Global Tribunal on Palestine: What about the next Stop?
Interview with Haytham Manna
Adel Hamdi: The establishment of the Global Tribunal on Palestine was an exceptional event for distinguished elite that has been historically known for its commitment to Palestinian rights for decades. How did you manage in the preparatory committee to bring together people, despite their constant intersections in every important issue or major event related to the Palestinian issue? I noticed that some of them are meeting each other for the first time, and they are working with all their might to have an active presence in this promising project?
Haytham Manna: Perhaps you, my dear friend, have followed the various intersections and participations in the process of constructive accumulation that has occurred the most. You were with us in confronting what we called “the slap of the century,” and you were with us in seminars on the paths and outcomes of the Palestinian issue, and in confronting what we called “the assassination of peace in the name of peace” in response to Jared Kushner/Ronald Trump and the “normalization process” that was imposed from above on some Arab countries, etc. Every time there was someone struggling in the Human Rights Council, another before the International Criminal Court, a third in building a legal human rights network, and another in the ranks of human rights organizations and civil society…and since the organizations initiating the construction of the GTP were in the sum of these forums and demonstrations, the first question was and What we asked ourselves: What is the methodology required to benefit from all proven means for greater effectiveness in action and influence? Most of us have been participating in the works of the Human Rights Council for more than thirty years (since it was named the Human Rights Commission), and we have noticed that the only documentation that leaves fingerprints and influence lies in what are called “written interventions”. These written interventions on a specific topic and issue become a document at the disposal of those interested in it. Therefore, one of the first practical decisions was to integrate this mechanism into the preparation of GTP, so that the judges have files, reports, and studies prepared by historian, anthropologists, philosophers, and human rights organizations that contain the necessary raw material for the participants to have a clear perception of the three topics that concern us in the first place: 1- The Nakba, as an ongoing crime against humanity, 2- Genocide as a systematic policy of occupation and settlement authorities, Gaza constitutes its most prominent and clear episode for global public opinion, 3- How this was accompanied by the construction of an apartheid system in law and practice under the protection, support and cover of the prevailing international system-world.
We did not invent the wheel, but rather we directed the compass towards all the intellectual, legal and HR energies that did tremendous work in investigative tasks, research circles and every place where they were able to express themselves, in order to sit together, each of them making its contribution and working with collective thinking and joint struggle, to bring together all the drivers, of creative efforts, in a fresh river with fertile and tender water. It is true that there are some differences in analysis and perception, but in face of major crucial issues, it is necessary to put all small differences in the trash. I will quote to you some sentences from our preparatory meetings that express this spirit that has sought from day one to build a new qualitative experience: “We are at the end of an era in which the Zionist narrative is collapsing before the eyes of the world. Our mission is that the enemies of Palestinian rights are not able to distort or besiege the embryos emerging today.” “The centrality, universality of Palestinian rights are turning from a slogan into a reality in which we must clothe the body with flesh and blood and creative thought,” “It is our duty to put all the courts that claim to adopt the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court before their responsibilities, considering the Palestinian file is the deciding factor between respecting this Charter or maintaining “Israeli crimes are beyond punishment and accountability.” That is, stripping credibility from these courts in the name of the “law” of force and not the force of law. “This court is a platform for all non-governmental organizations that need to network, coordinate, and work together more than ever before.”…
Adel Hamdi: Do you not see how the major powers have turned “human rights” into a mere means of pressure in the name of which criminals are protected more than victims? How do you see the way to confront this instrumentalisation of the issue of democracy and human rights to curb the voice of the resistance and free people in this world?
Haytham Manna: Since the end of World War II, the idea of human rights has been used and undermined by those who claimed to defend them, essentially, from the forces victorious in the II world war. I remind you, my friend that the United States has not, to date, ratified everything related to economic, social and cultural rights. Rather, it has boldly stood against every decision or charter related to racial discrimination, decolonization, the right to development, or the rights of immigrants. Together with the Israeli government, it is the first two signatory entities to the Convention against Torture in which decisions were issued allowing the practice of torture. The United States not only rejected the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, but also signed more than 63 bilateral agreements with member states of the Criminal Court preventing these countries from carrying out any prosecution of those who hold American citizenship. Since its declaration of the “War on Terror,” it has frozen and halted any progress aimed at reforming the United Nations. Unilateral sanctions were considered a weapon of war with any country that disagreed with its policies. While it was the primary source of weapons and money for aggressor countries, today, everyone knows and sees that without the direct military, financial, and diplomatic support of Israeli apartheid, the Zionists would not have been able to continue their genocide for months.
Adel Hamdi: With this bleak picture, how can a global civil Tribunal be established to confront the prevailing tyranny?
Haytham Manna: We have been experiencing unprecedented crises since 1968. We are witnessing, as Richard Falk said, “the awakening of global civil society,” thanks to the steadfastness of the Palestinian people in the face of savagery. In 2005, I published a collective volume entitled “The Future of Human Rights: International Law and Absence of Accountability,” in which 17 international human rights academics and researchers participated. I wrote in its introduction: “If the twentieth century was dated to draw the initial contours and provide the basic means of description, analysis, evaluation, denunciation, and search for means of protection… In the field of human rights, the ambition for the twenty-first century is to make it a century of accountability. In concrete experience, following field investigation missions in conflict areas, I used to sit with members of the mission in a hall attended by one or two journalists who published a three-line story at best, about massacres we witnessed and dangers we experienced. Today, in the smallest house in a remote village, people talk about the crimes of Israeli aggression and the complicity of the Americans, Britain and others with it. But also young people and students in all American and European cities. Don’t you see how the United States of America has been reduced to a country where Americans have the choice between Biden and Trump? Between cholera and plague? Don’t we all see how The Congress has become a council of war and aggression against all just causes in the world? The American ruling institutions have fallen into disrepair, and the noble Qur’anic verse has come to apply to them in every sense: Nothing comes out of evil except evil
(والذي خبث لا يخرج إلا نكدا”
Adel Hamdi: Let us return to the Global Tribunal on Palestine. What is the next stops?
Haytham Manna: The court has formed a permanent committee to follow up on conducting research and scientific activities in multiple fields to mature and deepen the true picture that Palestine and the Palestinian people have experienced since the Nakba, and to dismantle the myths built by the Zionist movement. Building a medical-legal work team to follow up on the issue of emergency treatments and interventions, forming field investigation missions, and also following up on files of compensation, aid, reparation and rehabilitation.
Expanding the judicial and legal work team to monitor the courts through its website and the media team that is being formed, and coordination between various networks of lawyers and jurists to file cases before national, regional and international courts. The Prisoners’ Affairs commission and the families of victims of torture, murder and kidnapping have filed a lawsuit with the court against Benjamin Netanyahu, Itamar Ben_Gvir and Minister The current finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, will be followed by a number of lawyers in several countries, knowing that majority of lawyers participating in the court are party to lawsuits submitted to the International Criminal Court against Israeli officials, as well as against European Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen. In addition to other files that will be announced in due course.
