INTRODUCTION
Al Hadaf KC, a Palestinian-led grassroots community education organization in Kansas City, believes in the importance of knowing where we’ve been to realize where we’re going, and Palestine’s history is critical to informing our advocacy.
Below are terms of both customary usage and law to support your understanding of the aggression on Palestine. We encourage you to engage with this list, its sources, and please feel free to contact us with questions!
DEFINITIONS
Apartheid: The ICSPCA defines apartheid as “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group … over another racial group … and systematically oppressing them”. The crime of apartheid was further defined by Article 7 of the Rome Statute as encompassing inhumane acts such as torture, murder, forcible transfer, imprisonment, or persecution of an identifiable group on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, or other grounds, “committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime”.
In April 2021, Human Rights Watch became the first major international human rights body to say Israel had crossed the legal threshold. It accused Israel of apartheid, and called for prosecution of Israeli officials under international law, calling for an International Criminal Court investigation. Amnesty International issued a report with similar findings on 1 February 2022.
Ceasefire: “A suspension of fighting agreed upon by the parties to a conflict, typically as part of a political process. It is intended to be long-term and often covers the entire geographic area of the conflict. Its aim is usually to allow parties to engage in dialogue, including the possibility of reaching a permanent political settlement.”
A ceasefire resolution can be called for outside of agreements between the parties involved and is not contingent upon the agreements of either party. A call for ceasefire is a call for protection of civilian life and will be the first step in any facilitation of peace.
Coercive Environment: Jurisprudence from the International Criminal Court (ICC) and other international criminal tribunals is consistent in holding that the forcible nature of the displacement must not be limited to simple indications of physical removal. Forcible transfer also includes acts or omissions which amount to threats of force or coercion; the creation of fear of detention or violence; or taking advantage of a coercive environment. The essential component is that the displacement must be involuntary, with the person(s) in question being deprived of genuine choice in the decision to leave their homes and communities.
Collective Punishment: According to Article 33 of the Geneva Convention, “No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or terrorism are prohibited. Pillage is prohibited. Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.”
Colonialism: Colonialism refers to systems of domination, land, economic and population control by one country, power, or empire, over another, in the latter’s indigenous land, to the detriment, exploitation, and abuse of the indigenous population.
Decolonization: The process of deconstructing or dismantling colonial ideologies and challenging the superiority of western thought and approaches, beyond a process of formal independence, that digs into thought patterns, biases, policies, values, and more.
The intentional killing of an unarmed or disarmed person by government agents acting in their authoritative capacity and pursuant to government policy or high command.
Forced Displacement: The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, created in 1998, restate and compile existing international human rights and humanitarian law germane to the internally displaced. The Guiding Principles note that arbitrary displacement in the first instance is prohibited (Principles 5-7). Once persons have been displaced, they retain a broad range of economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights, including the right to basic humanitarian assistance (such as food, medicine, shelter), the right to be protected from physical violence, the right to education, freedom of movement and residence, political rights such as the right to participate in public affairs and the right to participate in economic activities (Principles 10-23). Displaced persons also have the right to assistance from competent authorities in voluntary, dignified and safe return, resettlement or local integration, including help in recovering lost property and possessions.
“From the River to the Sea”: A decades old, aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea in historic Palestine. Palestinians ask for (1) an end to the 17 year long military siege of Gaza, (2) an end of the more than 75 year occupation of Palestine, and (3) rights of self-determination and rights of return to their homeland are the understandable aspirations of most Palestinians. Calls for freedom are simply that; and there is no implied call for violence when demanding rights, dignities, and freedoms.
Humanitarian Pause: “A temporary cessation of hostilities purely for humanitarian purposes. Requiring the agreement of all relevant parties, it is usually for a defined period and specific geographic area where the humanitarian activities are to be carried out.”
Humanitarian organizations have the right to offer humanitarian aid to States without this being regarded as interference in the internal matters of a State, as per Art. 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions; Protocol I, Art. 70.1. Activities of the ICRC are also mentioned in Arts 9/9/9/10 of the Conventions. https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/article/other/57jq32.htm
Advocating for a “humanitarian pause” inherently acknowledges the inhumane acts that occur outside of these periods and is wholly inefficient. OXFAM and other human rights orgs have noted that international humanitarian law deems only a ceasefire legal, as “international humanitarian law makes it illegal to target civilians, or deny humanitarian relief supplies including food, medicines or water” under any circumstance or period. https://mondoweiss.net/2023/11/humanitarian-pauses-are-not-enough-neither-is-a-ceasefire/
Genocide: From a legal perspective, genocide, like the crime against humanity of persecution, is an international crime distinguished by the specific intent to discriminate against a group on recognized grounds through a series of acts or omissions often reflected in and achieved through State policies. While different in degree, both genocide and persecution “[reduce] a person to their identification with or membership in a group,” but also “[attack] the group itself.” Persecution criminalizes the denial of fundamental rights for members of the group, and genocide criminalizes the most extreme stage of discrimination: efforts to actually destroy the group.
Internally Displaced Persons: Includes “persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border.”
Migration: “An umbrella term, not defined under international law, reflecting the common lay understanding of a person who moves away from his or her place of usual residence, whether within a country or across an international border, temporarily or permanently, and for a variety of reasons.”
Occupation: “In international law, the law of occupation is based on the assumption that occupation is a temporary solution to a military constraint. The assumption is that within a relatively short period the occupation will end with a political arrangement that will allow the residents of the occupied territory to enjoy their individual and collective rights. The law of occupation attempts to create a balance between the military needs of the occupying state and the interests of the population in the occupied territory. Alongside broad authority given to the military commander in order to ensure public life and public order during the transition period to a peace agreement, serious restrictions are imposed on the occupying state. The idea of temporariness is at the foundation of all the legal arrangements.”
Resistance: (in relation to an occupied people): “In an occupation, the occupied people have a right to resist, including armed resistance, although doing so via arms means those individuals participating are combatants and not protected civilians.”
Right of Self-Determination: The right of self-determination is enshrined in Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1967). Generally, self-determination is a right owed to peoples, allowing them to “freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development” on their land. The recognition of a people as such, and their consequent entitlement to the right to self-determination, constitutes a fundamental and foundational basis for independence, autonomy, and statehood in the land where they exist. The Palestinian right to self-determination necessarily encompasses all Palestinians, wherever they are, in the territory upon which this right is exercised, within the whole of Mandatory Palestine. The fulfillment of the inalienable right of return and decolonization will enable the complete realization of Palestinian self-determination.
United Nations General Assembly [UNGA], International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [ICCPR], 999 UNTS 171, 16 December 1966, art.1(1), available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx [accessed 1 November 2021];
UNGA, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights [ICESCR], 993 UNTS 3, 16 December 1966, art.1(1), available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/cescr.aspx [accessed 1 November 2021].
Right of Return: Following the war after the establishment of Israel (Nakba), the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 194 (III) (AR 194) in December 1948. Paragraph 11 states that the UN “resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Government or authorities responsible”.The right of refugees to return to their homes and properties – sometimes referred to as their place of last habitual residence – is anchored in four separate bodies of international law: the law of nationality, as applied upon state succession; humanitarian law; human rights law; and refugee law (a subset of human rights law which also incorporates humanitarian law). The right of return is one of the most significant issues said to form the pillars of a political settlement for Palestinian rights and justice. It refers to the position and principle that Palestinian refugees, both first-generation refugees and their descendants, have a right to return to the property that they themselves or their forebears were forced to leave in what is now Israel and the Palestinian territories. UN resolution 194 (which has been affirmed 135 times between 1948-2000 by the UN General Assembly) itself is clear in indicating the right of Palestinian refugees to return, and their rights of restitution and compensation.
Boling, G. J. (2001, January). Palestinian Refugees and the Right of Return An International Law Analysis. The individual’s “Right of Return” under International Law: An International Law Analysis. Source: Badil Resource Center
Self-Defense: (in relation to an occupying power): “Occupation Law prohibits an occupying power from initiating armed force against its occupied territory. By mere virtue of the existence of military occupation, an armed attack, including one consistent with the UN Charter, has already occurred and been concluded. Therefore the right of self-defense in international law is, by definition since 1967, not available to Israel with respect to its dealings with real or perceived threats emanating from the West Bank and Gaza Strip population. To achieve its security goals, Israel can resort to no more than the police powers, or the exceptional use of militarized force, vested in it by international humanitarian law. This is not to say that Israel cannot defend itself—but those defensive measures can neither take the form of warfare nor be justified as self-defense in international law.”
Al-Hadaf KC 