Golan Heights, Kosovo and Crimea: A Case Study in Hypocrisy and Double Standards
The Golan Heights form part of the sovereign territory of the state of Syria. It, along with the West Bank of Palestine (then part of Jordan) and the Gaza strip were seized by Israel at the conclusion of the Six Day War between Israel, Egypt, Syria and Jordan in June 1967 [...]
The recent announcement by United States President Donald Trump that the US will recognise Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights draws attention yet again to the double standards applied by NATO and its satraps including Australia to the issues of territorial integrity, the right to self-determination, and international law. Three cases illustrate the duplicity and double standards of the Western nations. They may be reviewed chronologically.
A picture taken on July 4, 2018 from the Israeli-annexed Syrian Golan Heights shows displaced Syrians from the province of Daraa staging a protest (top L) calling for international protection, in the Syrian the village of al-Rafid, near the border fence with Israel. / AFP PHOTO / JALAA MAREY
The Golan Heights form part of the sovereign territory of the state of Syria. It, along with the West Bank of Palestine (then part of Jordan) and the Gaza strip were seized by Israel at the conclusion of the Six Day War between Israel, Egypt, Syria and Jordan in June 1967. Israel has remained in occupation of the West Bank and the Golan Heights ever since. It maintains a blockade on Gaza to the immense suffering of Gaza’s inhabitants.
It is well-established international law (Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949) that states may not continue to occupy territory seized as a result of war. On 22ndof November 1967 the United Nations Security Council in resolution 242 unanimously called on Israel to withdraw its forces from occupied territory. This was ignored by Israel, just as it has violated 32 United Nations resolutions since 1968, easily the single biggest offender (Turkey is second with 24 violations over the same time period).
In 1981 Israel passed the Golan Heights Law in which it purported to annex the Syrian Golan Heights. United Nations Security Council resolution 497 of 17th of December 1981 declared that purported annexation “null and void and without legal effect.”
That Israel continues to ignore its obligations under international law is not surprising. That the United States, other NATO countries, and Australia not only do not impose any sanctions on Israel for its continued violations, it does not even permit the discussion of such a possibility. Even to raise the issue invites immediate allegations of anti-Semitism and other absurdities from the immensely powerful Jewish lobby in most western states.
Trump’s announcement follows a similar declaration last year to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. This is also not only a violation of international law, it is contrary to resolutions the United States itself has supported in the past (as with the Golan Heights).
Kosovo’s case is totally different but it raises a number of relevant points. Kosovo is ethnically and linguistically Albanian, although it formed part of the former Yugoslavia. There were strong elements within Kosovo that wanted independence from Yugoslavia.
That independence movement was supported by the United States. Between March and June 1999 the United States bombed Serbia to encourage the Serbs to withdraw their military forces from Kosovo. The bombing was without Security Council approval, was not within the provisions of the United Nations Charter, and was accordingly a gross violation of international law.
At the cessation of the bombing, on 10 June 1999, United Nations Security Council resolution 1244 gave Kosovo autonomy within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. On the 17th February 2008 Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Yugoslavia. There was no referendum, but it is fair to say that the declaration was supported by the majority of Kosovans, especially those of Albanian ethnicity who comprised 88% of Kosovo’s population.
On 8 October 2008 the United Nations General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion on the Kosovo declaration of Independence. Their decision was announced on 22nd July 2010. The court noted the lengthy history of unilateral declarations of independence since the 17th century, with most of them opposed by the parent state.
The court concluded that “international law contained no prohibition of declarations of independence” (paragraph 79) and that “the declaration of 17th February 2008 did not violate general international law” (paragraph 84).
The United States had a particular interest in Kosovo, including in particular being able to establish a substantial military base there (Camp Bond Steel). That base functions, inter alia, as a major transit point for Afghan heroin under the control of United States and Allied forces in Afghanistan.
No sanctions were applied to the United States for its illegal bombing of Syria, nor on Kosovo for its unilateral declaration of independence. The majority of the world’s countries now recognise Kosovo as a separate independent state.
Crimea was factually different again, but also contains several relevant points. Crimea had been part of the Russian Empire since 1783. On 18 February 1954 the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree transferring Crimea to Ukraine. There was no referendum of the Crimean people and had there been, the overwhelming likelihood is that the transfer would have been rejected.
The transfer seems to have been the brainchild of then Soviet leader Khrushchev, himself a Ukrainian. The absence of democratic procedures is reinforced by the fact that the transfer was itself a violation of Soviet law.
In the following decades there was an uneasy relationship between the Crimeans and the Ukrainian government. Crimea enjoyed the status of being an “autonomous republic”. That uneasiness came to a head in February 2014 when the duly elected and internationally recognised government of Ukraine was overthrown in an American organized and financed coup d’état.
The new Ukrainian government was anti-Russian and frankly fascist in its orientation. Neither fact was acceptable to the Crimeans who, like the Albanians in Kosovo were overwhelmingly of one language, culture, ethnicity and identification with all things Russian.
A referendum was quickly organized (unlike Kosovo) and there was a voter turnout of 83.1%, of whom 95.5% voted in favour of reunification with Russia. The Russian Duma in turn voted to accept Crimea back into the Russian Federation.
The western media and politicians consistently use the term “annexation” to describe the reincorporation of Crimea into the Russian Federation. The OED defines annexation as synonymous with “seizure, occupation, invasion, conquest, takeover, appropriation and expropriation.” None of these terms accurately describes the sequence of events in Crimea.
There is no difference in international law between what Kosovo did with the approval of the International Court of Justice and what the Crimeans did. The latter was arguably much more democratic as it followed an overwhelming referendum result in support of departure from Ukraine and rejoining with Russia.
The consequences however, have been very different. Russia has been subject to endless vilification. The Russian state and many political and business leaders have been subjected to sanctions. One has only to ask: would this have happened if Crimea had voted to leave the Russian Federation and join Ukraine? The overwhelming probability is that Crimea would have been welcomed with open arms and its people applauded for making the ‘right’ choice.
Crimea is strategically significant, which is why the British fought Russians there in the Crimean war (1853-1856), and why a prime geopolitical objective of the US interference in Ukraine was to deprive the Russians of the naval base at Sevastopol.
The history of these three episodes (Golan, Kosovo and Crimea) exemplifies the double standards and hypocrisy that characterizes western geopolitics. Trump’s latest statements on the Golan Heights only reinforce the point.
Originally published on 2019-03-28
About the author: James O’Neill, an Australian-based Barrister at Law and geopolitical analyst, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”
We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics, and international relations.
Тhe world is at a dangerous crossroads. The United States and its allies have launched a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The US-NATO military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.America’s hegemonic project is to destabilize and destroy countries through acts of war, covert operations in support of terrorist organizations, regime change and economic warfare. The latter includes the imposition of deadly macro-economic reforms ...
More than 6,400 civilians have been killed and nearly 16,000 injured as result of criminal actions of Kiev regime during the conflict in Donbass, Chairman of the Russian Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin said on Thursday. Also, more than 10,000 residential infrastructure facilities have been fully or partially destroyed and burnt. Since last April, more than 1 million Russian-speaking residents of Lugansk and Donetsk regions had to flee their homes, and more than 110,000 people having a refugee status have applied for the Russian citizenship. The war has been continuing.Ukrainian capital being wrapped in smoke due to a spate of regional ...
North from Nazareth’s city limits, a mile or so as the crow flies, is an agricultural community by the name of Tzipori – Hebrew for “bird.” It is a place I visit regularly, often alongside groups of activists wanting to learn more about the political situation of the Palestinian minority living in Israel.Tzipori helps to shed light on the core historic, legal and administrative principles underpinning a Jewish state, ones that reveal it to be firmly in a tradition of non-democratic political systems that can best be described as apartheid in nature.More than a decade ago, former U.S. president Jimmy ...
Fifty-one years ago today Israeli fighter aircraft and torpedo boats tried to sink the USS Liberty, a surveillance ship stationed off the coast of Egypt during Israel’s attack on Egypt and Syria. Israel was unable to sink the USS Liberty, but did manage to kill or wound almost the entire crew. Thirty-four Americans were killed and 174 were wounded.There are two explanations for the attack. As Washington has blocked every attempt at an investigation, we do not know which one is correct. Perhaps both are the reasons for the attack.One is that Israel, which was committing a war crime by ...
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]SaveSave
State frontiers are established by human beingsand may be changed by human beings.Adolf Hitler. Mein KampfDiplomacy, with all the conventions of its forms,recognizes only real facts.Charles de GaullePart OneAll of Adolf Hitler’s actions, from the time he rose to power in 1933 until 1939, could be described as one triumph after another. He met each challenge he faced: he took over as head of the country, returned Germany’s lost territories without a struggle, and was given permission from England and France to rearm. But one further task lay before him, and failure now would make his previous achievements almost pointless. ...
Since the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the nineties, its former constituent republics have been mired in a state of perpetual conflict.Nowhere is this more apparent than the contested state of Kosovo.In 1998, Albanian separatists in the Serbian province of Kosovo i Metohija began a campaign of attacks, with the express objective of creating a unified, ethnically homogenous, Greater Albanian state. Spearheaded by an organization known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which is widely regarded by many nations, including the United States, as a terrorist organization, ethnic Albanian militants attacked Serbian security forces, and terrorized civilians in a brutally violent ...
One of the biggest and most outlandish US infowar and propaganda whoppers of the 1999 Kosovo conflict was the infamous NPR story of the ethnic Albanian Anne Frank. This seems like a mindless, unethical, immoral, and vicious, racist propaganda hoax today, using propaganda to destroy an entire people, Serbian Orthodox Christians. The Anne Frank infowar campaign was manufactured to support an illegal land grab in Kosovo, in support of a Muslim Albanian separatist and secessionist terrorist war against Serbian Christians. But at the time it was very popular and helped sell the US bombing of Yugoslavia in support of Albanian ...
The wicked social control experiment using virus as the pretext for further enslavement is performing magnificently by implanting a sense of helplessness, dependence, and blind conformism. It should be noted that the favorable atmosphere enabling Them (whoever they are) to accomplish just that was contrived by the controlled and unscrupulous media in under a month of intense, coordinated, global brainwashing. Praise is in order, not for the obviously immoral master plan but for the technical excellence of its execution. In the subservient Balkans, local quislings have expectedly introduced a practically region-wide state of emergency, giving that ignoble set of local ...
Israel is concealing vital records to prevent darkest periods in its history from coming to light, academics sayAl-Jazeera – 9 June 2016Israel is locking away millions of official documents to prevent the darkest episodes in its history from coming to light, civil rights activists and academics have warned as the country’s state archives move online.They claim government officials are concealing vital records needed for historical research, often in violation of Israeli law, in an effort to avoid damaging Israel’s image.The Israeli army has long claimed to be the “most moral” in the world.Accusations of increased secrecy come as Israel marks ...
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]SaveSave
Zagreb, 1941Become familiar with the basic info about one of the most beautiful countries in the world - Croatia. Photos, data & recommendations where to stay in order to enjoy this Adriatic pearl. If you are not the Serb.Split, Dalmatia, Croatia, 2019: "Kill the Serb" on the car with the plates from SerbiaOrigins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to ...
2006-Present07 February 2018: Israel advances a plan to build a walkway though the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem to connect two settler residential compounds in the Palestinian At-Tur neighbourhood07 February 2018: During a Knesset report on the policy of refusing to return the bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces to their families for burial, officials are urged to ‘throw it into the sea’, ‘we should not return bodies. We should demolish homes’, others say05 February 2018: A number of Israeli politicians, including coalition government members, call for ‘practical moves’ to be taken to annex settlements in the occupied West Bank while Donald ...
With the recent failed bid by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Arab League at the UN security council, to try and end Israelis’ occupation of Palestinian land and to create a Palestinian State within the 1967 borders, it seems an appropriate moment to review the situation for Palestinians since 1915.What is the background to the demonization and brutalization of Palestinians? Most of all, why is the international community was assisting properly and why has it not assisted the Palestinians in protecting or restoring their inalienable rights over decades? Why is their situation so brutally upside-down almost a century after ...
The Serbs stepped again onto the historical scene in the years of the European wars that swept the continent from the forests of Ireland to the walls of Constantinople in the late 17th century. The Turks finally withdrew from Hungary and Transylvania when their Ottoman hordes were routed outside Vienna in 1683. The disintegration of Ottoman rule in the southwest limbered up the Serbs, arousing in them hope that the moment was ripe for joint effort to break Turkish dominion in the Balkans. The neighboring Christian powers (Austria and Venice) were the only possible allies. The arrival of the Austrian ...
US-installed Ukrainian fascists commemorated Poroshenko’s established victory in Europe Day of Remembrance by vowing to “destroy Moscow,” free its people, and let them “shape their own future.”Ukrainian ultranationalists attending a May 8 commemoration included 14th SS Waffen Grenadier division veterans, Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) members, and Nazi-infested volunteer battalions involved in what they call “the Russian-Ukrainian war.”Svoboda party overt Nazis participated. Their slogan is “Ukraine for the Ukrainians” – meaning ethnically pure, free of Jews, Russians and others not wanted, by extermination or other means.Party member Yuri Sirotyuk called war on Russia Ukraine’s historic mission. “I believe that if we ...
Israel’s Maariv newspaper has revealed that the government of the Zionist state is planning to drop a political bombshell in the coming weeks by presenting a bill in the Knesset (parliament) calling for the annexation of land occupied since 1967. It is likely to have the support of the majority of Knesset members. The newspaper added that the right wing has chosen this time for the move ahead of the US presidential election; America, it is believed, will be too preoccupied to care about what is happening in the occupied Palestinian territories.Preliminary talks about a first stage have been held, ...
In 1999, when he was the President of Finland, Marti Ahtisaari’s government wanted to honor and to commemorate the 3,000 Finnish Nazi Waffen SS volunteers that served in Heinrich Himmler’s SS. Why would any government, indeed, why would anyone, want to honor and commemorate SS troops? Why would anyone want to honor and commemorate Nazis and Nazism? This is the question that has remained unanswered in the US and Western media about Marti Ahtisaari. As a sock puppet for the US, NATO, and EU, Ahtisaari’s role in honoring and commemorating the Nazi Waffen SS has been suppressed. As a Chairman ...
Like in Israel, US ruling elites plan for the future strategies and choose presidents to suit the needs. After using a Black President Obama to attack North Africans and Arab nations for their energy resources in order to ensure energy security of the superpower, now the US leaders seem to think of using a female President in the name of Hillary to advance US interests globally.Former US state secretary Hillary Clinton and associates are being pampered by those who are scared of any possible change in US foreign policy towards a possible thaw and neutrality in world affairs, notwithstanding what ...
