Break up or get dissolved
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Israel is a country that came into being through a United Nations (UN) resolution. It is also the cuntry that has defied most UN resolutions. Over the past one year, Israel has been openly committing war crimes, human rights violations, crimes against humanity, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide, all challenging all international bodies. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) have begun proceedings against Israel. Evidence of genocide prepared by South African legal experts was presented at the ICJ headquarters in The Hague last week. Many countries, including those on Israel's side, have been calling on Israel to stop the destruction and pave the way for relief to the distressed areas.
In the eyes of Israel, which continues to violate the law by challenging the whole world, the enemy is not only Hamas, Palestine or Iran, but the world itself and their actions are proof of that. The UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese had already submitted hints about the Israeli genocide last March. Their detailed report, submitted this October, conclusively established that Israel's actions constitute genocide under international law. Francesca has comprehensively explained using legal terms and with incontrovertible evidence, Israel's intent to commit genocide, the background of many decades of occupation and racial extermination, and Israel's goal to colonize all Palestinian land. Neither international law nor humanitarian morality justifies Israeli actions. The evidence provided by South Africa at the ICJ and by the Special Rapporteur at the UN Human Rights Council is voluminous and shocking.
But nothing seems to be enough to deter Israel, and now it is up to the UN and the nations of the world to act. As Francesca Albanese points out, the UN Charter has a solution to this situation. It means expelling the law-defying country from the UN. Article VI of Chapter II ('Membership') of the UN Constitution clearly states that the General Assembly may expel a member state on the recommendation of the Security Council for persistent violations of the principles of the UN Charter. Thus the law is clear. The conditions for its implementation are also precise. But two obstacles are pointed out in this regard. One, since the General Assembly has to adopt steps to expel a country based on the recommendation of the Security Council, the bias of the members of the Security Council becomes a problem. Some nations, including the US, more than being pro-Israel also serve as Israel's ministries abroad. Strong and effective diplomatic-trade-economic pressure needs to be built against their practice of supporting Israel despite its obvious crimes. For this, the UN and the vast majority of the world's nation that recognize Palestine should step in with an active role.
A second argument against expulsion is that Israel is not alone in violating UN resolutions, argument that is legally weak. Moreover, there are sufficient reasons to view Israel's transgressions in particular. No other country has violated even a tenth of the UN resolutions violated by Israel. Therefore, it is the only country that has "persistently" violated the exclusion clause (Article 6 of the UN Charter). And the violations of no other country are as grave as that of Israel. And no other country has ever directly attacked the UN either. This year alone, Israel carried out numerous armed attacks against UN buildings and institutions. 70 percent of UNRWA's centres, including offices, clinics and food distribution centres were attacked. Israel has killed more than 230 UN staff in Gaza alone. U.N. peacekeepers were attacked in Lebanon. Disparaging campaigns against UN officials were also carried out. Even the Secretary General was insulted and banned from Israel. And it scolded the General Assembly. The Knesset (Israeli Parliament) has passed a resolution recognizing 'UNRWA' as a terrorist organization.
Meanwhile, violations of UN resolutions continue. And it continues and expands its presence in Palestinian territories declared as under occupation by UN and ICJ. And what emboldens Israel - which has defied more than 100 resolutions of the General Assembly, the Security Council and the Human Rights Council - is the notion that no matter what it does, nothing will happen. This is the country that killed a UN mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte, for announcing the Palestinians' right of return, and later made the man who ordered the killing its prime minister. If the UN is incapable of expelling a rogue state that continues to violate international humanitarian law, human rights laws, the Apartheid Convention and UN resolutions, then the UN would do well to dissolve itself.