TheAltWorld Protecting Israeli colonialism also protects Israel’s torture practices
Asking Israel to investigate its torture practices, while knowing that torture is an integral part of Israel’s political violence, is one of the tactics the UN employs to gloss over colonialism. In a press release, The UN Committee Against Torture stated that Israel has been implementing “a de facto State policy of organised and widespread torture and ill-treatment” which worsened after 7 October 2023. Not limited to Gaza, the committee stated that policies adopted in the occupied West Bank “if implemented in the manner alleged, would amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading living conditions for the Palestinian population.” Israeli violence in the occupied West Bank has “reportedly reached unprecedented levels.”
At various previous intervals, Israel’s colonial violence was deemed to have reached unprecedented levels. The word ‘unprecedented’ is unimpressive. What the UN Committee Against Torture should be looking at is how the UN allowed Israel to exceed its ‘unprecedented levels’ of torture gradually, without repercussions. If we just look at Gaza’s recent history – just going back to 2008-2009 during Operation Cast Lead – Israel used white phosphorus on the civilian population. White phosphorus is not banned by the 1980 Convention of Certain Conventional Weapons due to its use as a smokescreen. Less than 20 years later, Israel committed genocide in Gaza, and the world stepped aside to accommodate it.
And if we go back further, did not the Zionist paramilitary gangs torture Palestinians during the 1948 Nakba? Instead of looking at what created Israel – the 1947 Partition Plan and the 1948 Nakba, the UN rewarded Israel with full membership in May 1949. The contradiction has been sustained in Israel’s favour since then: an institution supposedly protecting human rights worldwide giving a colonial enterprise full membership, while the colonised Palestinian population remains an observer state. The tortured population remains subjugated not only to Israel, but to the UN, which facilitates Israel’s torture practices through globally approved impunity.
It is not enough to list Israel’s torture practices. At this point, lists are not creating awareness specifically because no one is expecting a list of torture tactics to prompt the international community to action against Israel. Neither will asking Israel to establish an independent commission of inquiry solve or regulate Israel’s torture tactics, which are part of its colonial violence.
The UN Committee Against Torture may have a specific role to play, but how much are these roles detracting from the real issue, which is colonialism? For decades, Palestinians have been classified into categories – administrative detention, torture, forced displacement, Palestinian prisoners, poverty, resistance – these are just a few. We can now add genocide victims as a collective for Gaza and genocide survivors for those who have so far survived. However, all these categories are discussed purely from a rights perspective which does not depart from the colonial framework, much less the experience of the colonised. So while calling on Israel is futile, we also have a situation where calling upon the UN is futile, because there is no stronger structure upholding Israel’s torture practices than the international community.
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