A Special Committee from the United Nations (UN) has released a report that investigates Israel’s contravention of human rights in Palestine. As with anything that lays bare Israel’s war crimes, mainstream media here in the West haven’t bothered to report on it. The only reporting has come from outlets that have consistently held Israel to account – Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye, and Al Mayadeen.
So, what is exactly in this report that means the cowards in British media refuse to report on it?
Israel enacting “collective punishment”
The Special Committee is formed of representatives from three UN member states – Malaysia, Senegal, and Sri Lanka. As Israel would not allow the committee access to what it called “the occupied territories.” Instead they visited the occupied Syrian Golan and did also:
conduct its annual consultations in Geneva and undertook a visit to Amman, and met with government officials, United Nations organizations and mechanisms, representatives of civil society organizations, youth representatives, human rights defenders, and Palestinian families.
At its core, they found what many Palestinians have had to document on social media:
The Special Committee is gravely alarmed that Gaza has become unliveable for Palestinians and has echoed the repeated warnings by the Secretary-General that nothing could justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people and that it was time for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and unimpeded access for humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza.
Apart from anything else, the report sets out in great detail the depth of Israeli depravity in its ongoing siege of Palestine. Whilst many people around the world will have seen such details from social media posts and Middle East journalists, this report is a signal for the corrupt and cowardly in the West who refuse to see what is plain before their eyes.
UN Special Committee found censorship of many kinds
The reports authors found that Israel was targeting “identifiable journalists” in what they called a “deliberate strategy” for “unlawful attacks.” The Knesset has enacted the supposedly temporary closure of “foreign broadcasters deemed to be harming the State [Israel].” That’s included Al Jazeera, whose own media workers have been killed by Israel.
The report reads:
The Committee is deeply concerned that these restrictive measures and attacks on journalists severely limit press freedom and Palestinians’ right to information and expression, while also raising concerns about unlawful and discriminatory online surveillance of Palestinians.
However, Israel’s government has also mobilised to restrict online discourse about Palestine:
Yet, more than 92 per cent of the 21,000 social media content removal requests submitted by the Government of Israel for allegedly inciting violence and terrorism in the 50 days following 7 October, were approved and taken down by Meta and TikTok.
This compliance from the likes of Meta and TikTok to government censorship is yet another sign, were it needed, that Western conceptualisations of freedom of speech are shaped entirely by Western interests. Coupled with the reticence of Western media to report on Israeli war crimes, what unfolds is total impunity for Israel and sanctioned death for Palestinians.
Death tech
The UN Special Committee also detailed Israel’s use of artificial intelligence in how it targets civilians. The report reads:
The Special Committee is deeply alarmed by the unprecedented destruction of civilian infrastructure and high death toll in Gaza, which raise serious concerns about the use by Israel of artificial intelligence in directing its military campaign. Credible media reports indicate that the Israeli military lowered the criteria for selecting targets while increasing their previously accepted ratio of civilian to combatant casualties.
This means Israel have the technology to avoid civilian deaths, but instead use it to cause avoidable civilian deaths.
These directives reportedly enabled the military to use artificial intelligence systems (which rely on mass surveillance to process large volumes of data), to rapidly generate tens of thousands of targets, as well as to track targets to their homes, particularly at night when families shelter together.
Israel is only able to acquire and use such sophisticated technology because of the support of the US. As Al-Jazeera reported:
Amid this AI-assisted genocide, Big Tech in the United States is quietly continuing business as usual with Israel. Intel has announced a $25bn investment in a chip plant located in Israel, while Microsoft has launched a new Azure cloud region in the country.
None of this should come as a surprise. For decades, Silicon Valley has been supporting the Israeli apartheid regime, supplying the advanced technology and investment needed to power its economy and occupy Palestine.
Israel has not only the weight of Western media, but Western governments, tech giants, and more at their side. That tells us everything it does is a choice – it’s not self-defence, it’s not a liberating mission, it’s deliberate ethnic cleansing aimed at the total destruction of Palestinian lives, society, and culture.
Food as a weapon of warfare
To further compound their findings, the UN special Committee report includes a section on Israel’s use of “starvation as a method of war:”
At the beginning of 2023, Israel’s prolonged occupation of Palestinian territory, including its 17-year blockade by sea, land and air of the Gaza Strip, had already caused widespread food insecurity across the occupied territory, with 80 per cent of Gaza’s residents largely dependent on humanitarian aid.
This is one of the few moments in the report where the authors acknowledge Israel’s long-term sustained attempts to cause widespread Palestinian death. These attempts have, of course, intensified over the last year:
In May, the Commission of Inquiry concluded that through its “total siege”, Israel had weaponized the withholding of life-sustaining necessities, including humanitarian assistance, for strategic and political gains, which constituted collective punishment and reprisal against the civilian population, both in direct violation of international humanitarian law.
Just days ago, when Palestinians were receiving some much-needed aid Israeli soldiers burnt down the building where the aid was housed. Israeli civilians have ransacked aid trucks headed for Palestine. Not for their own benefits, but to further starve Palestinians. The BBC called these people “protesters” and reported:
According to reports in Israeli media, the Tzav 9 activist group were responsible for organising the protest.
Israeli media reports describe it as a right-wing group which is seeking to halt humanitarian aid transfers into Gaza while Israeli hostages are held there.
The now-infamous flour massacre involved Israeli troops firing on Palestinians desperate for food. Food aid workers from World Central Kitchen were deliberately targeted and killed by the Israelis. This is all purposeful starvation as a method of war. Coupled with the UN committees findings on the decimation of Palestine’s natural resources – agricultural land and fishing facilities – Palestinians are both being starved in the present moment, and future generations will certainly struggle to feed themselves.
UN Special Committee: propping up coloniality
However useful the findings of the UN Special Committee report are, they are bookended by a typically colonial attitude towards Israel and Palestine. The report begins with a brief account of the 7 October attack. Such a choice is one that removes historical context for the attack, and erases decades of Israeli settler colonialism.
The report provides many recommendations for the General Assembly and for Israel itself, but before doing so concludes with the following:
The Special Committee also notes with concern the impact of the war on Israelis, who are still grappling with the trauma of survivors and the “collective psychological burden” brought on by the hostage crisis. In particular, the Special Committee is deeply worried about the psychological impact on young Israeli soldiers who are carrying out military orders and will have to live with the consequences of their actions long after the current conflict ends.
This removal of agency from Israeli soldiers is typical of moves towards empire and colonialism which present safety in the form of domination of others, whilst coddling oppressors.
To have an investigation into a series of war crimes Israel is currently committing with impunity conclude with concern for the mental health of Israeli soldiers is a gesture towards the geopolitical power of Israel.
The report outlines the manner in which Israel is committing settler colonialism. But, in refusing to call it settler colonialism, and in the failure to include a lens on coloniality the report only paints half the picture.
Not much more can be expected of a committee associated with the UN. It is, however, a sharp reminder that whilst such a report can be useful to those standing in solidarity with Palestine, it is up to us to ensure that we see the bigger picture of corporate connections, corrupt governments, and colonial tactics.
Featured image via YouTube screenshot/Al Jazeera English
