THE Middle East is the muddle that it is because of one rouge regime: Zionist Israel. What it cannot do in negotiations it does by extraterritorial executions.
And it gets lots of help from a similarly inclined state, the United States. The world has not forgotten, and most certainly Iran hasn’t, the US’ extraterritorial execution of Iran’s General Qassem Soleimani on Jan 3 at Baghdad International Airport. And now Israel has reignited an old injury by assassinating Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. The extraterritorial killing on Nov 27 had all the hallmarks of Mossad, the spy agency of the Zionist regime. Slip past border control, down a civilian or two with a hail of bullets, slip out undetected. Malaysians, too, are not unfamiliar with the ways of Mossad.
One early April day in 2018, Fadi al-Batsh, a Palestinian from Gaza and an electrical engineering lecturer here for seven years, was gunned down Mossad-like in Kuala Lumpur outside his apartment by two men on a motorcycle. They were said to be Europeans with links to a foreign spy agency. At least 14 bullets were said to have rained on him.
Iran’s suspicion of Mossad’s involvement in Fakhrizadeh’s assassination has now proven to be correct, as unnamed American sources are beginning to acknowledge. The connection had an early hint from no less than US President Donald Trump when he retweeted a news story that linked Israel to the killing of the Iranian nuclear scientist.
The world, including the top-notch media around the globe, missed it though. Freudian slip, Trump? Anyway, subtlety isn’t Trump’s strength.
Admitted or otherwise, such extraterritorial killings are a sign of disrespect for international law and diplomacy. We are glad that no less than the United Nations special rapporteur for extrajudicial executions, Agnes Callamard, had condemned it in a tweet posted a day after the killing.
“An extraterritorial targeted killing, outside an armed conflict, is a violation of international human rights law prohibiting the arbitrary deprivation of life and a violation of the United Nations Charter prohibiting the use of force extraterritorially in times of peace.” Well said, UN. But go further and translate them into deeds.
Otherwise, the actions of Israel and the US are a signal to other states that it is okay to engage in extraterritorial killings. Such tit-for-tat actions between states are a sure way of promoting a chaotic world order. The UN must not hesitate in sanctioning the rogue pair as it so easily sanctions others. Granted, the US sitting as it does in the UN Security Council (UNSC) will ensure none of the sanctions against it or Israel get passed.
This is the shame of the UNSC and by extension, the shame of the UN as an international organisation. Still-born, it is condemned to be still. But there is a way out. The European Union that so often thumps its chest proudly for hosting the European Court of Human Rights can start by condemning such extraterritorial killings as the UN special rapporteur has done.
Next, it must sanction the rogue pair. This shouldn’t be difficult for Callamard has cited the legal precedents. “International human rights apply to the conduct of a state outside its territory as confirmed by the International Court of Justice, the Human Rights Committee, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and European Court of Human Rights.”
The EU needs no more. If the EU fails, too, there will be a global free for all./NST
