CommentaryEditors’ note: On Oct. 7, Hamas militants staged a surprise attack on Israel, as a result of which at least 1,400 Israelis were killed and hundreds were taken hostage. In the days since, Israeli forces have launched a counter-offensive in Gaza that has taken thousands of Palestinian lives, according to local reports. As tensions continue to escalate, JURIST is seeking perspectives from law students, law professors and lawyers across the region and beyond. Neither this nor other commentaries constitute JURIST editorial policy, nor do they necessarily reflect the opinions of the editorial team.
J.R. Jaywardene, who served as president of Sri Lanka from 1978 to 1989, once said: “If I starve the Tamil people out, the Sinhala people will be happy.”
Decades may have passed since he spoke these words, yet burgeoning hostilities between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East have conjured eerily similar sentiments.
“Beat them up, not once but repeatedly, beat them up so it hurts so badly, until it’s unbearable,” said Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Not only are the unsettling developments in the Middle East revealing of the brutality of colonialism; they are painfully triggering lost memories.
It is déjà vu for those with roots in Sri Lanka.
The daily scenes are both alarming and deeply unsettling. Despite calls for calm, the bloodshed persists. An oppressed people face ethnic cleansing, while the Western world looks on passively, emphasizing their solidarity with Israel and its right to self-defense. The recent bombing of the Al Ahli Baptist Hospital marks a traumatic yet pivotal moment in recent Middle Eastern history and beyond.
In this commentary, I offer a reflection on some of Sri Lanka’s colonial-era struggles that mirror those of modern-day Palestine, highlight key differences between the two, and address the overarching Palestinian struggle — the fight against imperialism.
Summoning Colonial Ghosts
No matter the current developments, the present serves as a reflection of the past. The Al Ahli Hospital Baptist bombing in 2023 bears a distressing resemblance to the Mullivaikkal Hospital bombings in April 2009. Denialism remains a recurring theme, following the same playbook of denying war crimes, regardless of whether the perpetrator is from Sri Lanka or Israel.
The years 2009 and 2023 symbolize a persistent disregard for human rights and humanitarian law, coupled with a lack of respect for the laws of war. In essence, Israel has not suddenly found itself at war; it has perpetually existed in a state of conflict. This was affirmed by the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion from 2004, confirming the direct applicability of the Geneva Conventions. Israel stands as a party to a war situation sui generis, and it is the Occupying Power that originated as a colonial creation. In fact, Israel serves as the epicenter of the colonial metropolis. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not solely a religious one, as it is often portrayed. It is fundamentally a struggle against imperialism and a fight for the Palestinian homeland. As my colleague and friend Wesam Ahmad recently articulated: “The Palestinian struggle is not just a struggle against occupation, apartheid and colonialism; it is a struggle against imperialism. We need and deserve a new, just and equitable international order – one that truly upholds the principles of fairness, equality and respect for the rights of all nations, regardless of their size or geopolitical significance.”
In this context, Sri Lanka and Israel share more than mere similarities. Both are countries of today’s dimensions that emerged from British colonialism, with groups establishing ethnocracies. Both the Tamils and Palestinians have had to grapple with an external colonizer, the British, only to subsequently face internal colonizers vying for control of their homeland. Both peoples resist settler-colonialist expansion driven by myth-making and racialized ideologies that determine who belongs to a particular land and who is excluded from that narrative. At best, both the Tamils and Palestinians are considered unwelcome guests on sacred lands, permitted to remain under specific conditions. At worst, they face violent calls for their destruction. Dehumanization and vilification have relegated both Tamils and Palestinians to being “the Other.” The parallels between Sri Lanka and Israel become even more striking when considering the strategic diplomatic relationship between the two countries, as they implement similar policies toward peoples who do not fall within the Sinhala or Jewish categories. Both nations label themselves as either a Jewish State or a Sinhala State, perpetuating the objective of alienating “the Other.”
European Guilt and Modern-Day Imperialism
However, a significant difference between Sri Lanka and Israel lies in the influential Western element that forms the essence of Israel. Aime Cesaire once wrote,
“And then one fine day the bourgeoisie is awakened by a terrific reverse shock: the gestapos are busy, the prisons fill up, the torturers around the racks invent, refine, discuss… People are surprised, they become indignant. And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is barbarism, but the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms; that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples…”
It was only through the Holocaust that colonial states awakened to their conscience regarding human rights. Their hegemonic power serves as the enabler of colonial violence, deeply rooted in their own guilt. Colonialism operates within a repetitive cycle. In this context, the guilt of the German people and their history has extended into a temporal and spatial realm, displacing the existence of another people to accommodate German guilt. The Palestinians become the collateral damage of the historical tremors of German and European guilt, while hegemonic forces continue to support the ongoing colonial project. This colonial project thrives on silent violence, slowly forcing individuals to perish. As Edward Said once wrote:
“There is no getting away from the fact that, as an idea, a memory, and as an often buried or invisible reality, Palestine and its people have simply not disappeared.”
It is only when the occupation and colonial endeavor in Palestine come to an end that their freedom will emancipate all oppressed peoples, as they will no longer be able to invoke the right to self-defense.
The Right to Self-Defense as Hegemonic Gateway
Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which addresses the right to self-defense, is strategically employed by Western powers to rationalize their imperial expansion and the perpetuation of their imperial dominance. Valuable lessons can be drawn from historical events such as Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003, and Libya in 2011, as well as from Israel’s repeated attacks on neighboring countries like Syria and Lebanon in recent times. In this regard, what we are witnessing is not just a clandestine continuation of an earlier international legal framework, but rather an evolution of international law that bridges the gap between historical context and the contemporary situation, preserving elements of continuity while also exhibiting moments of rupture.
Challenging Article 51 of the Charter is the concept of the right to self-determination, as outlined in Article 1.1 of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant of Economic and Social Rights. This right is part of a cluster of legal rights that also includes the right to be free from genocide and aggression. These legal rights originate from two fundamental natural rights: the right to exist and the right to defend oneself against threats to one’s autonomy. The right to resist occupation stands as the legal obligation of any oppressed people, a fact further reinforced by the United General Assembly through Resolution 2787. Israel’s status as an Occupying Force necessitates the acknowledgment of the legitimate resistance against its ongoing colonial experience.
As a former U.S. Senator once remarked, “If there were not an Israel, we would have to invent one to make sure our interests were preserved.” The existence of Israel is the embodiment of colonial interests and control, serving as the vehicle of imperialism. Israel’s presence is essential for the Western hemisphere to maintain its imperial dominance, making it a condicio sine qua non for the perpetuation of Western imperialism.
Conclusion
At the start of this conflict, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and US President Joe Biden hastily met with Netanyahu, with the UK Prime Minister stating: “We will stand with you in solidarity, we will stand with your people. And we also want you to win.”
The triumph of the hegemon would symbolize a defeat for the struggle against imperialism. The Palestinian struggle for freedom serves as the litmus test for global justice and solidarity from the Global South. Until Palestinians achieve their freedom and dignity, the oppressed across the world will continue to be bound.
Dr. Thamil Ananthavinayagan, LLM. (Maastricht University), PhD (NUI Galway) is an Adjunct Professor in Law at Woxsen University, India.
