Israel breaks International Law and uses it to cover up its crimes

JVL Introduction

Dr. Shahd Hammouri, lecturer in International Law and Palestinian herself, outlines the way International Law is being misapplied by Israel.  Israel’s violation of international law while claiming all the time to be operating within it is facilitated by the western media and political framework – that this is a war (started by Hamas on October 7th); Israel therefore has the right to self defence; what Hamas is doing is terrorism; and the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza is a humanitarian issue (only).

This is a distortion of what is happening on the ground now and ignores both the political and historical context and the historic as well as current violations of Israeli law in Gaza – and East Jerusalem and the West Bank. As Dr. Hammouri says “Israel is a colonising power and the Palestinians are the colonised indigenous population. Any reference to international law that does not recall these circumstances is a distortion of the story.”

Dr. Hammouri was one of our guest speakers at the JVL AGM at the beginning of December 2023 where she covered many of these points.  You can watch her presentation along with our other speakers here.

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This article was originally published by Al Jazeera on Sun 10 Dec 2023. Read the original here.