China Tells the ICJ: Palestine Has The Inalienable Right to Armed Struggle

By Marta Ilych

On a chilly day in February a humble man strode into a wood paneled chamber in The Hague. Bathed in the blue tints of stained glass on a cloudy Dutch day, this mild-mannered gentleman stood before the International Court of Justice. When he opened his mouth, Ma Xinmin, representing the People’s Republic of China, spoke like a giant and reminded the United Nations of its own Anga Resolution of 1973, quoting that it,

“….reaffirms the legitimacy of the people’s struggle for liberation from colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation by all available means including armed struggle .”

The proceedings were remarkable. The world outside of Washington’s orbit stood as one, demanding that the fascist zionist entity occupying Palestine cease its ongoing genocide. Many, such as Cuba, pointed an accusatory finger directly to the decaying U.S. empire and its lapdog states.

Tens of thousands of Gazans lay dead, Netanyahu’s agents of slaughter, armed by U.S. military hardware, razed the world’s largest open-aired prison. They systematically bombed the strip from the north to Rafah in the south. Hospitals, houses of worship, schools, and homes turned to rubble, uninhabitable. Famine was used as a weapon, as the zionists denied humanitarian aid.

The world rose to condemn this genocide before the world’s highest court. China, the ascendant global power, rose to its feet in this court housed in imperialist Europe, and towered above all. It not only demanded a ceasefire, but defended the right of Palestinians and all colonized nations to win their liberation by any and all means, including armed conflict.

Xinmin laid out not only the right of an occupied people to armed struggle, but also the illegitimacy of the occupying power’s use of force. As zionist apologists floated the nonsensical notion that Israel was defending itself with this genocide, the Chinese representative spoke with thundering moral authority:

“When can an occupying power invoke the right of self-defense? It hinges on whether the armed attack occurs in the occupied territory or within its own territory. In the occupied territory, the right of the occupying power to self-defense depends on the legitimacy of the occupation. If the occupation is unlawful, the occupying power can neither acquire territorial sovereignty nor resort to self-defense against an armed attack that occurred in the occupied territory.”

Given a clear-headed view of the illegitimacy of the zionist occupation, the representative of the People’s Republic dealt a crushing blow to the argument that the zionists are engaged in righteous self-defense. Indeed, ‘Israel’ has no right to defend itself because it has no legitimacy whatsoever existing only as an occupying force. The sole right to armed struggle lies with the colonized, not the colonizer.

As Palestine bleeds, China shines a moral light before the world, defending the right to national self-determination. While the hegemony of the western empires crumbles, China reminds us all of the inalienable right of “oppressed people’s [to] struggle against Colonial domination or foreign occupation” by any means necessary.

Link to the full statement by China to the ICJ:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaCrM0L3YBk