Addressing the International Court of Justice on Thursday, the Chinese representative said the Palestinians’ use of armed struggle to gain independence from foreign and colonial rule is “legitimate” and “well-founded” in international law.
“In pursuit of the right to self-determination, Palestinian people’s use of force to resist foreign oppression and complete the establishment of an independent state is (an) inalienable right well founded in international law,” Ma Xinmin told the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Citing resolutions by the UN General Assembly, Beijing’s envoy to the top world court said that people struggling for self-determination could use “all available means, including armed struggle.”
“The struggle waged by peoples for their liberation, right to self-determination, including armed struggle against colonialism, occupation, aggression, domination against foreign forces should not be considered terror acts,” Ma stated in his address to the ICJ, citing international conventions.
China’s🇨🇳 Representative at the ICJ reminds the world that under international law, armed struggle against illegal occupation is an enshrined right and is not terrorism.
As John Pilger once said on Going Underground, ‘Palestine🇵🇸 has the right to defend itself’.… pic.twitter.com/LQkseRqYqI
— Going Underground (@GUnderground_TV) February 22, 2024
The International Court of Justice in The Hague is currently hearing arguments over the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territories.
Israel’s practices and policies of “oppression have severely undermined and impeded the exercise and full realization of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination,” the Chinese envoy noted.
Ma also noted that the conflict stems “from Israel’s prolonged occupation of Palestinian territory and Israel’s longstanding oppression of the Palestinian people.”
Therefore, according to the Chinese representative, “the Palestinian peoples’ fight against Israeli oppression and their struggle for completing the establishment of an independent state under occupied territory are essentially just actions.”
Colonizers and Colonized
“Palestinians have been victimized by Israeli colonialism, military occupation, racial apartheid, siege and now genocide,” Palestinian journalist and political analyst Ramzy Baroud wrote in a recent article,
“The Palestinian right to self-defense can be established. In 1973, the Assembly passed Resolution 3076, XXVII. The language was unambiguous; people have the right to struggle against colonial foreign domination by all possible means, including armed struggle,” Baroud added.
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“It is interesting how the colonists and the colonized continue to build relations and solidarity around the same old principles. The Global South is, again, rising in solidarity with the Palestinians, while the North, with a few exceptions, continues to support Israeli oppression.”
Crime of Genocide
For the first time since its establishment in 1948, Israel is also currently being tried before the ICJ on charges of committing the crime of “genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 29,410 Palestinians have been killed, and 69,465 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 7,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
(PC, Anadolu)
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