Prakash Neerohoo
Africa-Press – Mauritius. The United States unconditionally supports Ukraine against Russia in a bilateral conflict and Israel against the Palestinians in a historic 75-year conflict.
In a statement on October 10, 2023, US President Joe Biden reaffirmed this economic and military support for Israel and Ukraine, two strategic allies in American geopolitics. For him, in both cases, a country has been the victim of aggression and the security of a people is at stake.
“On December 30, 2022, the UN General Assembly voted for a resolution asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to rule on the legal or illegal nature of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.
The United States, Israel and 24 other countries (mostly Western) voted against the resolution. The ICJ’s opinion will make it possible to determine the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people.
Why is the West afraid of a legal opinion from the ICJ? It seems that Western countries would not want the legal opinion of the ICJ in favor of the return of the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius to serve as a precedent because the same question of decolonization arises in the Palestinian case.
The question that arises is whether the American position, and therefore that of the West as a whole, in relation to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is based on moral equivalence.
First, it must be emphasized that, in both cases, there is a territorial conflict. In one case, Russia and Ukraine are fighting over control of certain so-called Russian-speaking territories.
In the other case, Israel has conquered or illegally annexed 90% of Palestinian territory since 1948, leaving the Palestinian people with two enclaves (Gaza and West Bank) which are literally open-air prisons. The map below shows how the original Palestinian territory has shrunk dramatically since 1948.
In the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the West invokes the principle of the territorial integrity of a country (Ukraine) and the right of this country to choose its friends (Europe and North America, in particular) as well than its military partners (notably NATO).
However, the West refuses to invoke the same principle in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Western countries deny the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people by refusing to implement the solution of two independent states (Palestine and Israel) in the Middle East in accordance with UN resolutions on decolonization and human rights.
Palestinian people. On December 30, 2022, the UN General Assembly voted for a resolution asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to rule on the legal or illegal nature of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.
The United States, Israel and 24 other countries (mostly Western) voted against the resolution. The ICJ’s opinion will make it possible to determine the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people.
Why is the West afraid of a legal opinion from the ICJ? Where is his respect for international law? It seems that Western countries would not want the legal opinion of the ICJ in favor of the return of the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius to serve as a precedent because the same question of decolonization arises in the Palestinian case.
Source: Mauritiustimes
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