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Language in the War on Gaza

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Israeli and other world leaders are continuing to make claims in their attempt to justify the war on Gaza — statements that appear to be true and are taken at face value while they are in fact dangerously deceptive, writes Dubravka Žarkov, who argues that politicians outside Israel are far from powerless to stop the bloodshed in Gaza. But for that to happen, some hard truths have to be taken into account.

Israel’s political and military leaders have produced so many outright lies regarding Gaza and Hamas that it might seem there is no point in wasting one’s breath on them. Consider the following statements and the contrary evidence for those not yet convinced:

  • The IDF does not deliberately target civilians, journalists, medical facilities and staff, or restricts aid. In fact, the IDF has deliberately targeted civilians (as widely reported), journalists (as Human Rights Watch has detailed), and medical personnel (according to Amnesty International). It has also put various restrictions on aid.
  • The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is harboring among its employees Hamas militants who took part in the October 7 massacres. Yet, Israel has not shared any information or evidence to back up its assertions while UNRWA has screened its 13,000 staff in Gaza on a biannual basis.
  • Israel’s declared war on Gaza and the ongoing, undeclared war against Palestinians in the West Bank are “against Hamas” and “terrorists.” In fact, multiple Israeli governments, including the current one, have committed to appropriating all Palestinian territory and committing genocide against the Palestinians currently living there.
  • Iran is the main financier and supporter of Hamas. In fact, other entities like Qatar have been the main supporters of Hamas, and Israel too was instrumental in creating Hamas to divide Palestinian sympathies.

Other statements, however, made by Israeli and other world leaders, that may appear to be true, and that continue to be taken at face value, are in reality dangerously deceptive. Their aim is to justify Israeli politics regarding violence towards Palestinians, actions in support of the current war, or inaction in stopping it. Careful examination of a few of these will expose the ways in which such statements operate.

Dictionary of Deception

Probably the most repeated statement proffered by Israeli politicians and their supporters is that Hamas and Palestinians in general deny the Israeli state’s “right to exist.” This statement entirely ignores – and diverts attention away from – the unquestionable reality that Israel has existed as a state since 1948 and continues to exist, whether or not Hamas or anyone else objects to it.

At the same time, the Israeli complaint occludes the reality that it is Palestine whose right to exist as a state has long been denied. Although the majority of world governments have recognized Palestinian statehood, the State of Palestine has only an observer status in the UN. This is so because Israel and the United States, Canada, Australia, and an absolute majority of  European states have refused to recognize Palestinian statehood (though this might change in future). Israel’s current government has explicitly and loudly proclaimed that it has no plan to recognize a Palestinian state. It is, thus, Israel that denies any Palestinian state’s right to exist.

Instead, Israel is expanding the occupation of Palestinian territory, and when faced with resistance, it asserts its own “right to self-defense.” However, in 1983, the UN General Assembly explicitly affirmed Palestinians’ right to self-defense “by all available means, including armed struggle,” a right they share with all nations under “colonial domination, apartheid and foreign occupation,” as asserted in the Geneva Conventions. This right does not include violence against Israeli civilians, which Hamas militants have perpetrated. Such violence may qualify as war crimes. Nevertheless, the Geneva Conventions make clear that the “right to self-defense” belongs to the occupied, not the occupier. Any military or police action taken by an occupier against the occupied – even when the occupied uses violence against occupation – is violence, not self-defense.

Another instance of Israeli deception can be seen in Israeli politicians’ regular insistence that Palestinian schools teach their children to hate Jews. UNRWA – the main sponsor of education in the West Bank and Gaza – was accused of spreading incitement of violence and hatred of Jews in their textbooks. However, the European Union review of Palestinian schoolbooks has concluded that they include “a strong focus on human rights… express a narrative of resistance within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and…display an antagonism towards Israel.” None of this equates to hatred of Jews. The accusation of Palestinian schoolbooks spreading hatred is also debunked by The European Middle East Project.

The EU report further notes that textbooks produced by Israeli authorities removed “entire chapters on regional and Palestinian history”, which “fundamentally changes the [Palestinian] national narrative.” Israeli state school books often simply ignore the Palestinian presence, and perpetually depict Israel and Jews as victims of Palestinian and Arab enemy.

No wonder, then, that Israeli girls sing about the annihilation of Gaza on an online Israeli TV program, and Israeli soldiers in Gaza make videos broadcasting their mocking, humiliation, and killing of Palestinian civilians as well as their destruction or looting of Palestinian property. These soldiers are not necessarily right-wing Zionists like some of the Jewish citizens blocking aid to Gaza or trying to build houses within Gaza’s borders. Nor are they necessarily the Jewish settlers from the West Bank. Many of them are just ordinary citizens. But in their ordinariness, they provide a frightening and accurate picture of Israeli society’s general views of Palestinians. This is why a majority of Israeli citizens support the genocide in Gaza even if they do not support Israel’s prime minister and his government.

Finally, contrary to their lament of “grave concern” for “suffering in Gaza,” and their often self-serving statements, politicians outside Israel are far from powerless to stop the bloodshed in Gaza. Even within the classical diplomatic arsenal, individual states can expel Israel’s ambassadors and recall their own. They can impose sanctions or boycott Israeli businesses, politicians, cultural and sports representatives (as they have done, with vigor, with regard to Russia and Russians). They can stop their arms exports to Israel, sever economic relations, and multiply their financial support for humanitarian organizations operating in Gaza (rather than cutting that support). Only a handful of states have actually recalled their ambassadors from Israel. No Western state is among them, and except Bahrain, no other rich Arab state.

How can it be that the people who have demonstrated endlessly in support of Palestinians—and have identified and urged many of these measures—know more than powerful heads of state about strategies to stop the genocide?

The answer, of course, is that governments do know. And that reality brings us to some hard truths.

Hard Truths

Palestinians have no friends among Western governments. They have known this hard truth for a long time, and their knowledge has been confirmed in a most dreadful way. Even though a few European countries (like Spain and Ireland) have used very sharp language against Israel, they have taken no steps that would protect the lives of Palestinians in Gaza and in the West Bank. The United States and a few Western governments have bragged that they have imposed (travel and banking) sanctions on a few Jewish settlers and settlements. But this is a ludicrous substitute for effective action. Some Western leaders and governments now face court cases, brought by pro-Palestinian human rights organizations and lawyers, charging that they have violated both domestic and international laws by supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza (by supplying of ammunition to Israel), or by their failures to stop it. But, thus far, judicial interventions have not brought effective protections to the victims of genocide.

Palestinians also do not have friends among Arab governments, nor should they expect any. Their “Arab brothers” have expressed “deep concerns” about the Palestinian plight, but they have other, more important concerns, such as importing Israeli surveillance technology to keep checks on political opponents. Saudi Arabia, who long held to a policy of linking normalization with Israel to Israel’s recognition of the Palestinian state, now speaks only about a “path to Palestinian statehood.”

This means that Palestinians need their own new political force to achieve both formal recognition of statehood and peace with Israel. Are either of these two goals feasible? For now, there is no sign that various Palestinian factions will achieve unity, which is an absolutely necessary precondition to any long-term, sustainable Palestinian state. Hamas and Fatah have held numerous talks to no avail. Clearly, it is not easy to reconcile secular and Islamist worldviews, ideas of governance and ideals of societal relations. Even various Islamist factions do not see eye to eye. But without such unity, prior to the end of genocide and occupation, post-genocide and post-occupation Palestine will descend into internal violence and struggle for power. As for peace with Israel, the state of affairs in twentieth-century post-genocide societies does not offer grounds for much optimism. Genocides do not destroy only people, their cultures, and their histories. They destroy hope and imagination, too, which are necessities for building peace.

Israel, too, needs a new political force to build a totally new national narrative based on language from a dictionary very different from the dictionary of deception. The Israeli public’s overwhelming support of the destruction of Gaza, occupation of the West Bank, and expansion of settlements means that creating such a new political force and language could take generations, if ever. Still, it is possible to imagine that one day an Israeli public that is currently supporting the annihilation of Gaza may begin asking itself: “How has a state created to give hope to survivors of genocide turned into a perpetrator of genocide? What have I given my voice to and what have I been silent about?”

Unless and until this happens, there is no hope for either Israel or Palestine. Nor for the world within which all of us exist.

Reprinted from Foreign Policy in Focus with permission.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Dubravka Žarkov retired in 2018 as an Associate Professor of Gender, Conflict and Development at the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University of Rotterdam, the Netherlands where she taught feminist epistemologies, conflict theories and media representations of war and violence. Her books include The Body of War: Media, Ethnicity and Gender in the Break-up of Yugoslavia (2007) and the co-edited collection Narratives of Justice In and Out of the Courtroom, Former Yugoslavia and Beyond (with Marlies Glasius, 2014). She was a co-editor of the European Journal of Women’s Studies. She lives in Belgrade, Serbia.

 

Gaza is now threatened by acute famine — we need to keep calling for a ceasefire and food aid concessions

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The number of people unable to access food in Gaza continues to grow despite urgent calls for a ceasefire and the opening of borders to humanitarian aid organizations. In this blog article, Dorothea Hilhorst highlights the social and societal consequences of famine, showing why it is imperative to act immediately and concertedly. As people grow more desperate, social and societal order begins to break down — something that must urgently be acknowledged and prevented through an immediate ceasefire and the unrestricted opening of Gaza’s borders to aid. If we don’t, Gaza can shortly face acute famine, she writes.

 

Palestinian crowds struggle to buy bread from a bakery in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Sunday, Feb. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)

 

The United Nations has declared that the north of Gaza is at immediate risk of famine. Vice-President of the European Commission Joseph Borrell along with many others holds Israel responsible for this development. Israel, meanwhile, has referred to the ‘chaotic’ scenes that surrounded previous aid deliveries as the cause of growing hunger. A more realistic reading of the situation is that the chaos is not a cause of acute hunger, but a direct consequence of it. We can all use our own imagination of what famine means for the health of people that experience it, yet famine is a multi-sided phenomenon that has both social and societal consequences. Understanding these consequences should only increase calls for an immediate ceasefire and the opening of Gaza’s borders to humanitarian aid organizations.

One step away from acute famine

Malnutrition and hunger is classified by the UN in five ‘phases’— with the first phase representing complete food security, and the second and third phases representing growing malnutrition. The fourth phase, which was declared in Gaza several weeks ago, is referred to as a ‘nutritional catastrophe’. The fifth phase is acute famine, whereby more than 20% of the general population are affected by acute hunger and/or 30% of children suffer the same, and/or two in 10.000 die every day as a direct result of hunger.

The phases are paired with social and societal symptoms. Usual social order is seen to continue in the second and third phases, where people generally still feel like they have a part to play in a society and feel part of a community. In this phase, a family might be prepared to share the contents of their food aid package with a vulnerable neighbour. Local government continues to function and can make sure that food is distributed effectively.

Social cohesion breaks down when food scarcity persists

The fourth phase changes all of this: when there is catastrophic food scarcity, people tend to narrow their social gaze and everything in their lives revolves around their own family, and especially their children. This effect of this is logical and rational: if a food aid truck comes to where you live (or are sheltering), you’ll try to do anything to access some of the limited supplies available. Whether it’s by pushing, shoving, or indeed fighting, people will do anything to make sure that their children can eat. In this situation, people might steal food from their neighbours rather than share it. Local government officials are also caught up in this need —if police officers for example need to feed their families, they will prioritize that over maintaining social order.

Indeed, we have witnessed these symptoms in Gaza too in the last weeks. When aid deliveries do make it through the border, they become scenes of chaos and fighting.  At the societal level, the situation is exacerbated because fewer and fewer Gazan police officers are able to work due to the war. They are at high risk of being shot because whoever wears an official uniform in Gaza runs the risk of being identified as a Hamas militant. Several police officers have been shot dead due to this.

A lack of food aid will lead to more chaos, not less

A reaction to the chaos and fighting during aid deliveries has been to strangle off the amount of food aid that is allowed into Gaza and to seal shut the borders of the territory. In the last month, there have been even fewer (not more!) deliveries of food aid through the border despite the clear call by the International Court of Justice to admit more aid. This is exactly the wrong policy response: the fighting and chaos at distribution points is not a specific characteristic of Gazans but a logical consequence of the fourth phase of a food crisis — one where everyone is desperately focused on the immediate needs of their own family and children. Both you and I would likely react in the same way in similar circumstances. The only way to remedy this situation is to immediately distribute more food in order to move the food crisis back to a less dangerous phase.

This is not happening. What we’re seeing now is a move further away from this because Gaza is being further sealed off by Israel. The territory is sliding towards phase five — acute famine. From a societal angle, this will be paired with full social disruption and breakdown. I can already foresee comments of Gaza having become completely ‘uncontrollable’, as if this is some innate quality of the Gazans. In reality, though, this will be an unavoidable consequence of famine. The only effective strategy left to help Gazan people is an immediate ceasefire and the opening of borders to humanitarian aid.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Dorothea Hilhorst is professor of Humanitarian Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University.

Fallout from Gaza: An academic community’s responses to the situation in Palestine

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Few regional conflicts have had as much of a global impact as the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Outbursts of violence, like the terrorist Hamas attacks and taking of hostages of October 7 and Israel’s massive retaliatory attacks since then, have sparked strong responses everywhere, including in our academic community at the International Institute of Social Studies. Having experienced those dynamics for two months now, it is time for some reflections. I offer mine, as rector of ISS, but obviously also as one human being among all.

Feeling

The first layer of responses in our academic community post-October 7 were emotional in nature. A number of students, PhD-candidates, and staff were not simply shocked or “uncomfortable” about what they saw. They were enraged by the sheer magnitude of the Israeli military response and the enormous humanitarian consequences for the Gazan population, including for so many children. This sense of rage stays on until today, fueled by what they regard as a lack of responsibility by other countries, by international organizations, and also by universities, including the ISS. ‘Why’, they asked, ‘do universities not explicitly condemn Israel’s actions that punish the whole Palestinian population in response to a terrorist act, speak out against genocide and apartheid, join the BDS-movement (boycott, disinvest, sanction Israël), and choose the side of the Palestinian victims of oppression?’

For me, this emotional layer is an important one, because it deals with our gut feelings, our moral intuitions, our fundamental stance when human dignity is trampled upon. It cannot be dismissed as ‘mere feelings’. It is also important because it signifies that we are all affected as human beings. To a degree we are experiencing a form of indirect and collective traumatization, which means that we don’t respond only rationally, but also from our fundamental instincts. Just like we cannot expect people in Gaza and Israel to respond in a purely rational manner to a life-threatening situation, we cannot expect those within our academic community to be fully rational when the foundations of morality and security are shocked.

Hence, the first thing we needed at the outset, to process this rage, was care and safety, not debates and fights. This holds true for those who have been personally affected because they have family and friends who have been living in Israel and Palestine. As university leaders, we immediately reached out to our staff, PhD candidates and students who we knew had a direct connection with the region. For example, we learned that one member of our academic community has lost more than 45 members of their family in Gaza in the past two months. We obviously missed a few people, because we didn’t always know each other’s connections, and this is something for us to reflect on for the future.

 

Thinking

Offering care for these feelings is not enough. As an academic institution, we are called to bring our knowledge and insight to a troubled and complex world. We have supported our scholars who have engaged in public appearances, for example on humanitarian issues and international rights and who have published opinion pieces. We organized a Teach-In just two weeks after 7 October at both our Hague (ISS) and Rotterdam (Woudestein) campuses, in which lecturers shared their insights on trauma, human rights, the position of children, the political economy and also the role of media in filtering information. These Teach-Ins, held at Erasmus University and other academic institutions, in which our faculty members also participated, helped not only to share knowledge. They also helped to transform a primarily emotion-driven response into one that also incorporated an academic and analytical attitude. By engaging with psychological, legal, humanitarian, historical, developmental and economic insights, we moved to a second layer of responses in which we asked ourselves how academics can contribute to thinking about a meaningful way of coping with the tragedies and cruelties we witness in the world.

The Teach-Ins were valuable, but not easy. The process of challenging each other to reflect, academically was not self-evident. Emotions still played a major role in framing peoples’ responses within our community, but also triggered a plea for institutional action. Here we faced a dilemma in that many of those participating in these and similar events shared a particular perspective on the situation in Gaza; this made the opportunities for dialogue less diverse and inclusive than they could have been. Students and staff who might be inclined to sympathize with Israeli population or to critique Palestine leadership were less visible. Some students approached me at different moments asking why we showed less interest in other conflicts, oppressions, and human rights violations in the world. They felt excluded that events focused only on Gaza, especially when accompanied by strong moral messaging. This remains a dilemma: how to accommodate and support, on the one hand, our community members who feel that we should speak out and act, and on the other hand, respond to members who feel that attention should also be given to Yemen, Sudan, Azerbaijan, Ethiopia or Myanmar.

 

Acting

That brings me to a third layer of responses: action. This took shape already in the early days of the post-October 7 surge of violence when students protested on our doorstep and remained visible in posters and messages distributed among our community. It was presented to the ISS leadership in the form of a request to issue explicit statements and break ties with Israeli institutions. Anything less than that would be understood by a substantial part of our community as neglecting our moral responsibility as an institution devoted to social justice. At the same time, we had to look critically at the role of academics and institutions in the midst of massive disinformation that sometimes also limits our potential to reach conclusions about what is happening.

Navigating these demands, it was clear for me and colleagues  in university leadership positions that we indeed needed to act. Neutrality in the face of violence is not an option. But we were also very clear that our role had to be knowledge-based and that our primary task was and remains to preserve academic freedom and to facilitate our scholars – from students to professors – to contribute their academic insights to society. We are grateful for the courage of all our scholars to do so and for the wisdom they bring to the world. We have witnessed how they have condemned the Hamas atrocities and also addressed Israeli atrocities, including violations of humanitarian law, and especially the cruelty of punishing an entire population with – as they argued – genocidal intent.

As an academic institute, we exercise restraint in speaking out by way of performative statements, especially because the protection of academic freedom is necessary to safeguard the space for our scholars to speak the truth. When the university itself defines what counts as true, just, and right, that immediately restricts the freedom of other academics. We do not remain neutral because we are afraid to take a stand. It is absolutely clear that as an institution committed to researching Global Development and Social Justice, we stand for the protection of human rights, for the assertion of humanitarian responsibilities, and for the need to ensure peace, justice and accountability. However, the Institute refrains from speaking out beyond these general principles. This will always remain a balancing act between saying too much and saying too little.

The fallout from the present tragedy in Gaza will continue to affect us. It leaves us with dilemmas on how to act. We will continue to organize care for the members of our community who are suffering. We will facilitate learning and nurture critical thinking. We will build our networks internationally and stimulate joint academic contributions towards a just world. We will not be unaffected. Indeed, we feel there should be more done than what we are capable of doing as academics. And when we operate as an institution with this kind of restraint, we are aware it will not be enough in the eyes of a substantial part of our community. But, we may be most effective if we contribute what suits our role: universities protecting academic freedom, so that scholars can share their knowledge and insights with the world, and scholar-activists take the firmer stand. The dialogue between those roles can hold us together in working toward a peaceful future.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Prof. dr. (Ruard) RR Ganzevoort is the rector of the International Institute of Social Studies in Den Haag (part of Erasmus University Rotterdam) as well as professor of Lived Religion and Development.

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Jewish scholars refuse to be silent about Gaza

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There have been many statements, petitions, Op-Eds and other forms of concern and condemnation from scholars following the resurgence of violence around the impasse between Israel and the Palestinians. This also includes Jewish scholars, such as an open letter from Jewish students at Brown University and another from Jewish writers. Moreover, there have been critical Jewish organisations that have long-supported a Palestinian-centred narrative, including the Promised Land Museum, and in particular their tribute to the late German-Dutch phycisist Dr. Hajo Meyer, Zochrot and Jewish Voices for Peace. In the same spirit, as Jewish employees and students at Dutch universities, universities of applied science and research institutions, we also refuse to stay silent about Gaza, and so present the following statement.

Photo: Wikimedia CC BY-SA 3.0 Deed, Destruction in Gaza, October 2023

We, Jewish employees and students in Dutch universities, universities of applied science and research institutions, refuse to stay silent about the recent surge in violence in Gaza.

We raise our voices to speak out against Israel’s war of destruction against the over two million Palestinians in Gaza, and demand an immediate cease fire. The high numbers of civilian victims of the Israeli bombardments so far, including the killing of thousands of children, a complete blockade for primary necessities of life in Gaza by Israel, and the actions and words of Israeli officials all justify the fear of a second Nakba; ethnic cleansing or genocide of the Palestinian population. “Never again” for us means never again for anyone.

We feel deep pain for the many civilian casualties during the attacks by Hamas on 7 October 2023. Precisely because we want to see an end to such gruesome violence, we refuse to abide by the logic of revenge that already has cost the lives of multiple times as many Palestinian civilians. We understand that the current wave of violence did not start with the actions of 7 October 2023, but is rooted in a long history of colonization, occupation and unequal treatment targeting the Palestinian people. If ending the current war against Gaza will only lead to a return to the status quo ante, this will mean a continuation of the violence that for Palestinians is a permanent reality. Peace, in this situation, will just be the prelude to the next major war.

Lasting peace is only possible on the basis of justice. At the very least, this means the recognition that the rule of law and human rights apply to all inhabitants of historic Palestine. It means recognizing the right of self-determination of the Palestinians, ending the blockade of Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank, acknowledgement of the right of return for all Palestinian refugees, and equal rights between Palestinians and Jews from the Mediterranean to the river Jordan.

We promise to continue our efforts in this direction, during and after the current war. We support the call from Palestinian civil society for ceasing all forms of cooperation with Israeli institutions that contribute to the occupation of Palestinian territories and the unequal treatment of the Palestinian population.

As long as the injustice for Palestinians persists, we demand that our institutions speak out against this as firmly as they did one and a half years ago at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We forcefully resist any form of racism, islamophobia, antisemitism or other types of hate speech. We are inspired by the many Jewish voices in and outside of Israel that take a principled stance for Palestinian rights. As Jewish opponents of the Israeli actions, we are indignant about the attempts to equate criticism of the Israeli state and support for Palestinian rights with antisemitism. Islamophobia and antisemitism in response to the current war are very real problems. We ask our institutions to take active measures against a climate of threats, polarization and discrimination. However, to do so does not give a free pass to censor critical anti-war voices.

A safe learning environment does not preclude a firm stance against war and injustice. On the contrary, such a firm stance is our shared duty.

This statement was first published in Dutch in the NRC Handelsbad on13 November 2023.

Image Source: Wikimedia CC BY-SA 3.0 Deed, Destruction in Gaza, October 2023.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Dr. Alessandra Benedicty-Kokken (Lecturer, Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, University of Amsterdam).

Prof. dr. Pepijn Brandon (Professor of Global History, Free University of Amsterdam).

Alcide Breaux (Student, Sandberg Institute and Gerrit Rietveld Academie).

Zazie van Dorp (BA Philosophy, LLB Law & employee University of Amsterdam).

Dr. Jacob Engelberg (Lecturer, Film, Media and Culture, University of Amsterdam).

Dr. Sai Englert (Lecturer, University of Leiden).

Gabriel Gottlieb (Student, Econometrics, Erasmus University Rotterdam).

Dr. Aviva de Groot (Postdoctoral researcher AI & Human Rights, TILT, Tilburg University).

Sophia Haid (Student, Media studies, University of Amsterdam).

Dr. Jeff Handmaker (Associate Professor of Legal Sociology, ISS, Erasmus University Rotterdam).

Levi Hilz (Student, Sociology, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam).

Dr. Joost Kircz (Emeritus Lector Electronic Publishing, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences).

Naomi Kreitman (Student, Sandberg Institute).

Dr. Anna Mai (Postdoctoraal researcher, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics).

Yuval Molina Obedman, Ma (Recently graduated in Philosophy, University of Amsterdam, and International Relations, University of Leiden).

Dr. Tzula Propp (Postdoctotaal researcher, TU Delft).

Dr. Patricia Schor (Postdoctoral researcher, Free University of Amsterdam).

Juliet Tanzer (Student, Utrecht University).

Dr. Anya Topolski (Associate Professor, Ethics and Political Philosophy, Radboud University Nijmegen).

Dr. Markha Valenta (Lecturer, American Studies, Utrecht University).

Itaï van der Wal (Student LLM, Utrecht University).

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

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Militaries can’t target essential infrastructure during war—so why can they target telecoms?

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In this blog, Tom Ansell looks through an International Humanitarian Law lens at cutting mobile network and internet access, such as recent targeting of telecoms by the Israeli military during their ongoing retaliation against Palestinian people in Gaza. Whilst the cutting off of utilities such as electricity and water are considered to fall under a ban on collective punishment, International Humanitarian Law does not mention cutting off communication infrastructures. When we consider how vital phone and internet services are for human dignity, organizing relief efforts, and documenting war crimes or countering misinformation, it might be time to consider the deliberate cutting off internet and telecoms access as a breach of International Humanitarian Law and so a war crime.

Image by Troy Squillaci on Pexels

During the Israeli ground invasion unfolding in Gaza, and the accompanying aerial bombing campaign, there have been widespread reports of internet and communications blackouts – caused by heavy and deliberate bombardment of telecoms infrastructure, and confirmed by the UN. Whilst slightly different compared to ‘switch offs’ by governments, and paling in comparison to the bombing of civilians, cutting off people’s (particularly non-combatants) means of communications and creating a ‘blackout’ is nevertheless an important and under-reported element of modern warfare. International Humanitarian Law (IHL), the so-called ‘laws of war’ which are made up of a number of legal conventions and treaties (most famously the 1949 Geneva Conventions, itself signed by Israel) and have been signed by most countries around the world, don’t mention preserving civilian communications.

So, considering how important mobile and internet access is not only for keeping in touch, but also coordinating societal responses to disasters such as war and documenting the associated chaos, should we consider telecoms infrastructure in a similar way to how we consider water infrastructure in war, as something off-limits for military targeting and thus protected?

 

Cutting off water, medical systems, and electricity are already War Crimes

During a war, an occupying power (i.e., the military or armed forces that has invaded) has several legal obligations set out in IHL. Breaking these are considered ‘war crimes’, and are punishable at the International Criminal Court or a special tribunal. Cutting off water, medical systems, electricity, food, aid, and unnecessarily targeting civilian infrastructure are considered War Crimes because they amount to ‘collective punishment’ of a civilian population. This is expressly forbidden by Article 33 of the 1949 Geneva Convention on Civilians – and since then there have been various updates and treaties that form part of IHL that also expressly forbid targeting or deliberately destroying ‘Objects Indispensable to the Survival of the Civilian Population’. These generally refer to foodstuff, water, and medical supplies (evidently vital to survival), and whilst telecommunications aren’t on the same existential level of food and water, with an estimated 6.7 billion smartphone subscriptions worldwide in 2023 (according to Statista), and the embeddedness of mobile phones in our lives, I’d suggest that smartphones have become indispensable to the survival of civilians in general.

Telecommunications and internet access is fast-becoming seen as a human right, too; closely linked to existing rights of Assembly, Expression, and Development. For example, in 2023 the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the UN said that “It may be time to reinforce universal access to the Internet as a human right, and not just a privilege” . Various countries around the world are also enshrining the right to internet access and connection in their laws, from its inclusion within the constitution of Greece , the Kerala High Court in India upholding access to the internet as covered by the right to education in the Indian Constitution, to Costa Rica’s Constitutional Court ruling that all Costa Ricans have the fundamental right to access information technology, especially the internet. Whilst it is true that Human Rights Law and International Humanitarian Law are different (for several legal reasons), IHL intends to protect the life and dignity of innocent people in war—meaning that there is at least a strong relationship and affinity in their intent.

 

Smartphones are vital for connecting and coordinating, especially in times of conflict

Let’s not forget that when we talk about cutting off all means of communication and access to the internet, we aren’t just looking at people not being able to contact their loved ones or the outside world (as bad as that is). People’s lives are put at risk by a ‘communications blackout’, because emergency relief is very often coordinated via mobile data and internet connections. When communications were cut off in Gaza on October 27, the Palestinian Red Crescent society reported that it had lost contact with its control room in Gaza, and that people were unable to call the 101 emergency number. If emergency aid organisations are unable to keep in contact with their staff, they can’t know if their staff are safe – nor can they know if their efforts to deliver food, medical, or other relief has been successful or needs to be targeted elsewhere.

A 2012 Save the Children report (completed in partnership with the Vodafone Foundation) makes it clear how important mobile phones are for providing information during a disaster. For example, after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, information messages were sent out via the mobile network ‘Voila’ by the International Federation of the Red Cross –95% of recipients said that the information they received was useful, and 90% said that the information they received helped them make a preparation or change as a result. And it’s not just information that’s sent through mobile networks, either, with emergency cash transfers often sent in this way.

We can see the value of access to mobile data in the current violence in Gaza (and previous instances too), with Israel apparently warning civilians in Gaza of impending military action or airstrikes by phone call or automated text message. Quite how these warning messages can be received without mobile network access, though, is an open question.

 

Documenting serious war crimes and countering false information

It’s certainly true that cutting off mobile communications and access to the internet is an act with fewer direct deaths and injuries than other more grave offences, yet having access to mobile data is important in documenting and ‘proving’ these other serious crimes. This has become extremely clear during the conflict in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion in February 2022, with the Ukrainian government even setting up an online service (‘e-Enemy’) for people to submit their pictures, videos, and messages that document brutality against civilians and other war crimes. This crowd-sourced evidence could prove vital in securing convictions for crimes should Russian military commanders or even politicians end up in front of the ICJ or a tribunal. And, as AccessNow warns, cutting off the internet could lessen the chances of Palestinians documenting serious war crimes. Allowing people to access social media and present their own documentary-style proof of their lived experience gives people voices, and also allows the countering of false and dangerous narratives with documentary evidence.

 

So, should cutting off the internet and telecommunications be a war crime?

International Humanitarian Law specifies a wide spectrum of ‘war crimes’, and whilst we often immediately think of the most grievous, any breach of IHL is a criminal act. Hence, and considering mobile connectivity’s important role in preserving human dignity, coordinating emergency aid response, documenting war crimes, perhaps the deliberate targeting of telecommunications should be included in the definition of ‘collective punishment’.

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Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Tom Ansell is the Coordinator of the Humanitarian Studies Centre and International Humanitarian Studies Association.

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The recent upsurge of violence in Israel and Palestine signifies a “prelude to genocide”. How could this happen?

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The tragedy that has been continually unfolding in Palestine for the past 75 years recently took a dramatic turn when Palestinian armed groups broke through the steel gates closing off Gaza and entered Israel on 7 October 2023. While the details of what occurred are gruesome, but also very unclear, their actions led to a further escalation by Israel, with senior figures in the Israeli government vowing revenge in terms that are tantamount to an incitement to commit genocide. The massive loss of human life and deliberate targeting of civilians has been accompanied by feelings of incredulity. People are asking: How could this happen? In this article, human rights and legal mobilisation scholar Jeff Handmaker provides some context.

Boiling point reached after many years of oppression

Even for someone like myself who has been closely following the situation in Palestine for more than 25 years, the human cost of what we have been seeing in the past few days has been difficult to fathom. Veteran Ha’aretz journalist Amira Hass in describing the sheer scale of what’s currently happening noted that:

In a few days Israelis went through what Palestinians have experienced as a matter of routine for decades, and are still experiencing – military incursions, death, cruelty, slain children, bodies piled up in the road, siege, fear, anxiety over loved ones, captivity, being targets of vengeance, indiscriminate lethal fire at both those involved in the fighting (soldiers) and the uninvolved (civilians), a position of inferiority, destruction of buildings, ruined holidays or celebrations, weakness and helplessness in the face of all-powerful armed men, and searing humiliation.

Hass’s statement captures why it is so challenging for Israelis and Palestinians (and their supporters) to recognise the other’s humanity. Israelis find it hard to see the other’s humanity, as they have been promised that they would be safe and secure behind colonial borders and have only now experienced atrocities at this scale. Palestinians also find it hard to see the other’s humanity as they have never suffered the illusion that they were safe and secure behind colonial borders and have been experiencing atrocities at this scale for more than 75 years.

 

The Hamas attack didn’t come out of the blue

It is important in this context to understand what was behind the attacks by Hamas-affiliated groups, purportedly in response to Israel’s appalling treatment of Palestinians who remain under occupation in the Gaza Strip. It was purportedly also linked to the Israeli government’s open support of settler colonialism in the West Bank, as well as brutal attacks against largely peaceful demonstrators during the “Great March of Return”  in 2018 and recent provocations around the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. One should remember what life in Palestine looks like at present, particularly in the Gaza Strip, and how it got there.

To begin with, Gaza is one of the most densely populated regions in the world, with more than two million people living in an area of approximately 362 square kilometres (smaller than the Caribbean island of Curacao, which has a population of 153,000). Moreover, Gaza has been subject to a strict military blockade since 2007 that has limited the freedom and opportunities of Palestinians in a fundamental way. It is frequently described as an open-air prison, and many have called the oppressive governance of the area by Israel as nothing other than an apartheid state. This is why the attack on 7 October has been referred to by commentators such as Israeli journalist Amira Hass as part of a “cycle of violence” that “shouldn’t surprise anyone”. In other words, it should be seen in context and not as an isolated event.

 

Reacting to a long history of domination and oppression

To grasp the deeper context of the current violence, it’s also important to understand three key historical moments, none of which obviously excuses the committing of international crimes. Each of these historical moments has involved extensive human rights violations and international crimes in the context of Israel’s long record of domination and oppression of Palestinians.

The first key moment was in 1948, when Zionist founders of the State of Israel committed a series of operations which, according to scholars such as Walid Khalidi, Ilan Pappe, and Nur Masalha, amounted to a mass expulsion and ‘ethnic cleansing’ of historical Palestine. This is referred to by Palestinians as the ‘Nakba’, or ‘Catastrophe’. Approximately one-third of uprooted and dispossessed Palestinians ended up living in refugee camps in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, assisted by the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies. Around one-quarter of these refugees today reside in refugee camps in Gaza, and comprising around two-thirds of the population of Gaza.

The second key moment was the Israeli military’s capture of additional territories in 1967, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Golan, and Gaza. This resulted in further and forced displacement, movement restrictions, and other daily restrictions as Israel established settlements in the occupied territory. Israel withdrew the settlers 38 years later but has continuously maintained its occupation of the Gaza territory by air, sea, and land.

The third and most recent moment is Israel’s blockade of the territory starting 2007 in its current, extreme form, whereby it has been extremely difficult, and at times impossible, for Palestinians living in Gaza to access medicine, building materials, food, humanitarian assistance, and even electricity and water. Patients requiring advanced medical care that the overstretched hospitals in Gaza cannot provide have limited options due to the blockade, and as a result, many – including children – have died of easily treatable ailments. According to Physicians for Human Rights, the deteriorating healthcare situation has been particularly straining for women in Gaza. The ability of students to study abroad has also been extremely limited. Moreover, according to the United Nations, during the course of several brutal military operations, Israel has killed more than 6,400 Palestinians.

While these were key moments in what many commentators have characterised as Israel’s settler-colonial and apartheid regime against Palestinians, it is impossible to explain all dimensions. Suffice it to say that numerous documented violations that have been committed throughout these periods are currently the subject of an international criminal investigation by the International Criminal Court, albeit greatly delayed.

 

From oppression to onslaught

This brings us to 9 October 2023, when the government of Israel announced a “total” blockade of the Gaza Strip, including cutting off the electricity, food, and water supply to the area. Gazans were warned by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that they are to pay an “immense price” for the actions of Hamas and have warned Palestinians to “get out of there [Gaza] now” as the Israeli military was going to “turn all Hamas hiding places … into rubble”.

Of course, Netanyahu knows full well that Palestinians in Gaza have nowhere to go; Israel’s military have even bombed the one remaining exit route, the Rafah Crossing, and have refused to set up a humanitarian corridor. Thus, at a bare minimum, Israel’s actions amount to the war crime of collective punishment, directed at a captive population with nowhere to go. And with 300,000 Israeli reservists having been called up to serve in active military duty, fears are that the consequences for the people of Gaza could be far greater than they have ever been before.

 

A prelude to genocide?

Some years ago, Richard Falk, a Princeton University professor and former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, was said to have characterised the ongoing siege of Gaza as a “prelude to genocide”.[i] It is immensely worrying that more and more parties are starting to believe that Falk’s sober prediction might be coming true. Human rights NGOs have long referred to the oppression of the Palestinians and the control of Gaza as a crime against humanity.[ii] However, it is especially recent events and public proclamations of retaliation by Netanyahu as well as by military commanders referring to Gazans as ‘human animals’ and vowing to give them ‘hell’, that are making Falk’s claim seem more and more believable.

Taken together, the evidence suggests there are very well-founded fears that what we are now witnessing are very explicit intentions to accomplish the genocide of the Palestinian residents of Gaza. Rather than simply asking how this could happen and extending unconditional diplomatic support and military aid to Israel, observers of this carnage should also ask themselves how the carnage can be stopped. The answer is certainly not to commit further atrocities.

[i] These developments should also be seen in light of the ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh in September 2023, in which Israel also played a central role in and for which there have been limited consequences for the government of Azerbaijan, could readily be seen as a prelude to genocide in and of itself.

[ii] While Gazans have long characterised that what they are experiencing as a ‘slow-motion genocide’ that has created an almost uninhabitable situation for many of its two million inhabitants, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, B’tselem and others have characterised as the oppression of Palestinians in Gaza as an apartheid regime, which like genocide is also a crime against humanity. Reinforcing these concerns, a group of eight renowned Palestinian research institutes and human rights organizations, including Al Haq, have further explained how Israel’s discriminatory and exclusionary polices are an explicit and expansive tool of settler-colonialism and ‘structural and institutionalised racism’.

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About the author:

Dr. Jeff Handmaker is Associate Professor of Legal Sociology at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam and has published widely on topics concerning Israel’s decades-long impasse with the Palestinians. He conducts research on legal mobilization.

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Russian citizens under threat from within: The increasing repression of anti-war voices in Russia

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Amid continued international condemnation and sanctioning of Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, voices opposing the war can be heard within Russia too. However, Russian citizens are exposed to an increasing risk of repression due to excessive state control over their opposition to the war, and the institutional manipulation that justifies the invasion and criminalises anti-war voices.

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, individuals, organisations, and governments around the world have condemned the Putin regime and are calling for an immediate end to the war. While every voice is precious, of particular note, however, are the voices against the war blossoming inside Russia. Russian citizens are taking political action, individually and collectively, to express their opposition to the devastating actions of the Putin regime. For example, not only did an online petition in Russia, initiated by a human rights activist, demanding an end to the war garnered more than 1.5 million signatures in just a few days, but also sizeable anti-war protests continue to be held in cities across the country.

Anti-war protests in Russia are not a one-time event, but have rather continued as a series of popular political actions targeting the Putin government. However, their action often ends badly. In late February, thousands of Russian citizens started a protest, and more than 1,700 people in 54 cities were detained by the police under the charge of conducing illegitimate protests. Since 24 February, over 15,000 people have been detained for anti-war actions, according to the OVD-Info, an independent Russian media outlet on human rights and political repression. Anyone – children, ordinary adults, independent reporters, opposition politicians, and activists who openly criticise the invasion – can fall into a cycle of intimidation, detention, and criminal prosecution. The police in Moscow even took two women and five children to a police station for holding placards displaying the words ‘No War’ and attempting to place flowers in front of the Ukrainian Embassy.

The Putin regime is, now, more boldly directing the institutional conditions to its advantage to justify the invasion and to silence anti-war voices. This month, the Putin regime enacted laws that identify independent reporting or public opposition to the war as crimes of spreading false information, and which are subject to up to 15 years imprisonment. Also, recent provisions added to the Criminal Code and to the Code of Administrative Offences criminalise criticisms of the activities of the Russian Armed Forces, and are linked to the current Russian invasion of Ukraine. The authorities nip public protests in the bud by pre-emptively hindering organisers and independent media outlets from sharing details on protest plans with others, and by imposing heavy fines for disseminating information on the ‘illegal’ action of holding a protest.

Through these measures, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is legitimised, at least at the institutional level, whereas public opposition and criticism of the invasion are framed as illegitimate. In this context, Russian citizens raising their voices against the war are particularly exposed to a greater risk of repression and being perceived as law-breakers. Therefore, the language of ‘false information’ and ‘undermining the Russian army’ incorporated into the set of legal documents significantly confines the scope of political action that citizens can engage in, free of the threat of punishment.

According to Freedom House, Russia is categorised as a ‘Not Free’ country, scoring 19 out of 100 — 5/40 in ‘Political Rights’ and 14/60 in ‘Civil Liberties’. These relatively low scores imply that rights to freedom of speech, assembly, and media were being circumscribed even before the invasion of Ukraine. In 2012, Russia put a law into effect that drastically increased the fines for protesters violating public order rules — fines increased nearly 150 times, from 2,000 roubles to 300,000 roubles (approximately 2,000 euros), and up to one million roubles (approximately 7,500 euros) for protest organisers. Furthermore, several rounds of legislative amendments since 2014 have led to even non-violent protest organisers and participants experiencing severe and frequent curtailment of freedoms, leading to questions about the extent and conditions under which even peaceful protests are identified as unlawful by the Russian authorities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Seohee Kwak is a Guest Researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR). Her academic interests include political rights, contentious political action, authoritarian/democratic politics, and state-society relations.

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The War in Ukraine: Is this the End of the Liberal International Order?

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The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought war back to Europe. The international ramifications of the war are clear, for instance now that President Putin talks about nuclear deterrence and the United Nations has condemned the invasion. This blog argues that a proper assessment of the war in Ukraine should take into consideration the dimensions of international order and the European security order.

The world woke up to hear the news of the Russian invasion into Ukraine in the early morning of 24 February 2022. The invasion followed on weeks of military build-up of Russian troops on the eastern, northern, and southern borders of Ukraine. Many commentators doubted the intentions of Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine, and had hoped for a peaceful ending to the confrontation. Putin’s televised speeches on 21 and 24 February attempted to justify the Russian attack of Ukraine on the basis of alleged activities of western countries to expand their grip on the Eastern European country, and ultimately include it in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) military alliance, as well as the domination of the Ukrainian government by hostile (‘Nazi’) rulers.

Around the world, people are currently following the horrors of the war in Ukraine with growing anxiety. Putin’s announcement that Russian nuclear ‘deterrence’ forces would be put on special alert, allegedly in response to statements by the UK’s Foreign Secretary about a possible clash between NATO and Russia, seem to forebode a return to the days of the Cold War. A resolution in the United Nations General Assembly, demanding the unconditional withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine, was adopted on 2 March 2022 by a 141 to 5 majority, with only Russia, Belarus, North Korea, Syria, and Eritrea voting against it. A proper understanding of the international ramifications of the war in Ukraine needs a focus on deeper-lying processes related to the international order and the European security system.

The post-World War II period has been characterised by what many call a liberal international order. This order applied mainly to the US and its allies during the period of the Cold War, as the Soviet Union managed to build a parallel order. The collapse of the Soviet Union and its military alliance created a so-called ‘unipolar moment’, with the US as the only remaining great power. During the unipolar moment, which is usually dated between 1990 and 2005, the Western alliance assumed growing pretensions regarding the spread of liberal political and economic principles. It is now well recognised that the liberal international order is under attack, and may be giving way for a more pluralistic order, where different principles are embraced by rising powers such as China. The statement issued by China and Russia on the opening day of the 2022 Winter Olympics referred to ‘international relations entering a new era’. The statement provided a clear vision for a new ‘polycentric world order’, where China and Russia would challenge the ‘attempts at hegemony’ of ‘certain states’, which try ‘to impose their own “democratic standards” on other countries, to monopolise the right to assess the level of compliance with democratic criteria, to draw dividing lines based on the grounds of ideology, including by establishing exclusive blocs and alliances of convenience’. Russia, however, may have overestimated the pledge, contained in the Chinese-Russian statement, that there would be ‘no limits’ regarding their friendship and cooperation, as China did not support Russia in vetoing the UN Security Council’s resolution on Ukraine, while it also abstained from voting in the subsequent General Assembly session.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine signals an attempt at overturning the European security order. The order of the past 30 years followed on the Cold War, during which an ‘iron curtain’ separated the Western and Eastern parts of Europe, and the Soviet Union’s military intervened in several member states of the Warsaw Pact. In the post-Cold War period, various countries in Central Europe as well as the Baltic states became members of NATO, a move that was seen as an expansion of democracy in the West. In 2014, the so-called Maidan revolution in Ukraine, which led to the eventual departure of the Russia-backed President, was embraced by a range of West European politicians – something that was questioned by some so-called realist scholars of international relations. Over the years, the legitimacy of the European security order was attacked by a variety of Russian commentators. For instance, the honorary chairman of Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defence Policy, Sergey Karagavov, referred to the ‘Putin doctrine’ that is aimed at ‘constructive destruction’ of the relations between Russia and the West. This doctrine aims at a ‘pivot to the East’, and the prioritisation of Eurasian relations over those with the West, alongside ‘a new kind of relations between Russia and the West, different from what we settled on in the 1990s’. As a clear reflection of Russia’s revisionism, the latter position includes a repudiation of the agreements that were signed by Soviet Union and Russia’s Presidents Gorbachev and Yeltsin, including the Charter of Paris (1990) and the Budapest Memorandum (1994), which provided clauses on freedom of association for previous member states of the Warsaw Pact and security guarantees for Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. The proposed security treaty that President Putin presented to the US and NATO in December 2021 similarly put in question the post-1990 security order in Europe, as it specified that Ukraine would not be offered NATO membership, and that NATO forces should be withdrawn from Central and Eastern Europe.

As the war in Ukraine is now in its third week, and the devastation of the country is increasing, the full implications of Russia’s military action are still unclear. What is clear, however, is that the war will seriously impact the international order of the years and decades ahead. At a minimum, one could expect a new Cold War to characterise political and military relations in Europe, certainly now that the war in Ukraine has led to the resolve of the German government to increase its military spending, and the indications by Finland and Sweden that they may consider NATO membership. Next to this, the call for revision of the principles of the post-World War II global order will continue, with clear support by China, but one can only hope that this will take a less violent turn, unlike the tragic events over the past weeks.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Wil Hout is Professor of Governance and International Political Economy at the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam. He teaches on issues of international order in the Erasmus Minor Evolution of International Order and in the Masters course Politics of Global Development: Debating Liberal Internationalism. Together with Michal Onderco, he is currently co-editing a special issue of the journal Politics and Governance, vol. 10, no. 2 (2022), on ‘Developing Countries and the Crisis of the Multilateral Order’.

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Moving beyond women as victims in post-conflict peacebuilding efforts in Liberia by Christo Gorpudolo

Posted on 4 min read

Liberia, a war-torn country for much of the 1990s, initiated several post-conflict peacebuilding programmes with the hope of building sustainable peace. But a study of the Palava Hut Program as a transitional justice mechanism showed that such efforts can be thwarted by the reduction of women to victims of war. The opportunity to rebuild gender relations damaged during wars can be missed in the process. Besides rethinking the link between women and victimhood, women’s inclusion in peacebuilding programmes based on lived experiences can help to equalize men and women in the peacebuilding process, argues Christo Gorpudolo.

Gender is one of the most damaged relationships during war. War and masculinity re-establishes gender hierarchies, and even after the end of wars such oppressive gender relationships persist. Several post-conflict peacebuilding efforts have been initiated in Liberia following two civil wars that occurred between 1989 and 2003. Most notable amongst these peacebuilding efforts have been the development of document called ‘A Strategic Roadmap for National Healing, Peacebuilding and Reconciliation and the National Palava Hut Program. These efforts are major achievements that have set the pace for peacebuilding in the country. Yet, as important as these peacebuilding efforts seem, how gender is viewed and incorporated within the country’s transitional peacebuilding programmes remains problematic for efforts to build sustainable peace.

Solhjell and Sayndee (2016) assert that Liberia has dominate-subservient gender power relations, which limits the participation of the female gender in public discourses and also affects their bodily integrity by limiting their movement from one social class to the other, especially in public decision-making processes (Solhjell and Sayndee 2016: 12). These general societal perspectives and/or biases of gender roles in Liberia have been key sources for policies informing the transitional justice process.

Gender can be viewed as a social institution that establishes patterns of expectations for individuals, orders the social processes of everyday life, and is built into the major social organizations of society such as the economy, ideology, the family and politics. It is an entity in and of itself (Lorber 1996). In the case of Liberia’s peacebuilding efforts, gender is constructed mostly in terms of women’s numerical inclusion in post-conflict peacebuilding activities. This is based on the generally accepted notion that women form a large portion of those victimized in the civil wars. Therefore, policy makers assume that they should be integrated into the Palava Hut talks numerically to share their stories of survival and receive apologies for the crimes committed against them. Although this assertion could be true, viewing women’s participation based on the lens of victimhood also poses a danger.

As part of my Master’s research at the ISS, in 2019 I conducted a case study of Liberia’s National Palava Hut Program as a transitional justice mechanism. Using Scriven’s argumentation analysis, I  examined national policies that included the Palava Hut Program documents, related program evaluations and implementation reports, and the Strategic Roadmap for National Healing, Peacebuilding and Reconciliation. I specifically looked at issues of gender, including women’s representation in such policies. I found that victims in the studied documents generally referred to women and children. Based on this perception of women and children as victims, the documents advised that women should form part of the Palava Hut Talks to protect their rights that had been violated during the civil war and to address the ‘dishonour’ brought against them by the civil wars.

As important as those statements might sound, this fails to recognize the key role women played in ending direct violence in Liberia. Thus, women should be incorporated into the Palava Hut Program as significant stakeholders in Liberia’s peacebuilding process, not as victims. Viewing women as victims and men as perpetrators within the peacebuilding process can prevent the full realization of sustainable peace through peacebuilding efforts and hinders the possibility for the transitional era to be used as an opportunity to redefine existing gender relations. According to scholars like Catherine O’Rourke (2013), the extreme social disruption caused by political violence that a transitional justice era seeks to address can within the transitional era allow for some loosening of gender norms and create space for women to take up atypical gender roles. This can help reshape gender relations.

A way of approaching peacebuilding in Liberia in order to achieve a gender-just peacebuilding process would be to incorporate both men and women in the peacebuilding process based on their lived experiences—as equals and not necessarily according to a victim-perpetrator dichotomy. Considering lived experiences may help shift the focus of the Palava Hut Program past victims and perpetrators, thereby creating a deeper understanding of the conflict. This would also provide an opportunity to change gender-damaged relationships that persist in post-conflict societies, particularly Liberia.

References:
Lorber, J. (1996) ‘Beyond the Binaries: Depolarizing the Categories of Sex, Sexuality, and Gender’, Socological Inquiry 66(2): 143-160.
O’Rourke, C. (2013) Gender Politics in Transitional Justice. Routledge.
Solhjell, R. and T.D. Sayndee (2016) ‘Gender-Based Violence and Access to Justice: Grand Bassa County, Liberia’

christo

About the authors:

Christo Z. Gorpudolo is a graduate of Development Studies, Social Justice Perspectives (SJP) from the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS).

 

Image Credit: ©Pray the Devil Back to Hell on Wikimedia Commons