Middle East Monitor / April 7, 2022
Director of Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Raji Sourani, yesterday condemned the international community’s double-standards in relation to implementing international law, citing Israeli violations against Palestinians and Russia’s war on Ukraine.
“The West and Europe took immediate action against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while we, the Palestinians who stand against every occupation, have been waiting serious international action since 1948,” Sourani said in a statement.
The member of International Commission of Jurists stressed: “Human suffering is indivisible. Scenes of destruction and death in Ukraine are no different to the scenes of destruction and death in Gaza.”
“The scenes of displacement in Ukraine are not different from the scenes of displacement of the Palestinians since 1948, when Israel uprooted hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and forced them out of their homes.”
“The same thing, the scenes of displacement are similar to those that happened in Gaza during four bloody Israeli wars that left thousands dead and wounded; however, the international community did not take action.”
Sourani, who is Vice President of the International Federation of Human Rights and a recipient of the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Award in 1991, reiterated that the Israeli occupation “has been carrying out systematic wars crimes against the Palestinians for decades.”
“Settlement crimes are the most colonial tool in the hands of the occupation state that is used to guarantee its domination and hegemony over the Palestinians, their lands and their resources,” Sourani said.
He noted that the Israeli occupation has imposed a “racial and apartheid regime” on the Palestinians in the lands “between the [Mediterranean] sea and the river [Jordan], while the whole world is looking idly on.”
