Monday (19 Feb) was Day 1 of the ICJ’s hearings on “Israel’s illegal occupation of Gaza”, as Al Jazeera describes it. 6 (or so) lawyers representing Palestine, each with 30 mins to do persuasion about one facet of what they painted a pretty convincing picture of as Israel’s* systematic and orchestrated – and quite successful! – adventure in stripping a people [can 1m+ be ‘a people’?] of the rights to decide where to be, or where to go. Or what to cook. Or how to die. The “right to self-determination”.
*T&Cs
In between, this guy explained things. (When he started by getting animated about why on earth anyone was even talking about the legality of the “occupied territories”, I briefly wondered whether he was as stupid as I feel about the complexities here. He is very clearly not, but he asked and answered all the right questions for someone who is.)
Others – including several of the lawyers speaking in front of the esteemed panel – also explained things like how Palestinians will never be issued an Israeli passport, with the privileges that such a travel document confers (to go home?). And that any “outsider” who may fall in love with and marry a Palestinian would need to get permission from the Israeli authorities to settle in the settlement of Gaza. Etc.
There were also scenes of teenage boys scrambling to save handfuls of spilled flour from food aid sacks dropped from a helicopter, and a doctor in tears because he couldn’t offer his 3-yr old daughter a piece of bread.
The right to self-determination.
Meanwhile, there’s a boat in Cape Town full of cattle and sheep that are busy dying in their own shit. Al Kuwait had to make an emergency stop in CT – at Maker’s! – en route from Brazil to Iraq, where the “live” animals can be slaughtered according to religious blabla.
First the DM got in:
Then The Guardian got onto it:
Then it even got to Big-Time Influenza, Mr. 6000:
6K rightly pointed out that the chattering classes will no doubt forget about the whole thing in the minute that it takes for something else to win attentions.
I don’t remember anyone giving a shit about the livestock carrier stuck off Australia in a heat wave for a considerable length of time earlier this month – a saga described in its early days with a visual aid of none other than the Al Kuwait:
