On a warm April evening in 2023, I sat outside a café in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, having a drink with friends. An exuberant American tourist sat at the table next to us and excitedly told us about his day.

Apparently, a likelihood meeting with the Patriarch of Jerusalem led him to go to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher for the Holy Fire ceremony, the most significant event of the 12 months in Orthodoxy.

This scene was repeated by countless people in countless places in the city. The details change, but the meaning of their authentic, spiritual experience was carried by all of them.

The importance of the “Holy Land” for the faithful cannot be underestimated. It has been considered one of the most significant pilgrimage sites in the world for over 2,000 years. Nowadays, this has created the basis for a lucrative tourism industry that’s value mentioning $8.46 billion (£6.73 billion) for Israel i $1 billion for Palestine in 2019

However, since October, tourists haven’t been able to reach this region in any respect. Most major airlines they suspended travel to Israel over security concerns, as governments around the world have done deliberate its residents against traveling there. Standard travel insurance packages now not provide cover for people traveling to the region.

In addition to economic development, tourism plays a significant political role in the region. The Zionist movement that led to the founding of Israel in 1948 recognized early on that tourism was a wonderful tool for fostering global connections and inspiring immigration to support Zionist settlement in Palestine.

This phenomenon has only grown and expanded over the a long time. More recently, this has manifested itself in an expansive industry of pro-Israel evangelical Christian tours and free tours offered to young people from the Jewish diaspora.

I lived in Jerusalem for the first half of 2023, researching the political significance of tourism in the region. I interviewed individuals who work, promote and are influenced by tourism activities. It was a turbulent period with increased violence, yet pilgrims and tourists continued to flock to the region as the global tourism industry continued to recuperate from the pandemic.

Now, as I watch Christmas, Ramadan, Passover and Easter pass by, I’m wondering how much has modified in only one 12 months. After seven months of intense violence in the region, the destruction of Gaza, the very visible and ongoing suffering of the Palestinians, and the International Court of Justice ruling that Israel’s actions in Gaza may be considered genocide, it is unimaginable to return to normal.

Grinding to a stop

Travel agencies in Palestine and Israel are accustomed to waxing and waning violence, resulting in uncertain revenues due to canceled trips. They normally operate with a reserve of capital that enables them to survive these difficult months.

However, several of my interlocutors revealed that these reserves were completely depleted during the pandemic. Many firms are currently in a very precarious situation with no safety net as the industry grinds to a halt.

Some responded quickly, offering tours diplomats and journalists – the only foreign guests staying in the region. However, this will do little to stem the hemorrhaging industry and plenty of, if not most, of those firms will stop to exist when tourism is finally able to return to the region.

Israel’s most steadfast allies are also starting to waver in their support for an attack on Gaza. Mass student protests at infamously pro-Israel American universities, calls for boycotts, divestment and sanctions, in addition to for vulgar support and solidarity on social media movementmake the future prospects for Israel’s tourism industry bleak, each as a income and as a Zionist political tool.

There will finally be a tourist audience in the future. However, this audience’s openness to the Zionist narrative is questionable.

International supporters of Israel have gotten aware brutal settler-colonial aspect of Zionism. Many are being swayed to support Palestine, together with vast swaths of the world’s population who, before October, had never considered Israel or Palestine. And the average tourist or pilgrim is now aware of propaganda language and storytelling that he would previously have accepted at face value and never questioned.

The global surge in support for the Palestinians may extend to those willing to visit and meet them to show solidarity and see the suffering and oppression with their very own eyes. Israel has effectively destroyed considered one of its historically simplest tools for continuing its settlement project by destroying Gaza in front of the world.

The International Criminal Court may issue arrest warrants for each Israeli and Hamas leaders within the wake of Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attacks on Israeli civilians and the next Israeli invasion of Gaza, according to Israeli officials and what The New York Times and other sources mass media called “foreign officials”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is one of them individuals who may be named within the arrest warrant Already this week, the Israeli every day Haaretz reported April 28, 2024.

The ICC, an independent tribunal based in The Hague, Netherlands, prosecutes genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes – the latter legal term which incorporates attacks on civilians and other crimes. violations of martial lawSuch as blocking humanitarian aid.

Karim Khan, the present chief prosecutor of the ICC, announced in November 2023 that he would launch an investigation into Hamas and Israeli suspects following the Hamas attack in Israel that killed 1,200 people and kidnapped tons of more, and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza, which has thus far over 34,000 Palestinians died.

ICC criminal investigation appears right after the famous genocide case which South Africa brought against Israel in December 2023 before one other international tribunal called the International Court of Justice.

But these investigations and courts are different. Although the ICC may conduct trials of those allegedly answerable for criminal violations of international humanitarian law, the International Court of Justice is the part of the United Nations that adjudicates civil and civil disputes. cannot accuse individuals of crimes.

How human rights researcher and international courts, I consider it is vital to emphasize that international criminal tribunals do not have enforcement powers of their very own. And meaning they could never be able to arrest suspects or bring them to justice.

Therefore, these international courts have had mixed experiences in holding senior political and military leaders accountable for his or her crimes. Only when political leaders lose power is there a likelihood that their governments will arrest them and hand them over to international courts for prosecution.

A challenge for international courts

Take the instance of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been opposing an ICC arrest warrant since March 2023 for allegedly committing war crimes throughout the Ukrainian war. As long as Putin stays in power, there’s virtually no likelihood of his arrest.

International criminal tribunals just like the ICC have a two-fold problem. First, these tribunals haven’t any real international police force to perform arrests.

Second, governments implicated within the alleged crimes of their leaders often try to obstruct the work of international tribunals by not handing over suspects and trying to attack the tribunals as biased.

The problem of enforcement, as my scholarship has showncould allow the leaders of a robust country like Israel to avoid arrest warrants issued by international courts – provided the suspects remain within the country.

Israel is in this case is not a celebration to the ICC, meaning that he has never agreed to abide by his judgments or arrest orders and does not otherwise recognize the court’s jurisdiction. The United States and other countries, including Qatar, where some Hamas leaders live, are also not members of the ICC and haven’t any legal obligation to make arrests.

This signifies that if the ICC issues an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, he will be able to go to meet US leaders in Washington without fear of arrest. But he could not easily go to European Union countries, all of that are members of the ICC, and would be forced to arrest Netanyahu.

It is unclear what precisely the ICC’s alleged allegations might include. However, Netanyahu and other Israeli political and military leaders may now avoid traveling to ICC member states in order not to risk arrest if a warrant is issued.

All this may also contribute to Israel’s development further international isolation and pressure on his conduct throughout the war.

Prosecuting Hamas leaders involved within the October 7 atrocities could similarly stigmatize Hamas internationally.

The United States, which at times strongly opposed the ICC, but additionally supported the ICC the court on an ad hoc basis, he warned that issuing arrest warrants for Israeli leaders could jeopardize a possible ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.

Milosevic’s fall from power

Not all arrest warrants fail.

Attempt Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic from the mid-2000s shows how international tribunals might be able to prosecute alleged war criminals after they lose power.

In 1993, while the war in Bosnia was still ongoing, the UN Security Council established a special court, called the Tribunal for International Criminal Tribunal for the previous Yugoslaviato address crimes committed during regional wars.

This court indicted Serbian nationalist leader Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in 1999 throughout the ongoing war in Kosovo. Milosevic’s alleged crimes in Kosovo include a large ethnic cleansing campaign against Kosovo Albanians, the country’s largest ethnic group. Milosevic later faced additional charges for alleged crimes in Bosnia and Croatia.

However, on the time of the indictment, Milosevic was still in power and his government protected him from arrest. Milosevic lost the presidential election in late September 2000 and after widespread protests he gave in.

The United States promised the brand new democratic government in Serbia significant economic aid to speed up post-war recovery. This helped persuade the Serbian government to achieve this arrest Milosevic and then move it to international tribunal in June 2001.

A possible handbook for the leaders of Israel and Hamas

Milosevic trial was launched in February 2002but he died in prison in 2006, shortly before the tip of the trial.

His trial continues to show that, under certain circumstances, international courts can overcome their lack of enforcement powers and bring high-level suspects to justice. International political pressures and incentives often play a pivotal role on this process.

As long as any political and military leaders facing potential arrest remain in power, it is probably going that no amount of political pressure or guarantees will persuade Israel, Qatar or other countries to cooperate with the international court and hand over any leaders in the event that they are indicted.

History also shows that even if Hamas leaders are overthrown or Israeli leaders lose the elections, there isn’t any guarantee that potential suspects will ever face the ICC.

In Israel, there’s broad public opposition to the ICC, which Netanyahu has attacked prior to now for “pure anti-Semitism”, will probably proceed. Moreover, at the very least within the short term, it’s unlikely that the United States will apply to its close ally, Israel, the identical pressure that it successfully applied to Serbia after Milosevic fell from power.

Kahn did not comment on reports of possible arrest warrants. Nevertheless, Israeli officials they went on the offensive in an apparent attempt to gain American support to prevent ICC motion.

Maps, although seemingly objective representations of the world, have enormous power. They shape our understanding of space, determine the directions of our travels and define political boundaries. But beneath the façade of neutrality lies the potential for manipulation.

The history of warfare is replete with examples of maps being used to dehumanize the enemy. Some of them are very obvious. Satirical maps were created by all sides of the First World War, depicting Europe as a series of caricatures intended to dehumanize enemy states and push a narrative of victory in the war.

Other examples are less obvious. During the Vietnam War, the US military created maps that marked specific regions of Vietnam “free fire zones”, meaning that any person or activity inside this zone could also be considered hostile and a goal for military force. This tactic effectively worn out the civilian population from the map, treating your complete area as an enemy stronghold.

The dehumanizing effect of maps comes from their inherent abstraction. Maps simplify reality by reducing a fancy landscape teeming with life and history to lines, symbols and colours. While needed for clarity, this simplification often results in the removal of the human element.

For example, the map below shows the locations of known Russian military and ground attacks following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The map uses symbols to simplify the conflict. We later learned that one of these cartoon-like icons represents Bucha massacre in which Russian forces reportedly killed 458 Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war.

Fueling conflict

Maps may also be used to bolster the “us versus them” mentality that fuels conflict. They create a visible distinction between “our side” and “theirs”, clearly marking enemy territory.

The day before Genocide in Rwanda in 1994, extremist Hutu media produced maps which divided Rwandans based on ethnicity: Hutu and Tutsi. These maps were not only geographical representations, they were identification and tracking tools.

Maps often used contrasting colours to sharply separate Hutu and Tutsi areas. This visual distinction created a transparent separation between the in-group (Hutu) and the out-group (Tutsi), promoting the concept Tutsis are not part of the material of Rwanda.

Some maps went further, using symbols similar to machetes or snakes to represent Tutsis, depicting them as brutal and dangerous. These maps were widely distributed through newspapers and radio broadcasts. They not only identified Tutsis, but additionally served as visual propaganda to justify violence against them.

This visual separation promotes a way of distance and difference, making it easier to perceive the enemy as an abstract threat fairly than other people. Propaganda maps exploit this effect by exaggerating the dimensions of enemy territory or depicting the enemy population as faceless masses.

Removing an individual from the map

The IDF’s introduction of grid maps to Gaza in December 2023 introduced one other way of dehumanizing the population. Like free fire zones throughout the Vietnam War, Israel divided Gaza into over 600 blocks, ostensibly to assist evacuation of civilians.

Any block on the map that may be reached via a QR code found on leaflets and social media posts can receive evacuation warnings before that square is bombed. However, support staff do warned that the map risks turning life in Gaza right into a “battleship game” in which the flattening of any given grid square is justified by the looks that it’s an empty spot on the map.

Maps also influence the best way we, as observers, perceive conflicts. This may extend beyond the battlefield. Maps often depict refugees as a homogeneous mass, leaving out the person histories and desires that drove them from their homes.

In the early stages of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, for instance, the BBC got here under fire in the case of one map that shows the movement of refugees with arrows. People on social media he suggested that these symbols commanded invasion fairly than flight. In response to criticism, the BBC updated the map to make use of proportional circles as a substitute.

Homework is completed

The dehumanization inherent in war maps is just not inevitable. For example, including civilian infrastructure and population density in military maps could be a constant reminder of the human costs of conflict. Oral histories and community map projects can even offer alternative perspectives on the land, highlighting the human histories often erased by military cartography.

The conflict in Gaza has shown that lessons are being learned about how you can higher use maps during conflict. Reutersfor instance, maps were used together with other textual and visual elements to assist tell a fuller story and complete what maps alone could never achieve.

Ultimately, maps are tools that may be used for good or evil. We must strive to look beyond the lines and symbols and remember the people whose lives are affected by the conflicts depicted on the maps.