If Israel is not held accountable for colonialism, colonial violence and genocide, no amount of resolutions can provide even the slightest remedy for the Palestinian people. Last week, the World Health Organisation (WHO) adopted a resolution which will keep the institution busy with the collected data, but fail to change conditions on the ground for Palestinians.
WHO’s resolution, ‘Health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem and in the occupied Syrian Golan’ requires monitoring, assessment and reporting on almost the entire spectrum of consequences as a result of colonial violence, including food insecurity and famine, starvation and its impact, and attacks on the health system. With regard to the latter, there is no mention of who carries out the attacks, as is typical of many international official documents. The resolution does define Gaza as occupied, yet Israel’s genocide is not mentioned. Israel’s mentions are limited to occupation, military power operations, and its obligations under international law, which is a very narrow definition, and also a normalised way of generating impunity.
International institutions have more than enough material on Israel’s colonial violence and its ramifications. Additional reporting is achieving nothing, as despite the volume of documentation of Israel’s international law violations, the international community refuses to take political action. Humanitarian action, meanwhile, has been hindered by political intrusions and the insistence upon neutrality for Israel’s benefit.
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Even with the omissions, the severity of Israeli colonialism is clear. The resolution, for example requires reporting on “the interconnectedness between health and other sectors”. Forced displacement is mentioned in this context, which shows the international organisation’s awareness of colonialism and the refusal to address it. Resolutions in general, and the WHO resolution is not an exception, function from the premise of normalising the abnormal. Much can be said about prevention and rebuilding, but Israel has no incentive to comply. It situates itself above international law, faces no consequences, while international organisations are scrambling to cover the ambiguous space that combines both human rights and diplomacy. The result is a complete disintegration of what remains of Palestine and of Palestinians’ lives. Be it obstacles in delivering humanitarian aid, or the deteriorating conditions as a result of forced displacement, colonial violence, the genocide in Gaza, and lack of infrastructure contributing to health problems, the fact is that organisations remain intact, but the Palestinian people are battling for the basics of survival.
The resolution calls for “strengthening partnerships with other United Nations agencies such as the UNRWA, UNICEF and partners in the occupied Palestinian territory”. However, it does not question the fact that all international organisations are operating from a framework that protects colonial violations. Knowing what to address in terms of health in the occupied Palestinian territories is not the same as addressing the international structure of limitations on health and humanitarian aid.
Merely saying in accordance with international law, or recalling the provisional measures issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) does not provide Palestinians with any form of security. The catchphrases only provide international organisations with institutional legitimacy.
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