1

War Crimes in the Middle East

Throughout the world, civilians are being killed in armed conflict, but it can be argued

that today, the Middle East is bearing the brunt of the violence. As far back as I can

remember, the Middle East has been the victim of internal and external conflicts. Struggles

for power, leadership and control of key areas of land have turned the entire region into a

warzone. Different governments and militaries continue to commit atrocities against enemy

combatants and civilians and yet none of them are held accountable for their actions,

although they are in direct violation of international law as outlined in the 1949 Geneva

Conventions.

Although the agreements behind the Geneva convention originated in 1864, they were

structured and significantly updated in the aftermath of World War II. The ensuing chaos and

destruction brought the countries together to sign the Geneva Convention of 1949, which was

created to protect civilians and introduce the concept of war crimes. In simple words, I

believe war crimes can be defined as treating a human inhumanely, by robbing them of their

basic rights and dignity, killing a person unlawfully and necessarily and causing excessive

destruction of property. At the root of this concept was the idea that individuals can be held

responsible for the actions of a country or its soldiers.

However, although these crimes are considered as grave, it is important to observe

that hardly any such persecutions take place in the Middle East. From the first US invasion of

Iraq in 1991 to the current ongoing Israel-Palestinian conflict, civilians including women and

children continue to suffer unimaginable horrors as their leaders’ grapple for power. No
 2

compensation is provided for the families who lose their homes or their loved ones, and they

remain stranded on the precipice of despair and loss as conflicts of power rage around them.

This brings to mind a quote from King Lear by Shakespeare, “as flies are to wanton boys are

we to the gods; They kill us for their sport.” If you think about it, the actions of the higher

beings drastically affect the lives of those below them and yet it matters very little to them

since they remain unaffected by it. This not only refers to the situation in the Middle East, but

can also be compared to World War II, in which the generals of the armies kept pouring fresh

soldiers into the battlefields without care for how many were dying. They were thought of as

disposable and easily forgotten, although families of the dead and survivors of the war remain

severely traumatized to this day. Yet I ask myself, is the loss of so much human life worth the

rewards we reap at the end?

Some citizens of the third world countries believe that intervention from the West is a sign of

hope and can solve the internal disputes within their governments which arise from

corruption and hunger for power, yet incidents such as the first Gulf War bring to light the

numerous issues that come from Western interference. The US-led invasion of Iraq in 1991,

forming a coalition with approximately 35 other countries, led to the killing of an estimated

8,000 to 10,000 Iraqi forces and brought enormous damage to both Kuwait and Iraq. A large

number of the population took flight during the war and many nonnationals, notably

Palestinians, were not even allowed to return to their homes. The second Gulf War in 2003

was another US-led coalition in Iraq to bring to justice Saddam Hussein and to stop Iraq from

building weapons of mass destruction, which consequently left the country crippled and

triggered instability to an extent that the Iraqi people are facing it even today. However, the

invasion was widely regarded as a breach of the UN Charter as UN Secretary-General at that

time, Kofi Annan stated that, “I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN Charter.

From our point of view and the UN Charter point of view, it (the war) was illegal.” Even if
 3

the issue had been taken up by the UN Security Council, action would have been improbable

as the US and UK both have veto power in the Security Council. This is indicative of the fact

of how easy it is for authorities in power to escape justice and serves as a prelude to the

Israeli occupation of Palestine that began in 1967.

For more than 50 years, Israel’s invasion and occupation of East Jerusalem and the

Gaza Strip has caused continuous violations of human rights against the Palestinians which

live there. Israel has been ruthless in its policies of confiscating land, illegal settlement and

widespread discrimination which inflict massive suffering on the people of Palestine and

deprive them of their basic rights. The world remains silent and looks on as the Palestinians

are humiliated, oppressed, tortured and held entirely hostage at the hands of the Israeli

authorities. Raja Shehadeh, a lawyer from Palestine proclaimed, “The worst thing is the sense

of being a stranger in your own land and feeling that not a single part of it is yours.” In a

recent wave of events, Israeli forces started displacing entire Palestinian communities with

fresh vigor. More than 13 families have been evicted from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah and

even though they have been fighting efforts by the settlers in Israeli courts since 2008, they

find themselves on the losing side. Although the Israeli military has often used excessive and

deadly force against Palestinian civilians, including children and women, zero criminal

investigations have been carried out into the 1000 complaints of mistreatment and abuse

submitted to Israel after 2000. Approximately 10,000 Palestinians have been killed since

1987, often unlawfully and in conditions which may amount to war crimes while on the other

hand, Palestinians have killed about 1400 Israelis over the same period. None of these crimes

have been looked into and none of the Israeli forces have been persecuted as torture has not

been criminalized under Israeli law to this day, paving a path for Palestinian prisoners, armed

combatants and civilians alike, to be tormented and abused in Israeli custody.

 4

In some ways, it can be argued that a double standard exists on behalf of the United

Nations if the actions of Israel and Iraq are compared. Criticism of Israel’s alleged non-

compliant attitude towards UN Security Council regulations claims that Israel has not

adhered to the demands of the UN to withdraw from the territories it occupied in 1967 nor

has it ever been condemned under UN Chapter VII for its aggression under neighboring

states. On the contrary, if considered in detail, it can be observed that the exact wording of

the UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 do not dictate that Israel retreat from all its

occupied territories. One could contradict critics of the Israeli occupation by saying that Israel

has never evidently gone against any UN resolutions and yet here lies the root of the problem,

in that the UN has never drafted a binding resolution on Israel’s occupation of Palestine and

neither has it ever forcefully demanded that Israeli forces take actions to protect the civilians

of the area. The Western nations and the UN have turned a blind eye to the human rights

violations committed in Palestine, and have enabled Israel to do so by drafting the UN

resolutions in a specific context and wording them carefully so as to ensure that Israel can

boast a good record of compliance by never exactly going against what is dictated in the

resolutions. A good dose of common sense, however, can show that Iraq was punished far

more severely in the name of violating UN resolutions and committing crimes against

humanity while Israel commits war crimes daily undeterred without fear of any repercussion

by the superpowers of the world.

Another major conflict in the Middle East arises from hostility between Saudi-led

coalition-backed government forces and Houthi forces in Yemen. This hostility has led to

countless war crimes being committed in the region and has given way to the largest

humanitarian crisis in the world. According to the Yemen Data Project, an estimated 17,500

civilians have been killed since 2015, while more than 19.5 million people in Yemen are

facing a shortage of food. Due to the conflict, Yemen’s already fragile economy has been
 5

weakened considerably and more than thousands of families no longer have a stable income

source. Both armed forces have threatened and tortured Yemeni journalists and activists

while UAE-backed forces have forcibly disappeared scores of people. In addition, Human

Rights Watch has recorded approximately 89 illegal Saudi-led coalition air raids on civilians

which are directly in violation of the laws of war. Having participated in a war myself, I have

witnessed firsthand how the lives of ordinary people are affected by bombings and gunfire. It

leaves them deeply traumatized and wondering whether they’ll live to see another day.

However, it must be observed that the UN has used embargoes and restrictions only against

one side, the Houthis, despite the fact that the coalition led by Saudi Arabia has committed

uncountable crimes of war.

In conclusion, the Middle East has suffered terribly for decades in the struggle for land

and power as nations continue to carry out conflicts to suit their own interests, even as their

people are severely affected by the war crimes carried out by armed forces across the regions.

The UN and authorities such as the ICC must formulate resolutions to protect the dignity and

lives of the people of the Middle East, just as they did for the people of the West after the

second World War. In my opinion, a life is a life no matter to whom it belongs, and everyone

must be treated equally and given the same rights no matter which land they come from.
 6

Works Cited

 Swart, Mia. Al Jazeera, 2019.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/10/23/explainer-what-is-a-war-

crime#:~:text=Geneva%20Conventions&text=Article%20147%20of%20the

%20Fourth,confinement%20of%20a%20protected%20person%20%E2%80%A6

 Riedel, Bruce. Order From Chaos, 2018.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/07/02/1958-when-america-

first-went-to-war-in-the-middle-east/

 Leicht, Lottie. End the Double Standard in the Middle East, 2018.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2009/02/10/end-double-standard-middle-east

 History.com. Geneva Convention, 2018.

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/geneva-convention

 BBC. War Crimes, 2014.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/war/overview/crimes_1.shtml

 Human Rights Watch. Yemen, Events of 2019

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/yemen
7