It may be time to reconsider the use of such words as “humanitarian” and “humanitarianism”. There has been little of that sort evidenced in the Israel-Hamas War, marked by industrial-mechanised atrocities, enforced deprivation and starvation, orders to evacuate (read expulsion and banishment), preceded by massacres most haunting and visceral. Its constant evocation by various sides of the conflict have given it a diminishing quality, leaving international relations stirring with cant.
Mind you, the term humanitarian had already been pipped and emptied of any solid meaning in the aftermath of the Cold War. Humanitarian intervention became a vicious, evangelised concept, enchanting such figures as the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair with its near biblical promise of saving souls and punishing the wicked in NATO’s Kosovo War. “I saw it as essentially a moral issue,” he claimed in his memoirs. He would also go on to claim that war was “never civilised” but could be “necessary to uphold civilisation.”
In justifying the use of heavy weaponry under the cover of humanitarianism, civilian populations could be attacked, ostensibly to prevent a manic despot or genocidal tyrant from imposing his will. It was used repeatedly in the wars connected with the breakup of Yugoslavia, but it made a boisterous, full-throated showing in NATO’s 1999 bombing campaign, when jets became priests administering death to the unwashed and unbelieving.
The use of sinisterly named “smart bombs” and select targeting became the expressions of a war waged in order to protect a select ethnic group (in this case, the Kosovar Albanians) despite the crude destruction of Serbian critical infrastructure, the crippling of the economy, and the killing of journalists who, for the most part, did not necessarily agree with the government of the day. Along the way, it also meant that NATO could provide exculpatory cover for the violence of the Kosovo Liberation Army against those pedestal-placed nasty Serbs who had fallen behind the very train of history that had venerated them in 1914 and 1941. That’s humanitarianism for you.
Little wonder, then, that the right of a state to intervene in the affairs of another citing humanitarian grounds was turned on its head by that cunning, monstrous conceit we now know as the Responsibility to Protect. Its dumpling, soft character was outlined by the Canadian-sponsored International Commission on Intervention and State Responsibility co-chaired by former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans and Algerian diplomat Mohamed Sahnoun.
The commission kneaded the brutal, self-interested formula of force into a saccharine, floury mix that could be sold to bleeding hearts and stony neoconservatives. “The Commission is of the view that the debate about intervention for human protection purposes should focus not on ‘the right to intervene’ but on the ‘responsibility to protect’.” Politicians, smelling votes and a place in posterity, could feel good about killing again.
R2P, as it came to be known by the technically minded and those sweetly watered by the conference set, has had an abysmal record. A good argument can be made that it needs urgent retirement, if not calm, steady euthanising. It was tried, and failed, with disastrous results in the Libyan intervention of 2011 that did, at least initially, have Security Council approval. Those applying force to protect a select, carved out number of civilians from the ghoulish, eccentric Colonel Muammar Qaddafi (the US, France, the UK) eventually decided that regime change – the very thing injuncted against in such interventions – might not be such a bad idea after all. It was.
The Israel-Hamas War is already heralding the demise of such doctrines. The gloves are off; the weapons are being applied generously; the civilians are dying with sanguinary promptness. Hair-splitters ponder whether human shredded remains can fall within, or without the laws of war. Dead babies rarely have much of a say at the roundtables of international law, but the Israeli Defence Force never shies away from a chance in pretending to believe that they do, especially when they are Israeli.
In such a situation, other weasel-words have made their way into regular usage, keeping company with the stretchy concepts of “terrorism” and the like. The latest is the idea of a “humanitarian pause,” a truly cynical howler that is Washington’s preference to an actual ceasefire that would suspend hostilities. One could only draw the conclusion that humanity’s existence is viciousness stalled by such pauses.
A ceasefire was certainly the preference of the majority who voted for it in the UN General Assembly on October 27. Resolution A/ES-10/L.25 titled “Protection of civilians and upholding legal and humanitarian obligations” is also part of the General Assembly’s demand for what it terms a “humanitarian truce”. From those who voted, 120 were in favour, 14 against, with 45 abstentions.
Israel’s representative, Gilad Menashe Erdan, heatedly denounced the UN as no longer having “even one ounce of legitimacy or relevance”. The US representative, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, expressed exasperation that Hamas and hostages had been omitted from the resolution. “It is outrageous that this resolution fails to name the perpetrators of the 7 October terrorist attack.” These were “omissions of evil.”
Perhaps the most interesting observation and view in this volcanic splurge and splutter came from Pakistan’s representative, who called the resolution a “humanitarian” (that word again) text. Attempts made by Canada to return the focus to Hamas as the cause of the whole bloody affair ignored the issue of Israel’s historical role and its occupation of Palestinian territory. “Name both or name either.”
For Israel’s backers, an actual cessation of hostilities is frowned upon because it, according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, would simply allow Hamas to regroup. This is a view pushed along by a number of Israel’s standard bearers. It shows that the Palestinian cause is a dead feature, a deletion in the debate. The result: massacre unrestrained.
Having decided that Hamas must be destroyed, rather than treated as a protean, ineradicable presence that alters in the face of a vicious policy that refuses to acknowledge Palestinian ills (that policy being territorial, ethnonationalist, religious, and historical), Blinken can then pretend the Biden administration cares about the slaughter of innocents and the mass expulsion of a population.
To make a distinction between combatant and non-combatant, the molten fired freedom fighter and the mindful parent, is one of those fictional games that entertains the classroom of undergraduate fantasy but proves impossible to apply in battle. The agenda here is unmistakable: Israel, with the assistance and encouragement of the United States, is intent on burying any toothy, sprightly, worthy Palestinian resistance for the next generation. Should they succeed, they will only do so for a few years, if that.
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Have you noticed that during the past 75 years, the Zionists are always described as ”the victims” and never described as ”the oppressors”? Really this continued reliance on Germany government policies between 1933 and 1945 is disingenuous, given the current Zionist Israeli government policies of Palestinian genocide to make space & land available for future Zionist colonial settlers.
Indeed, Netanyahu has now joined the ranks of historical monsters:
Mustafa Attaturk, the Armenian Genocide of 1916,
Joseph Stalin, the Ukrainian genocide in 1930s;
Adolf et al and the Holocaust 1933 -1945.
Now is it politically correct to include:
Nixon US president during the destruction of Laos, Cambodia & Vietnam 1961 – 1975;
Shrubya Bush & the WMD (Words of Mass Deception) in Iraq & Afghanistan and
his little good mate, the self-serving Johnnie Howard (2001 – 2020(?)?
Genocide sponsored by any state or inflicted by any military force is totally unacceptable!!
Well said, New England Cocky.
Zionists terrorists have not only fraudulently and inhumanely stolen Palestinian land but Zionists terrorists have callously and cynically stolen the Jewish religion.
Zionism is a far right extreamist UK/US radical political movement made up of fanatical evangelical
zealots.
Netanyahu and his Zionists have, for all the world to witness, totally trashed the US’s holy grails of “International Rules Based Order”, “Human Rights” and “that all are created equal, with unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.
God damn that is so powerful.
Per the accompanying photo to this essay, one wonders, futilely and on the edge of fantasy, what may have been going through the minds of these two men as they clutched each other and gazed soulfully into each other’s eyes.
Could they have been sharing the same thoughts?
Something along the lines of ‘I’m looking into the the face of evil, and it is me?’ … or in Bibi the Butcher’s case, ‘ראיתי את פני הרשע, וזהאני מתבונן בפניו של הרוע, וזה אני’.
Nah… asking too much here. More likely, ‘Brother, we’re with you all the way. Muzzies are terrrrists and the sooner we rid ’em the better.’
And the subtext?
Blinken: ‘Thanks for the grand evening last night, the food & wine were sumptuous, as was the young lady who accompanied me back to the hotel.’
Bibi the Butcher: ‘Thanks for the 10,000,000 USD in unmarked bills, it’ll help tremendously, and really appreciate that box of Macallan Select Reserve Single Malt Scotch… how’d he know it’s my favourite?’
Ever since the theft of Arab land and the grant to a European religious sect, there has been trouble.
Not difficult to predict but getting worse as time goes by.
And the (western) world ignored it. Its racism, but we excused ourselves
Does anyone think that we are going to fare any better with climate change?
@ Canguro: Looking into the eyes …..
Blinken: Our colleagues in the NE military industrial complex asked me to guarantee your next orders for missiles & other military equipment.
Netanyahu: We have only killed over 10,000 mainly Palestinian women & children so there is a major opportunity to increase your military aid to Israel to guarantee access to our oil reserves ….. and better profits to your military industrial complex.
As a child, I was bombed, by the nazis, and it left its mark.
At the time my father was overseas doing something about Germanys right to exist.
In 2023, children in Gaza are being bombed, and this “civilised” country does not question the killers “Right to exist”.
How can we continue to refer to ourselves as civilised?
Zionazis! https://pazzoredento.wordpress.com/2023/11/08/genocidal-zionism/
Israel’s stance smacks very much of “they started it!”
As a Rabbi, I recently saw on a video, speaking to Muslims in the US said, it is true that god promised this land to Israel but to believe that, you have to be a religious person. A believer in the God of Judaism.
Has anyone watched Tantura? Alon Schwartz directs a documentary showing the massacre of villagers in the coastal town of Tantura in northern occupied Israel. The IDF dug a trench and buried the innocent civilians under what now serves as a parking lot for the nearby beach where they once fished and thrived. Many ageing IDF veterans recount the experience admitting, like in Breaking The Silence, that sure they killed people but they don’t like to talk about it. “What am I going to tell my wife I am a murderer?” Asks one between his laughter. What HAMAS did is unacceptable but completely understandable.
Watch how Nettanyahu twists a “cease-fire” into a “humanitarian pause” and a “humanitarian pause” into “until all hostages are released” and “until all hostages are released” into “until all of HAMAS is defeated” and “until all of HAMAS is defeated” into “when all HAMAS infrastructure is destroyed” and so on carefully avoiding his long term aim the “G” word and the permanent “cleansing” of the land god gave him.
How sad it is to have to revise, reconsider, change, alter, reassess, after years of balanced and civil consideration. But, religion, that deep murderous uncivilised superstitious plague, has become too foul for a modern civilised world, with deep fanaticism and intolerant stupidity raging. Old scribble in old books feed these slaughterminded seduced simple souls, some of them undoubtedly highly trained and experienced professionals. BUT, a world of fanatical slaughter, theft, humiliation is NOT honest, fair or legal, and all of the ratbag raving myth and fraud types KNOW that all the OTHERS, i e, the enemy, the unbelievers, the savages, are wrong, and that is because they are all wrong. Law breaking fanatics must have no rights, no selfish claims…so let us hope and try negotiation, diplomacy, compromise, discussion…
Bibi Netanyahu is the worst variant of a benthic breed; Not only is he a far-right politician mounting a relio-nationalist rostrum to bray absolutist slogans, he also wallows in rank systemic corruption and opportunistically creates carnage in order to scavenge opportunity.
Bibi’s appointment of Itomar Ben-Gvir, a gun-waving, mosque-crashing hate-speech bomb-chucker to the role of Internal Security minister within his rabid-menagerie coalition, and his subsequent ‘negligent’ (being generous) dismissal of repeated, explicit intelligence warnings, noxiously reeks of deliberate conflict engineering.
(Itamar Ben-Gvir’s resume; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itamar_Ben-Gvir#:~:text=Itamar%20Ben%2DGvir%20(Hebrew%3A,and%20leader%20of%20Otzma%20Yehudit.)
As background, the Israeli Knesset is a single house parliament whose only real constraining oversight lies within the Israeli judiciary system.
Since his elevation to 3rd time PM-ship (despite being under numerous criminal charges) Netanyahu has been conducting alarming attacks on judicial powers and independence.
Ps opinions differ.
Bibi, bozo and scomo all reckon any kind of ceasefire, even a brief humanitarian pause, would give aid and comfort to terrorists
I vehemently disagree.
Dr Binoy reckons cat-keepers who curfew their pets in order to keep them from slaughtering ever-rarer native wildlife are guilty of “tortuous cruelty”.
Again, I (more-than-vehemently) disagree.
Just watched Francestca Albanese on ABC/TV who is a human rights lawyer speaking in this country.
Looks like we were complicit in ignoring both human rights, and International law for the past 30 days.
And the previous 70 years?
I suppose our representation at the UN have been nodding off when they should be wide awake
But in this country we do what we are told regardless of genocide, or breaches of law, or our corrupt friends.
Every conceivable distraction is being used to prevent our focus on the daily death toll which is happening on our watch.
What i want to know is what do the jews do that through the ages, even in Shakepheare’s time, makes people distrust and hate?
Sending them to “palestine” must have been seen as getting rid of the problem. What was the problem I ask.
I have no problems with jewish people as a whole. What i find repugnant is the fact that if you criticise Israel, your suddenly anti jew. Israel is a CULT state. Its current status is unacceptable in a civilised world. It had its chance at a two state solution, but decided to go it alone. I have never seen a genuine attempt to settle anything. It was so fucking convenient to blame Arafat.
Not once has an israeli leader shown any sympathy whats so ever towards the palestinians and their aspirations, not once.
BIbi decided to slowly strangle the palestinians. What happened was the top blew off. The israelis have played the PLO off Hamas. The music suddenly stopped.
The jews running israel have forgotten the lessons learned from the holocaust. They have decided that the palestionians have no place next door. Sorry for restating the obvious, israel will have no peace until the palestinian greviences are sorted. Killing 10 for 1 is just so obvious a breeding school for more resentment.
Lets just drop the tag “only democracy in the region” BS. Israel has been running Gaza’s 2million at arms length and what did the palestionians get? Lots of representation I bet. Spin , Lies and self interest. As much as Iran is an idiot state, Israel aint that much better.
@Doiglas Pritchard I saw her too. She spoke really well. Very impressive!
@Andyfitysix
I saw a panel interview between a twerp and Norman Finkelstein where the twerp claimed Palestinians should just move in to a neighboring Arab state commenting that what is wrong with the Palestinians that no one wants to accept them.
My first thought was what made people vilify Jews so much?
@ andyfiftysix: I think ”the Jews” were most recently vilified by a Roman Pope about 1100AD ”for crucifying Christ”. So, all Christians were required to take every action against these ”terrible persons”. This policy had international application as late as 1945.
.
Even in Australia pre-WWII the MV Dunera, a refugee ship that arrived in Sydney Harbour was returned to Germany where most of the refugee passengers were sent to the gas chambers for no other reason than their religion.
.
Uhm ….. there are a few problems with this deliberately imperialistic thinking of that Pope:
the person known as ”Jesus” about 33AD who was allegedly ”crucified” by the Romans in Jerusalem, may have existed despite a lack of any contemporary historical record;
.
that ”Jesus” was actually a Jewish person NOT a ”Christian”, a label that occurred after the Pauline epiphany;
.
earlier the Romans had been given several severe military hidings by the Maccabees before final defeat that led to transport in chains to Rome for display, slavery & death. The Maccabees had used guerilla warfare to great effect against the marauding Roman armies.
11th November. Remembrance Day. At 11:00 am, the 11th hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, a minute’s silence is “observed and dedicated to those soldiers who died fighting to protect the nation.”
My nitpicking and pedantic nature as to the veracity of facts and information disputes this position somewhat, given that WWI was conducted far away and this country wasn’t imperilled. WWII… a different story admittedly, with Japanese intention to bring the conflict onto Australian soil. The lesser wars, however oxymoronic that term may be, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq & Afghanistan… none posed a threat to Australia, and so, in fact, of the four lesser and two major, of only one war can it justifiably be said that Australian soldiers fought to protect this country.
This time & date are remembered because in 1918 “guns on the Western Front fell silent after more than four years of continuous warfare.”
The English war poet, Wilfred Owen, had this to say in his work, Dulce et Decorum Est.
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
[Latin phrase is from the Roman poet Horace: “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.”]