, just as international law
was being born. The Palestinians were among the first, and are still the
most glaring, violation of that new rules-based global order.
Righting those historic wrongs is the biggest test of whether international
law will ever amount to more than jailing the odd African dictator.
That the Palestinian cause continues to loom large was underscored this
month by two challenges conducted in international forums.
Legislators from Israel's large Palestinian minority have appealed to the
United Nations to sanction Israel for recently passing the apartheid-like
Nation-State Basic Law. It gives constitutional standing to
institutionalised discrimination against the fifth of the population who are
not Jewish.
And the Palestinian Authority has alerted the Hague court to the imminent
destruction by Israel of Khan Al Ahmar. The ICC is already examining whether
to bring a case against Israel over the settlements built on occupied land.
The US State Department has said the aid cuts and closure of the Palestinian
embassy were prompted partly by "concerns" over the Hague referral. John
Bolton, Trump's national security adviser, meanwhile, has vowed to shield
Israel from any war crimes trials.
Sitting on the fence have been the Europeans. Last week the European
parliament passed a resolution warning that Khan Al Ahmar's destruction and
the "forcible transfer" of its inhabitants would be a "grave breach" of
international law. In an unusual move, it also threatened to demand
compensation from Israel for any damage to infrastructure in Khan Al Ahmar
funded by Europe.
Europe's leading states anxiously wish to uphold the semblance of an
international order they believe has prevented their region's descent into a
Third World War. Israel and the US, on the other hand, are determined to use
Palestine as the testbed for dismantling these protections.
The Israeli bulldozers sent to Khan Al Ahmar will also launch an assault on
Europe and its resolve to defend international law and the Palestinians.
When push comes to shove, will Europe's nerve hold?
A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.