Non-Aligned Movement Condemns Israeli Airstrikes on Iran

While the United States enabled the attacks on Tehran, the United Nations Rapporteur for Palestine accuses the West of failing to uphold international human rights law

By Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Wednesday November 6, 2024

Geostrategic Analysis

Even though inside the United States, Britain and the many Western European states the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) retaliatory bombing of military sites in the Islamic Republic of Iran on October 26 was greeted with praise, others largely within the Global South viewed the actions of Tel Aviv as a major threat to world peace.

Iran has taken a leading position in supporting the affiliates of the Axis of Resistance which extends throughout the West Asia region.

Since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) with the backing of the administration of President Joe Biden, has killed tens of thousands of people in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank. Since the end of September, the war has expanded exponentially into Lebanon where daily bombing and shelling by the IDF has resulted in the deaths and injuries of many more. 

The displacement of 2.3 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip has been a cause of concern for people around the world. In Lebanon reports suggest that 1.2 million people have been displaced in response to the IDF bombing operations with approximately 200,000-300,000 fleeing into neighboring Syria. 

Iran is viewed by successive administrations in Washington and Tel Aviv as the principal adversary of the settler-colonial regime. The build up of the diplomatic and military capability of Tehran since the 1979 Revolution has shifted the geostrategic landscape in the Persian Gulf and West Asia as a whole.

NAM Stands in Solidarity with Iran

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) representing 121 countries has issued a statement condemning the Zionist state for its attacks on Iran which resulted in the deaths of four people. This organization has its origins in the surge of the national liberation movements within the colonial territories in the aftermath of World War II and the imperialist invasion of the Korean Peninsula. 

In 1955 at the Bandung Conference in Indonesia, the first Afro-Asian Summit was held where these newly emerging states set out to pursue an independent course to the unfolding international situation. Six years later in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, the founding of the Non-Aligned Movement was formally established. Since 1961, the NAM has held periodic conferences where various positions have been enunciated and implemented. (https://www.cvce.eu/en/obj/final_communique_of_the_asian_african_conference_of_bandung_24_april_1955-en-676237bd-72f7-471f-949a-88b6ae513585.html)

The NAM released its statement on November 4 where it condemned the IDF airstrikes for their violations of the territorial sovereignty of the Islamic Republic. In addition to defending the rights of one of its member-states to protect its ability to exist without threats of military attacks, the Mehr News Agency emphasized in a report that:

“The NAM also strongly condemns the violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq, whose airspace was illegally used by the Israeli regime to commit this aggression against Iran, the statement said. While expressing deep solidarity with the people and the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the bloc reiterated that by launching the attack, the regime violated the fundamental principles of international law, the United Nations Charter, especially Article 2, Paragraph 4, which explicitly prohibits the use of force against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of any country. The NAM members, while holding Israel accountable for its aggression and consequences, calls it the inherent right of the Islamic Republic of Iran and other affected countries to protect their sovereignty, and territorial integrity in accordance with international law and the UN Charter.” (https://en.mehrnews.com/news/224038/NAM-countries-condemn-Israeli-aggression-against-Iran)

These comments made by the NAM speak volumes as it relates to the burgeoning solidarity between peoples of the Global South. Although the governments affiliated with the NAM encompass different systems of economics and politics, there is an overall concern in regard to the well-being and genuine sovereignty of its people. 

Within the NAM countries there are 4.7 billion people residing which constitute 58.3 percent of the world’s population. Despite the unequal distribution of power between the western capitalist countries and the majority of those living in the Global South, the level of political consciousness and organization among the peoples of Africa, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific is rapidly rising.

Other groupings such as BRICS plus and The New Development Bank (NDB) are directly addressing the necessity for an alternative framework of international relations and trade. The concept of de-dollarization has gained interest within the Global South in collaboration with the Russian Federation. These issues are directly tied to the imperialist domination of Palestine, Lebanon, Iran and other areas of West Asia. 

UN Rapporteur Slams Western States for Ignoring Genocide

Iran is being targeted by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) due to its uncompromising solidarity with the people of Palestine. The Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) has been mobilized in efforts to impose a blockade on Israeli-controlled ports in Palestine. 

These avenues of exposure and struggle are adopted because of the failure of the imperialist states and the United Nations to resolve the Palestinian question. The UN General Assembly voted recently to recognize Palestine as an independent state and to end the occupation by the Zionist regime over the next year. 

On October 31, Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territory Occupied Since 1967, issued a statement on her research involving events which have unfolded over the last year. Official figures supplied by the Gaza Health Ministry say that more than 43,000 people have been killed since October 7, 2023. In addition, more than 100,000 have suffered injuries. 

According to the UN report on Albanese’s work:

“Describing herself as ‘a reluctant chronicler of genocide,’ Ms. Albanese said the international community must recognize what is happening in Gaza as a genocide and ‘understand the bigger design behind what’s happening in Palestine today’. It is not simply war crimes and crimes against humanity that the Palestinians are experiencing — ‘they have experienced those through their entire life,’ she said, but the current situation is different. Under the fog of war, Israel has accelerated the forced displacement of the Palestinians that began decades ago, but ‘what’s happening today is much more severe because of the technology, the weaponry and the impunity’, she added.  It is time to consider suspending Israel’s credential as a Member State. Acknowledging that this is a sensitive topic, she said, ‘None of you really has clean hands when it comes to human rights,’ but no other country has maintained an unlawful occupation violating decades of UN resolutions as Israel has done, she said.” (https://www.un.org/unispal/document/ceirpp-419th-meeting-press-release-31oct24/)

Such words are an indication of what billions of people all over the world see taking place in Palestine. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled that the legal claims brought by the Republic of South Africa against the State of Israel in December charging genocide were plausible. 

These research reports and lawsuits are important because they shed indisputable light on the objective conditions as they prevail. However, the people impacted by U.S.-Israeli policy in Palestine and throughout West Asia are compelled to resist the decades-long occupation, ethnic cleansing and genocide. 

In an article written by human rights Atty. Stanley L. Cohen and published by Al Jazeera in 2017, it cites a UN resolution upholding the right under international law to resist colonial and imperialist oppression, noting:

“At that time UNGA resolution 37/43 removed any doubt or debate over the lawful entitlement of occupied people to resist occupying forces by any and all lawful means. The resolution reaffirmed ‘the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle’.” (https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2017/7/20/palestinians-have-a-legal-right-to-armed-struggle)

Consequently, the Palestinians and their allies in the region will continue to wage struggles in various forms aimed at their national liberation and sovereignty. This factor is a motivating force for the U.S. supply of arms to the settler-colonial Zionist state which are utilized to carry out genocide in Palestine and Lebanon as well as engage in airstrikes against Iran, Iraq, Yemen and Syria.

Both ruling class political parties in the U.S. are invested in the occupation of Palestine and the suppression of the people of the entire West Asia region. The administration of President Joe Biden was heavily castigated for its support of the genocide in Gaza. 

His apparent successor, President-elect Donald Trump, is also a staunch defender of the Zionist project. News reports on November 6 indicated that Trump had already spoken directly to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as they discussed their hostile plans towards Iran. (https://english.alarabiya.net/News/united-states/2024/11/06/netanyahu-and-trump-speak-discuss-iranian-threat-israeli-leader-s-office-says)

Therefore, the role of the NAM and all progressive multilateral organizations are important for their solidarity with Iran and other anti-imperialist states under pressure by the U.S. and its allies. The broader the alliances among the peoples of the Global South, the greater the prospects for ending national oppression and exploitation around the world.