The List of Shame
In 2005, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1612, providing for the identification of parties responsible for grave violations against children in armed conflicts and wars, whether they are states or de facto authorities such as militias and illegitimate local powers. Pursuant to this resolution, the “List of Shame” is issued annually, ranking states and organizations according to the number and nature of the violations they commit.
The annual report reveals that armed and security forces committed 38,000 violations against children worldwide over the past year. It covers sixteen countries, most notably Afghanistan, Mali, Haiti, Myanmar, Somalia, Nigeria, Sudan, Iran and Israel.
Israeli armed and security forces alone account for one quarter of all documented violations, with more than 12,425 violations committed against five thousand children whose cases have been verified, while investigations remain ongoing into another five thousand cases. As a result, Israeli security forces have once again been identified as the principal perpetrators of these violations, topping the List of Shame for the second time.
UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell addressed the issue, stressing that: “The figures contained in this report do not reflect the true scale of violations against children, since the report includes only cases that have been verified. A great many violations go unreported for a variety of reasons, including difficulties in gaining access to affected areas, fear of reprisals and other obstacles.”
The report also shows that 70 percent of all deaths and injuries resulted from the use of explosive weapons in populated areas.
Israel’s position at the top of the “List of Shame” extends beyond what is taking place in Palestine. Violations committed against children in Lebanon and Syria are no less severe, nor are those suffered by the Iranian people, who already endure the brutality of the mullahs’ regime. These violations nevertheless pose a profound challenge to the entire civilized world, especially to democratic states that uphold international humanitarian law and the conventions they themselves helped shape and promote. International law provides for the prosecution not only of the principal perpetrators of such crimes, but also of those who become complicit in them, in accordance with the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Complicity is therefore regarded as a form of indirect participation encompassing material support, logistical assistance and moral backing. This legal responsibility also extends to arms manufacturers, along with all companies whose activities, directly or indirectly, contribute to supplying the military effort of those responsible for the crime of genocide, including technology and artificial intelligence companies.
In her remarks, the United Nations Secretary General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Virginia Gamba, declared: “Failure to act does not stem from ignorance. It is the result of a conscious political choice.” In light of this testimony, it becomes legitimate to reassess the positions of every state connected, directly or indirectly, to crimes committed against children across the world, wherever they may be and whatever the reasons for which their childhood has been violated.
The gulf between what international law prescribes and the present condition of humanity remains immense. Remarkable scientific progress does not, in itself, amount to genuine civilizational progress.
The Capital
Negotiations over the status of East Jerusalem were postponed until the end of the five year transitional period established under the Oslo Accords. As the turn of the third millennium approached, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak refused to engage in discussions on the issues of a final settlement with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. The mediation undertaken by U.S. President Bill Clinton before leaving the White House proved equally unsuccessful, as neither side accepted the proposals he put forward. Ariel Sharon then chose a different course, one of carefully orchestrated provocation, coordinated with Ehud Barak through his entry into the Al Aqsa Mosque compound. This first triggered a broad popular Palestinian uprising, followed by a return to armed struggle under the leadership of Hamas. After becoming Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon ordered Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip on 15 August 2005, under what became known as the Disengagement Plan.
He presented this as a model for resolving the conflict while preserving the vision of Greater Israel, withdrawing only from Palestinian urban population centers as the Judaization of East Jerusalem continued in parallel under the annexation policy Israel has enforced since the end of the June 1967 war.
That model continued to be implemented in pursuit of the Judaization of the capital of the State of Palestine. The Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem were placed under a special legal status that denied them Palestinian identity documents while also withholding Israeli citizenship, unlike Palestinians living inside Israel. Instead, they were issued cards bearing the designation “permanent resident,” granting them the right to vote only in Jerusalem’s municipal elections, while excluding them from elections to the Knesset. Every time Palestinian legislative elections were held, the same battle resurfaced over the right of Jerusalem’s Palestinian residents to vote for the Palestinian National Authority and its Legislative Council. Israel has consistently opposed their participation in Palestinian elections, even though, under international law, they remain the inhabitants of occupied territory entitled to international protection.
During his first term, President Donald Trump recognized Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem by relocating the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv to the city, with little regard for the consequences of such a decision. He went even further by closing the office of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Washington. Last May, the Knesset approved, on first reading, a bill establishing a “Judea and Samaria Heritage Authority,” the biblical name used for the West Bank. The bill still requires second and third readings before becoming law. Once enacted, all archaeological sites across the West Bank would fall under the authority of the Israeli government. These sites, found almost everywhere, span successive civilizations from the Canaanite period through the Roman and Ottoman eras, enabling that authority to restore, build, buy and sell without significant constraint.
Such a measure would enable Israel to seize any area of Jerusalem and, more broadly, of the West Bank. From its perspective, the central issue remains the Temple believed, according to its own historical narrative, to lie beneath the Al Aqsa Mosque. With this objective in mind, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has intensified measures targeting the administration of the sanctuary by occupying parts of the compound and stationing soldiers alongside the “Temple Guards Unit,” whose mission is to protect those seeking to enter the mosque compound and perform their religious rituals there. Israeli forces have taken control of four locations within the Al Aqsa compound: the Dome of Imam Al Ghazali, the Dome of Solomon, the Dome of Moses, and the Dar al Hadith building. Security forces have also removed thirty seven guards and employees, reducing the number of Palestinian guards from fifty to twenty on each shift, while revoking the work permits of thirty employees residing in the West Bank. At the same time, the Israeli police have launched a recruitment campaign for new volunteers to join the “Temple Mount Unit,” drawing from among the most radical Jewish extremists.
These policies, which undermine the agreements concluded with the Palestinian Authority and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the custodian of the Al Aqsa Mosque since the 1920s, have elicited from Netanyahu nothing more than a brief statement claiming that nothing has changed on the ground.
Yet despite its limited support, the Israeli movement Peace Now remains the only organization to have openly condemned the bill, declaring: “If this bill is approved by the Knesset, it will constitute, by every standard, an act of annexation accompanied by the large scale confiscation of Palestinian land.”