THE Peoples’ Republic of China added its strong voice in the global call for a stop to the ongoing genocide being committed by Israel against the Palestinians with the continued backing of American Imperialism and its Western stooges, stating before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) of the Palestinians’ “inalienable right to armed resistance” that is sanctioned by the charter of the United Nations.
Al Jazzerah, reporting from the ICJ at the Hague, informed that Zhang Jun, China’s permanent representative at the UN, told the body last February 22, 2024 that: “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,”
request for an advisory opinion on the issue of occupied Palestinian territory.
Ma Xinmin, Legal Advisor and Director-General of the Department of Treaty and Law of the Foreign Ministry of China, added that even the Arab Convention of 1998 for suppressing terrorism stated that: ‘the right of peoples to combat foreign occupation and aggression by whatever means including armed struggle in order to liberate their territories and to secure the right to self-determination and independence.’
“Armed struggle, in this context is distinguished from acts of terrorism.”
Ma made the comments as the ICJ sought experts’ opinion on the issue of occupied Palestine.
China lent its voice to the cause of the Palestinian’s struggle for national liberation against the yoke of Israel’s occupation of their land for the last five decades, or since the end of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War that is made more brutal by Israel’s continuing massacre of the inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank.
At the rate of Israel’s aggression, the dead is feared to topped 30,000 sooner than later. Majority of Israel’s victims are women and children and more than 2 million people—the entire population of Gaza before October 7, 2023—have been uprooted from their homes.
Last October 7, 2023, members of the indigenous ‘Hamas’ (Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya/ (Islamic Resistance Movement) launched a surprise attack across the border with Israel that resulted to the death of at least 1,200 Israelis. Hundreds more, including foreign nationals, were taken as hostages, and brought by the militants to Gaza for future prisoner exchange with Palestinians earlier arrested by Israel.
However, Israel’s response has been grossly disproportionate to the Hamas attack that it described as an act of “terrorism.”
Before the end of the month, the world began to realize that Israel has a darker agenda of not just retaliation but the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians under the guise of “eliminating” Hamas. By the end of October, over 8,000 Palestinians have been killed, majority of Gaza has been leveled to the ground by incessant Israeli bombings with nearly half of those killed, over 3,000 fatalities, being children (see also Pinoy Expose, October 30, 2023).
China’s siding with the Palestinians is seen to further erode the credibility of Israel—and that of its Western backers headed by the US Imperialism—claim that it was just acting in self-defense and that the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, is an “act of terrorism.”
Last February 2, 2024, on the representation by South Africa that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, the ICJ issued several “provisional measures” ordering Israel to, among others, take actions to prevent acts by its forces in Gaza that are banned under the 1948 Genocide Convention, including indiscriminate killing of Palestinians and “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
The ICJ decision, however, remains toothless and a mockery of international law after the US and its Western lackeys, particularly the UK, retaliated by withdrawing their funding of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) that is working on the ground in Gaza.
At the ICJ hearing, Ma also countered the US’ argument that the world should “stay out” of the “bilateral issue” between Palestine and Israel.
“According to China, it was definitely a matter for the UN to talk about the self-determination of the Palestinian people.
The Chinese representative said Israel is a foreign nation occupying Palestine, so the right to self-defence lies more with the Palestinians than with the Israelis,” Al Jazeera reported further.