How Israel violates Western sovereignty

The US habitually criticises the UN, International Criminal Court and other such global bodies as hostile platforms, which would violate American sovereignty if America were to view and treat their decisions as binding.

In Pakistan, where sovereignty violation has been such a vivid and perpetual political reality for Pakistani citizenry that it has become a lifestyle with which they’ve made peace. The dictates of the IMF, the World Bank, the FATF, drone warfare, Raymond Davis, and so forth are some of those stark realities, which minus euphemism could most amply and truthfully be labeled as sovereignty violations.

Stuff like that happening in the Western societies is unheard of. A foreign nation can’t fly drones over England or Germany or the US to kill their citizens or immigrants on their soil. Nobody tells them how they should price their oil and how their subsidies and inflation rates should look like. It’s unimaginable that someone would ask the US, England or France to provide proof that they’re not laundering money for terrorism causes. Their election conducting bodies are not lectured by some global body as to how and when their elections should happen.

However, the state that was born from the Nakba, namely Israel, has been able to violate the sovereignty of the Western nations tremendously and on a ludicrous scale without anyone even realising it. There were news reports just days ago that police in England beat and arrested protesters who were protesting in favour of the Palestinians. Something similar was seen to have happened in France some weeks ago. They have banned pro-Palestinian protests.

Many American states have enacted laws which penalise individuals and businesses that refuse to do business with Israel. In 2017, a major hurricane, called Harvey, hit Houston. People and businesses faced enormous losses. The state of Texas only provided relief funds to those who promised not to boycott Israel. I mean think about it for a moment: American citizens saw their homes and cars drown, saw their businesses go under water. And the state where they paid taxes and lived their lives said to them that they’d get help only if they show loyalty to a foreign state. What kind of sick nonsense is this?

Think also about the British and French situations. British citizens who used their right to protest and free speech saw their right violated only because a foreign state is more important to their government than their rights as citizens. You can criticise Macron in France, Rishi Sunak in England, Biden in America. But if you dared criticise Israel in any of these countries, you’d be labeled as an anti-Semitic Jew hater islamophobe or a self-hating Jew if you happen to be an enlightened Jew. And if you’re a Christian in any of these societies then get ready to be called a Nazi.

The Israelis not only get to violate the sovereignty of the Western nations but they also have the local leaders do it for them. It’s almost like colonialism where the British used local leaders to do the things that were good for British interests and very harmful for local interests. Except in this case, Israel is a weaker state than these western states and yet it’s the same colonial game being played.

How does Israel do it? Well, some argue it’s the Israeli lobbies that are quite effective inside America, others say there’s a lot of money involved in American politics to which pro-Israeli bodies contribute and the American politicians know that. What do I think? Well, my jury is still out on this one because not one or even the combination of these factors add up to the amount of blind support that Israel gets from DC and London. There’s more to it but the reality is that many children would have died by the time we can fully understand it.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 7^th, 2023.

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