Jamaica Gives Silent Consent To Israel’s War Crimes
Deliberately Abstained From Voting For Humanitarian Truce
The nongovernmental organisation Save the Children released figures on Sunday showing that at least 3,324 children have been killed in Gaza since October 7, while 36 have died in the West Bank.
A further 1,000 children have been reported missing in Gaza and may be under the rubble. Children make up more than 40 percent of the more than 8,000 people confirmed to have been killed in Gaza. More than 6,000 children have been injured in Gaza since the war began.
Overall, at least 1,400 Israelis and foreign nationals have also been killed in Israel, mostly in the surprise attack by Hamas on October 7.
Israel has imposed a total siege on the Gaza Strip, tightening the blockade enforced since 2007, cutting all supplies of food, electricity, fuel and water, and only allowing small amounts of aid in through the Rafah crossing with Egypt since October 21.
The lack of electricity as well as the scarcity of fuel to power generators has forced hospitals to cut down on their operations and the health ministry declared Gaza’s health system in a state of “complete collapse”, further endangering the lives of children, including babies in need of energy-intensive neonatal intensive care.
Collective punishment
The scale of the humanitarian disaster in Gaza is beyond belief and is an affront to civilized humanity. One country that should bury its head in shame is my native land Jamaica.
It is now coming out that the Government of Jamaica deliberately abstained from voting in support of a humanitarian truce in the Israeli-Hamas confrontation, unlike its other CARICOM partners and 120 other nations. By so doing Jamaican stands guilty of giving consent to Israel to wage collective punishment on 2 million Palestinians, which is a crime under International Humanitarian Law. There is no two ways about it.
Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Conventios of 1949 states the following:
"No general penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, shall be inflicted upon the population on account of the acts of individuals for which they can not be regarded as jointly and severally responsible".
According to the Practical Guide to Humanitarian Law:
“Collective punishment is prohibited, based on the fact that criminal responsibility can be attributed only to individuals. Respect for this principle can be ensured solely by establishing guarantees that protect judicial procedures. This principle must also be monitored in the context of disciplinary sanctions procedures.”
As I reported in my last piece for Substack Jamaica’s non-vote for a humanitarian truce in Gaza caused quite a scandal locally and abroad. This is very well summarized in a piece online titled Jamaicans express disappointment over their country’s ‘no-show’ UN Gaza vote
Initially the local media and the government pretended it was a no big thing, embarrassing, yes, but just another government snafu. This is best illustrated by the report from the Jamaica Observer newspaper on 31st October.
Jamaica's permanent representative to the UN, Ambassador Brian Wallace, was apparently out of the room while the voting was taking place.
First the foreign ministry attributed this absence to ongoing consultations that did not conclude in time, later rewording that to say "a technical cross in communication led to Jamaica's representative not voting".
The newspaper went on further to say the following:
It was not a good look for Jamaica, but neither is it as bad as some are now portraying. We believe that while Jamaica's absence was embarrassing and could be construed as a faux pas, it is not true to say that had Jamaica been in the room we would not have voted in favour of the resolution.
Similarly since 30th October the Minister of Foreign Affairs made serious efforts to convince observers that its non-vote was “a technical cross in communication” and not a “shift in stance” on “international human rights”.
By putting this release on X/Twitter the Government of Jamaica was aiming not merely at the domestic audience but at the international community based on the negative reaction to the non-vote.
Latest news contradicts MFA statement
But on 5th November there was revealing news in the Observer that not only contradicts its initial report but reveals that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs provided a misleading statement about its non-vote in the General Assembly.
The writer, Ambassador Emeritus Audley Rodriques, formerly senior envoy to Venezuela and Kuwait, made the following observation:
“It wasn't the Ambassador's "absence" from the vote that was embarrassing and shameful as some have posited; it was his presence. But by being present, sitting on his hands in the hallowed hall of the UN General Assembly while a vote calling for a humanitarian truce in the Israel-Hamas war was being taken, goes far beyond ignominy and discomfiture. It demonstrates complicity in, connivance with and condonation of the "unfolding abhorent genocide" against a long-suffering people by a settler, colonialist, apartheid State, aided and abetted by European ethno-nationalists.”
According to Rodriguez, this non-vote in the UN on a resolution that is contrary to the position of Israel is part of a pattern adopted since 2016 by the Jamaican government under the administration of Prime Minister Andrew Holness.
Jamaica’s pattern of Not Voting against Israel
Vote #1:
In October 26, 2016, in a secret vote, UNESCO's World Heritage Committee (WHC) approved a resolution on the status of conservation of the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls, home to Muslim, Christian and Jewish holy sites, and agreed to retain the city on the list of endangered world heritage sites. The resolution, which was strongly opposed by Israel, also criticised the Jewish state for its continuous refusal to grant access to the WHC's experts to Jerusalem's holy sites to determine their conservation status.
The resolution was adopted by the WHC's 21-member states by a vote of 10 in favour, two against, eight abstentions and one absent – Jamaica. A year earlier in 2015, a similar resolution was adopted by the WHC.
Rodriguez reports that during his "historic" three-day visit to Israel in January 2017, the first such by a Jamaican prime minister, Andrew Holness was thanked by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu for Jamaica's refusal to participate in the 2016 UNESCO/WHC vote. "We appreciate the fact that you didn't join the recent vote against Israel, the absurd vote in UNESCO," Netanyahu told Holness.
Vote #2:
On 21 December, 2017, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution ES-10/19 declaring the status of Jerusalem as Israel's capital "null and void". This after American President Donald Trump had said that he would recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital and move his country's embassy there. The resolution was adopted by a vote of 128 in favour, nine against, 35 abstentions and 21 absentees. Jamaica abstained.
Vote #3:
On October 27, 2023, almost seven years to the day after that secret UNESCO vote from which Jamaica absented itself, the United Nations General Assembly, in a recorded vote, adopted a resolution calling for an "immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce" between Israeli forces and Hamas militants in Gaza. It also demanded "continuous, sufficient and unhindered" provision of life-saving supplies and services for civilians trapped inside the enclave, as Israel expanded ground operations and intensified its bombing campaign.
The resolution was adopted with 120 votes in favour, 14 against, 45 abstentions. Jamaica was marked as absent.
Rodrigues notes that during his visit to Israel in January 2017, Holness, a "devout Christian", prayed in front of the stones of the Western Wall and, as reported in the Jewish press, "did not hide his emotions about the sacred nature of where he was standing." He spoke of Israel's historic relationship with Jamaica when Jews came to Jamaica as refugees from Spain and Portugal centuries earlier.
Based on the evidence it is clear that Jamaica’s non vote in the UN on 27th October was no accident. It is part of a policy by the Holness administration. Jamaica’s diplomacy, when it comes to Israel, is not based on “robust principles and democratic values” as claimed by the Foreign Ministry, nor based on whether Israel is in breach of International Humanitarian Law. Instead, Jamaica’s foreign policy is based on the religious bias of the Prime Minister.
No wonder the Jamaican government is quiet while Israel violates international law by waging collective punishment on innocent civilians in its campaign against Hamas; slaughtering women and children, destroying hospitals as well as denying civilians access to basic utilities such as water and electricity, just to name a few of the barbarities. Silence is consent. History will never forgive the Holness administration for squandering Jamaica’s good name by not lifting a finger to stop the genocide in Gaza.
What is religion for ? ‘bowing before walls’ or ‘saving peoples lives’ ?
Not adult enough to admit the evidence is overwhelming that you’ve been lied to and you will continue to accept the lies of the religion that wants world domination and you’re next in their eyes.