Moderator
Ibrahim Efe, Insight Turkey
Panelists
Berdal Aral, Istanbul Medeniyet University
Yucel Acer, Ankara Yildirim Beyazit University
Khalid al-Awaisi, Ankara Social Sciences University
Berdal Aral
Berdal Aral begins his speech by focusing on the common perception in the international media, not only by explaining how one nation-state suppresses another nation-state, but also by pointing out the hegemonic world system and highlighting and analyzing regional, international and global dimensions on the Israel-Palestine issue. The Palestinian question and the Palestinian struggle for self-determination are often portrayed as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Aral argues that the zionists gradually occupy and colonize the lands and settle and approach the indigenous population. According to Aral, it is a misnomer to portray the problem as a conflict between two actors, such as politicians and Israelis, but also to portray the problem as a human rights violation against politics. Aral sees the Palestine problem as important problems that did not actually start in 1967, but started right after the dissolution of the final empire and the replacement of the automotives, which were the state princes of the British and French empires. So the whole issue is about colonialism, imperialism, also the military occupation of Palestine and also a somatic racism against Palestinians. For this reason, according to Aral, it is necessary to look at the issue from a historical perspective, starting from earlier times, not the history of Jewish immigration as a part of colonization, the history of the mandate system, and the 1947 United Nations General Assembly decision that unfairly divided the region.
Yücel Acer
Yücel Acer reveals the dynamics of the scope of the International Criminal Court's decision to initiate a preliminary investigation into the situation in Palestine from a legal perspective. Recently , the International Criminal Court launched an investigation to examine the crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territories at the request of the Palestinian Authority , causing Acer's speech to focus more on the perspective of international law . Building such a role of Palestinian Issie Fall is against international law in many respects, especially in terms of violating the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people, but according to Acer, for the first time in all history all crimes committed on Palestinian soil are brought before an international criminal court. Since Palestine was never part of the international criminal court, the Palestinian state made a declaration acknowledging the jurisdiction of the international criminal court in Palestine's occupied territories, thus an official statement acknowledging the criminal jurisdiction of Palestine. While this was the case initially as the Palestinian court was on Palestinian territory, the Palestinian state later became a party to the international criminal court in 2015. The prosecutor of the international criminal court has just resumed this criminal investigation, but at this stage the prosecutor had to request an authorization from the pre-trial office about the jurisdiction of the court to continue the international criminal investigation. According to Acer, the Prosecutor went to court for two reasons, the first being that the prosecutor had to ask permission from the pre-trial office because, according to the research of the international criminal court, if a non-participating state applied to the court to join the case, it applied to the court to investigate the acts in that case. The second reason was the awareness of all the political disagreements in the Palestinian territories, so it was wanted to be pretty sure about it.
Khalid al-Awaisi
In his speech, Khalid al-Awaisi reviews the latest developments in the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate. Khaled's speech is basically about the importance of outputs in the context of Palestine's resistance to Israeli occupation and oppression. Khalid's aim is to examine the debate on the Palestinian issue, which intensified in Jerusalem after the unilateral steps taken by Israel and Trump's effort to accept it as Israel's capital, and to state that this issue received many reactions from the Muslim world and Palestinian groups and Palestinian groups. According to Khalid, the Biden government's attempt to open a consulate gives a new impetus to the discussions. Khalid claims that Jerusalem had a very important role in the resistance against the British at first and that this resistance continued during the Zionist occupation in later times. One of the first intifadas against the British and the Zionist movement at that time had a very important connection to Jerusalem in general and Masjid al-Aqsa in particular. Khalid concludes his speech by stating that the city of Jerusalem has always existed in the minds of Palestinians, whether secular or religious, with the idea of the Jerusalem resistance, its religious dimension is extremely important, and it has become a symbol of resistance against the Palestinians.
Insight Turkey hopes that the panel was fruitful and provides a better understanding of this critical issue. You can find the full panel on our YouTube channel.