Background
In the first week of May 2024, The US had to demonstrate to its chauvinistic allies that it can still lead them in running an apartheid global system where its camp operate above international law, while treating the rest as second-rate citizens. By April 30th and May 1st 2024, massive college protests spread across the US, where students demanded an end to Israeli genocide against Gaza (here, here and here), while, the US States Department’s deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel stated that the International Criminal Court (ICC) lacked jurisdiction to prosecute Israel. Meanwhile, Washington was violently suppressing university students’ protests aimed at forcing it to reign on its proxy Israel to follow international law, including those in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Instead of granting students’ honorable demands, Washington was actively fighting any appearance of itself and Israel obeying the international law. The police diligently silenced students’ expression, while the media slandered protestors. These events show that the US ruling elite understand that calling for Israel to observe international law erodes Washington’s power to rally supremacist nations around itself as they pursue illegal acts against those that Washington wishes to dispossess, contain, or destroy.
Rule-based International Order
Washington’s ‘Rule-based international order’ masquerade is boiling down to its real essence of maintaining two tiers of nations in the world, the first comprising the US and its allies being above the international law and the second entailing the global majority, which Washington thinks it should dictate to. Vedant Patel’s statement that the ICC lacks Jurisdiction over Israel, but helps Washington in Ukraine and Darfur (here) reveals the court’s bias and explains why it has ignored Israel’s murder of 34000 Gazans so far. In this statement, Washington was forced to expose its auxiliary organizations that purport to stand for human rights, but never investigates its crimes across the world. While Washington may have escaped moral responsibility for its criminal military in Iraq, and Afghanistan and Jailed Julian Assange and Daniel Hale (here) respectively for revealing its war crimes, US-backed Israelis massacre is clear for everyone to see as information about it is spreading through multiple sources, and showing the US’ and its allies’ responsibility for ongoing massacre in Gaza, and 70 years of occupation.
Amidst clarity of Washington’s role in Israeli genocide, The States Department’s decision to shield Israel sends a clear message to the rest of the world that Massacre is a privilege of the US and ‘allies’ as tier one nations, and that other countries should ‘know their place’. Meanwhile, International organizations that Washington uses to malign its opponents now provides a clear and objective gauge of Washington’s crimes, minimizing obfuscation. For instance, The International Court of Justice (ICJ) had to issue a carefully worded verdict confirming that Israel’s action constituted genocide against Palestinians (here), but the State Department thinks that Israel cannot be held to account. Also, the ICJ tried to give Israel at least one month to continue its genocide, over which Israel’s backers would create sideshows to distract the global masses. Meanwhile, the Human Right Watch, another US appendage, continues to display the ICC’s role as including prosecuting perpetrators of genocide. It defines genocide as the prosecution at the ICJ case mentioned earlier had. However, Washington is telling the world that while Israel is conducting genocide, it and other allies are allowed. Washington also illustrates its willingness and ability to conduct or enable its allies to commit genocide and shield them from responsibility.
US’ Rallying Chauvinists
US actions are calculated to attract chauvinistic countries, including former colonial masters, to rally behind it for protection services. These jingoistic states yearn for the ability to conduct war crimes without scrutiny. Notably, American’s assistance to these countries in the past included supporting the UK during the Falkland War (here), its partnership with France in aggression against Libya after Sarkozy-Gadhafi scandals (here), and enabling Israel genocide, among others. These ‘allies’ gain help in such wars and in covering up war crimes. Former colonial powers, and honorary western nations like Israel and Japan, find this offer tempting. Meanwhile, the US and allies will cast the global south, which they view only as sources of raw materials and cheap labour, and China, Iran, and Russia, which they designated adversaries, as second-rate nations deserving dispossession, containment, and destruction.
The desire to control the world’s resources as opposed to contributing meaningfully to human development lies at the core of the US-lead global apartheid. For instance, even the noblest outliers in the Washington thought process, Robert F. Kennedy, stated that the absence of Israel would deny Washington control of oil in the Middle East (here). Since Israel is a marginal oil producer and purchases minimal quantities, Washington’s policy of using Israel to control such trade further confirms the apartheid attitude, in how interests from accross the Atlantic are driving a policy of death and destruction in the Middle East. While the world tries to give warring parties equal footing to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for instance, through voting to recognize the Palestinian state on April 18th, 2024, Washington vetoed it to gain its narrow-minded goals at the expense of Gazans’ life (here). American’s multiple vetoes against the rights of Gazans, have demonstrated the country’s flawed view that human rights enshrined in UDHR, including the right to life, self-determination, dignity, and representation can only be accessed by its ‘allies’. However, others like Palestine, a nation that predates UN, has been denied these rights.
Washington’s Greed Fast
The US and EU leaders have declared their recognition that both Israeli and Palestinian nations should coexist in the same territory but somehow back Israel economically, politically, and militarily to eradicate Palestinian’s, which openly shows apartheid view that only Washington’s allies deserve rights under UDHR, while others have to earn them by perpetually giving US something it wants. On May 2nd, 2024, the US Secretary of State was speaking for Israel and shifting the onus on Hamas to accept a peace deal (here), and abandon the quest for a statehood that US vetoed on April 18th, 2024 which made the Palestinian state more impractical. The script is not different from when Washington was pretending to negotiate with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in the 1970s and 80s during the Camp David Accords, which culminated in the Oslo Accords of the 1990s. The US arm-twisted or bribed PLO to negotiate Palestine into oblivion, while giving Israel everything it wanted (here). By the collapse of both Oslo Accords, Israel had gained recognition of even Palestinians but PLO (later PA), lost everything and became subjugated to Israeli control. 20 years later, the EU’s Josep Borrell reported that Israel had violently settled over half a million Israelis in the West Bank where the PA ‘governs’, which shows how agreements with the US end with the other party losing all. The potential agreement between the US and Hamas will have a similar end, where Israel will expands into Gaza, while Palestinians will be eliminated or be shipped into isolated ethnolinguistic enclaves in the US to live as second-rate citizens. Other crises globally will be resolved to benefit the US and its allies at the expense of other parties; Rules-Based Order for you.
Simon Chege Ndiritu, is a political observer and research analyst from Africa, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”