Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories amount to ‘war crime’: UN

CaractacusPotts@lemmy.ca to World News@lemmy.world – 273 points –
Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories amount to ‘war crime’: UN
scmp.com
9

Strange, Biden admin recently thought otherwise:

US tells ICJ Israel should not be ordered to immediately end occupation

The United States has told the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that it should not order the unconditional withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Palestinian territories without security guarantees.

“The court should not find that Israel is legally obligated to immediately and unconditionally withdraw from occupied territory,” Visek said.

Strange, Biden admin recently thought otherwise:

I know that you're being sarcastic but just for the slow ones:

there's nothing strange about it since the Biden admin is frequently wrong about many things but most of all their insisting that a genocidal apartheid regime is a shining beacon of Enlightened Democracy.

Biden has said he is a Zionist, and it's pretty obvious by now that Zionism is just a variant of Nazism with a different list of "superior" and "inferior" etnicities.

I don't know that they've said that, only stuff like that Israel is one of our closest and more valuable allies (for unspecified reasons, but mostly the strong Zionist lobby and its geopolitical usefulness).

Biden's either swallowed the propaganda to the point that he's a true believer in the whole charade or he's aware that it's bullshit but pretending otherwise for the legal bribes.

I'm not entirely sure which would be worse, but either way, he's one of if not THE staunchest ally the Israeli government has ever had in the Oval Office, and at one of the worst times in history possible.

The fact that his only realistic alternative is literally a fascist man-child malignant narcissist with more shrewd people planning for him in advance this time is just radioactive icing on a skunk shit cake that's been putrifying for about half a century 😮‍💨

As the US does not accept the ICJ, they should not interfere with due process, either.

Hardly surprising...

Biden has always seen Israel as an investment which produces the best returns for U.S. interests.

In 1986, when he was a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, he opposed the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia because they were not able to become “agents of .U.S interests in the Persian Gulf region.”

He stressed that his opposition to the weapons sale was not about whether the Saudis were good guys or bad guys, but about the ability of the Saudis to help advance and secure U.S. interests.

He emphasized that the “naked self-interest of the U.S.” should always guide their Middle East policy, and that his support for Israel is situated within that self-interest. As he bluntly explained: “Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interest in the region.”

https://theconversation.com/biden-says-the-u-s-would-have-to-invent-an-israel-if-it-didnt-exist-why-210172

Settlements is not the same as occupation. Quoth the fourth Geneva convention, Article 49:

The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.

Israeli settlements are exactly that: Transfer of Israeli civilian population into occupied territory.

I'm glad SCMP is reporting on this because it seems like the Western powers are trying their hardest to show that international law applies only to the little guy; the strong can do whatever tf they want and no law applies to them (while simultaneously preaching about freedom and democracy).