Palestine and Kosovo : the unparallel comparison

Abstract

This research sets out to reexamine war crimes in Palestine with reference to war crimes and the resulted international intervention that took place in Kosovo. Despite the difference in nature between the two problems, the study has found that later on, after seeming control over the lands, both Serbian forces and successive Israeli governments employed same policies and practices against indigenous people in carving their ethnic states. War crimes have been taking place in Palestine as they did in Kosovo. However, in Kosovo, the international community acknowledged these crimes and intervened to prevent them. The NATO war against Milosevic's regime to facilitate the return of the refugees and his trial in the ICTY highlight the duality by which the international community has reacted towards Israel's disregard of the UN resolutions along 54 years. At the end, we found that there is a direct relation between the absence of an international effective role and the Israeli violations of humanitarian and international laws. Besides, it has been concluded that viewing world conflicts with a double standard not only keeps them aggravating but also has dangerous precedents on the world as a whole: ii wastes the UN credibility, shakes the idea of human rights and its universality, which the UN came to promote, and destroys international peace and stability.