The hearings at the International Court of Justice – which discusses the Israeli genocide in Gaza at the request of South Africa – had a significant impact beyond expectations, resembling a new and decisive wave of the “Al-Aqsa flood.” Although the results of these sessions may not be binding or decisive with regard to sanctions, they remain a very important and unprecedented event in history with the impact they have had on global public opinion, despite the major Western media ignoring them.
In the face of this neglect, channels such as Al Jazeera in English and Arabic, and the Turkish international channel TRT World, broadcast all the sessions live. It received a lot of attention on social media.
Israel, which has been trying to justify its policies and crimes for 75 years, considering that its people were victims of genocide, is now facing trial for committing genocide in full view of the whole world. We know that the United States – which is the main partner and supporter of this crime – will intervene if the International Court declares Israel guilty, and will use its veto power. To protect it in the Security Council.
But this will not prevent the issue from reaching the United Nations General Assembly, where a request can be made to suspend Israel’s membership. Regardless of the outcome, simply putting Israel in this constant defensive position represents a huge gain for the Palestinian cause.
What makes the case stronger is that in South Africa, which filed it, Muslims do not constitute more than 2% of its population. This refutes the reductionist Israeli narrative that presents the Palestinian issue as a conflict between Islam and the modern Christian West. It re-presents it in its true dimensions as a global humanitarian issue.
This, of course, does not justify the failure of 22 Arab countries and 57 Islamic countries to undertake this initiative. But it is a bold and noble position recorded for South Africa, which raised this generation of its children in the Nelson Mandela School with its historical position on the white apartheid regime. They chose to stand by the great and noble resistance of the people of Gaza and its children against oppression, occupation, Zionist ideology, global hegemony and genocide. Their testimony – Those who have lived similar experiences of persecution – are even more embarrassing for Israel, and even uproot the myths on which it was founded.
Coincidentally, I am following this trial from a region that recently witnessed another imperialist occupation: Afghanistan. Years after the Russian invasion and the subsequent twenty-year American occupation, the Afghan people have shown solid resistance based on philosophy, doctrine and culture against all the treacherous and unjust effects of the occupation.
He has already paid a huge tax, as the United States has killed at least 500,000 of his sons, without distinguishing between civilians and combatants, made his cities uninhabitable, described his resistance as terrorism, and shamelessly promoted this globally. But they tried in vain, and were finally forced out two and a half years ago.
What the Americans did in Afghanistan is no different from what Israel is doing. Rather, it may put our hands on the model that the Zionist state followed throughout 75 years of occupation, during which it practiced massacres, genocide, and plunder.
If it is not right – with reason and logic – to call the resistance of a people to the occupation of their country terrorism, then America did it with the Afghan people when they resisted it, even though – with bitter irony – it had previously called these fighters for liberation and independence “mujahideen” and “resistance” when they were They are fighting against the Russians. Now, the United States – which supports the Israeli occupation and genocide – describes the resistance of the Palestinian people as terrorism.
There is reason for hope. At the end of every tunnel comes light, and Afghanistan is now – for the first time since the victory of the resistance after 45 years of struggle – governed by its people. The first and most obvious manifestation of this governance is the stability and security unprecedented in the past five decades. For the first time, the government in Kabul controls the entire country, and there is hope for the future throughout the country.
Pay no attention to those who try to present Afghanistan through a well-painted, hateful stereotype of the Taliban. It only takes a small amount of social observation of the Afghan people in their country, to know that the “Taliban” does not represent a foreign entity and pressure on this society. On the contrary, it seems that the movement, in its understanding of Islam and in its general culture, is close to and expressive of this people, their spirit and their culture. In the first place, this is clear and straightforward to those who visit the country, and behind it are nothing but myths invented by the occupiers to hide their imperial desires, and only reflect a failure to understand Afghan society.
In order to understand more that the occupiers have not and will never be able to understand the Afghan people, we only have to look at those fortified facilities that they built inside the safe zone that they created and were forced to live in for twenty years. These high walls – which go overboard with fortifications and security precautions and make the city look as ugly as possible – reveal to us that the occupiers were literally living in self-imposed prisons when there was no aerial bombardment. This is also clearly visible in their offices and residences that they left behind when they had to leave. They lived in fear of their shadows here.
In contrast to this isolation behind fortifications, the Afghan people have a very generous culture that welcomes guests warmly and hosts them with open hearts and homes. They try to explain to those who visit them what the occupation did to them over 45 years and what they did to them. And those who want to understand can come to Kabul to learn the lesson.