Israel/Palestine: human rights must prevail

If ever there was a time for a serious discussion about protecting human rights in Israel and Palestine, this is that time.

Unfortunately, a clear-eyed human rights framework has never been the hallmark of any Canadian government’s approach to the region. Canada has firmly championed the rights of Israelis; but remained largely silent about the rights of Palestinians.

Double standards are the antithesis of human rights. That needs to change. Unequivocal defence of the rights of Israelis and Palestinians alike must define Canada’s position.

It has been an unspeakable week of hate and violence. Every hour the repercussions of the Hamas attack in southern Israel and the Israeli siege of Gaza deepen. The scale of what is unfolding is unprecedented.

The accounts of terror emerging from the sites of massacres in Israel – from the Nova music festival and from kibbutz communities such as Kfar Aza and Be’eri – at least 1400 dead alongside the anguish of the loved ones of close to 200 people taken hostage by Hamas, and hundreds still missing, are heartbreaking.

In response, the Israeli military has launched well over 6000 bombs and missiles into Gaza, killing (to date) nearly 3000 Palestinians, one-third of them children, and injuring at least 10,000. It has given evacuation warnings to 1.1 million people, who truly have nowhere safe to go. There are reports that one million Gazans are now displaced. In a virtual open-air prison that is one of the most densely populated places on earth, there are, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, “daily indications of violations of the laws of war and international human rights law.”

And as we write, horrifying reports are coming in that at least 300 people have been killed in an explosion at Gaza’s Al-Ahli Arabi Baptist Hospital.

As never before, this crisis cries out for fundamental human rights – to life, liberty, equality, security, freedom – to be embraced by all sides. Yet the space for that conversation, always fraught, has become toxically polarized.

For all who say this is not the time to discuss the wider human rights context to this conflict, we say there has never been a more necessary time.

It is beyond debate that Israeli security forces, Hamas, other armed Palestinian groups, and their backers have all committed grave breaches, violations and abuses of international humanitarian and human rights laws.

That is clear in reports from international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups including Al-Haq and B’Tselem, UN human rights Special Rapporteurs, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Médecins sans Frontières, courageous journalists and countless other independent sources.

What emerges from this extensive documentation?

Indiscriminate missile attacks into Israel, and terrorist attacks that have taken place inside the country over many years, are war crimes and crimes against humanity.

But the idea that Israel’s precarious security justifies the subjugation of Palestinians is colossally wrong. Yet that is the approach reflected in military assaults against Gaza and southern Lebanon, the devastating toll of the Gaza blockade, the dehumanizing impact of the wall, and the relentless march of illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory.

There should be justice for Israeli crimes against Palestinians, and for Palestinian crimes against Israelis. But instead, impunity prevails.

Is it not yet evident that decades of an Israeli security policy grounded in disregard for the fundamental rights of Palestinians, including Israel’s clear obligations as an occupying power, have been disastrous? Massive human rights violations are not only cruel and unjust – and unlawful – they breed more insecurity and violence.

And yet, the circle of repression and violence continues. Absolutely, Israeli authorities should take all possible lawful measures in response to the Hamas attack and to prevent future ones. But not through deadly collective punishments against the 2.3 million people crammed into the confines of Gaza.

What is needed now is not more bombs and military assaults. What is needed is a bold human rights agenda and dialogue.

Now is a critical time to reaffirm the state of Israel’s right to exist within defined and secure borders.

Now is an optimum time to end the Gaza blockade and free Palestinian children indefinitely detained in Israeli jails.

Now is the perfect time to dismantle the illegal settlements, end the occupation and recognize Palestinian statehood.

Now is also the necessary time to acknowledge that Palestinians and Jews, in the Middle East and the diaspora, share a history of intergenerational trauma in al-Nakba and the Holocaust. Now is the time for mutual recognition.

And now is certainly the time for an immediate reset in Canadian policy, to value equally the rights of Palestinians and Israelis and work urgently for a ceasefire, release of hostages and humanitarian corridor.

There is no security through violence and repression. Only justice guarantees a compassionate peace. Let’s give human rights a chance.

-------------------------------------------------

*Sharry Aiken is an associate professor in the Faculty of Law at Queen's University and has been a visiting scholar at both Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University; Michael Lynk is a retired law professor and the former UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory; Alex Neve is a Senior Fellow with the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and the former Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada.

Originally published as an opinion piece in the Toronto Star on October 17, 2023.

Photo Credit: A Palestinian child injured in an Israeli air strike is carried inside the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis in the southern of Gaza Strip, on Tuesday. MAHMUD HAMS / AFP via GETTY IMAGES