Janine di Giovanni is executive director at The Reckoning Project and a columnist for The National
November 17, 2023
With more than 10,000 people dead in Gaza – nearly half of them children – and many Israeli hostages still missing, it is hard to envisage an endgame to the current conflict. What will the landscape of the embattled Gaza Strip look like when the war ends, not just from a political or governance point of view, but from a societal?
How wars end is crucial because it determines how sustainable the future peace will be. Transitional justice is meant to connect the present to a traumatic past. Consider it psychotherapy for countries, allowing societies to rebuild and heal by addressing their past trauma.
It seems counterproductive to think about how transitional justice will look when the Israeli military is still carpet-bombing Gaza, and millions are seeking refuge. However, it is imperative to at least try because this is how people will come together in the future to address the legacies of large-scale human rights violations.
Transitional justice takes several forms: youth initiatives; peace processes; truth and memory; gender justice; institutional reform and criminal justice. However, at the core of transitional justice is prevention. This is a priority for any peace, development or governance.
We can look at past examples of conflicts and what happened when the fighting ended. Argentina, for instance, went through the horrific Dirty War from 1973 to 1984 during which 30,000 people disappeared.
Thousands of citizens – including mothers who wore white headscarves in memory of their lost children – would fill the streets of Buenos Aires to remind people of exactly what had happened. But it was also a reminder of what must never occur again.
An important healing process after this terrible period was the country’s “Never Again” report for the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons. It was a crucial piece of Argentina’s Truth Commissions, and a window on dealing with the past.
The aim of transitional justice is to break the cycle of impunity and violence. Studies done by the International Centre for Transitional Justice in the Philippines, Sierra Leone, Morocco and other countries showed how transitional justice can prevent future conflict. But to do this, there must also be policy reform to ensure that it never happens again.
Palestinian children wounded in Israeli strikes amid the Israel-Gaza war wait for treatment at Nasser Hospital. Reuters
Wounded Palestinians are assisted out of an ambulance to receive treatment at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Reuters
Displaced Palestinian children gather for breakfast at a refugee camp in Rafah. AFP
Children inside a damaged building following strikes on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. AFP
People salvage belongings from a damaged building following strikes on Rafah. AFP
A girl is assisted as Palestinians search for casualties after an Israeli strike on a house, in Rafa in the southern Gaza Strip. Reuters
A Palestinian woman is evacuated at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, in Rafah. Reuters
Police officers push back a counter protester who snatched a pro-Palestinian placard from a woman during a demonstration in solidarity with Gazans, London. Reuters
Israeli soldiers inside the Gaza Strip, amid the continuing ground operation. Reuters
An Israeli flag can be seen inside the Gaza Strip, from the Israeli side of the border. Reuters
A Palestinian woman evacuates her home, heading to the southern Gaza Strip. EPA
Thomas Hand, the father of Irish-Israeli Emily Hand, 8, who was announced dead following the October 7 attack, then later confirmed as one of the hostages held in Gaza, speaks from his hotel where he was evacuated to in Israel. Reuters
A residential building on fire following Israeli air strikes in Gaza city. Bloomberg
The rubble from destroyed residential buildings fills a street in Gaza city. Bloomberg
A Palestinian child drinks water as they evacuate to the southern Gaza Strip. EPA
Palestinians displaced from Gaza city head towards the south. Bloomberg
Palestinians flee to the southern Gaza Strip. AP
Palestinians flee to the southern Gaza Strip on Salah al-Din Street in Bureij, Gaza Strip. AP
A group picture ahead of an emergency meeting of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation in Riyadh. AFP
The aim of transitional justice is to break the cycle of impunity and violence
Germany has also done extensive work on healing and coming to terms with the past. The German word often associated with looking backwards to find answers is “vergangenheitsbewaltigung”, which translates to “struggling to come to terms with the past”. Extensive work has been done in modern Germany to try to understand the Nazi period. How did it happen? Is there collective culpability? By analysing the Holocaust, the belief that by learning from the bleak past, one will not repeat such terrible mistakes.
Perhaps it helps us to look at examples of where justice has not worked. This is a way of illustrating what must be done in current wars, such as in Ukraine and Palestine-Israel.
In Bosnia, the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia estimated that between 20,000 to 50,000 women were believed to have been raped during the 1992-1995 war. More than 80 per cent of them were held for long periods of imprisonment.
Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the UN special rapporteur on human rights at the time, whose research cited a figure of 12,000 victims of sexual violence, concluded that “rape has been used as an instrument of ethnic cleansing”. Yet very few of the rapists were ever presented for trial at The Hague.
I once interviewed a woman whose life had been utterly broken by what happened to her in those camps. And yet she went back to live in her village and had to face her rapists every single day in the streets. Chillingly, she told me that it was she who dropped her eyes in shame, not them.
Another example of a pain that was never healed is Iraq. According to Nadim Houry, in a report on transitional justice for the Brookings Institution think tank, said “Iraq’s failed approach to transitional justice post-2003 illustrates the dangers of tackling the past without addressing the present”.
“Policies that were adopted to address violations committed during Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship did not heal, but rather fuelled new cycles of violence,” he added.
Sometimes justice can take decades. In El Salvador, which endured a horrific conflict in the 1980s, survivors and families have spent years fighting for recognition. In 2016, El Salvador’s Supreme Court struck down an amnesty law that made it impossible to prosecute those involved in massacres as well as other gross human rights abuses. This meant it was finally possible to investigate crimes that took place decades before, but which were still raw in the survivors’ memories.
The Attorney General’s office, working together with civil society, helped human rights defenders fight for reparations and justice. Miriam Abrego, a victim who was shot twice, is one of these advocates. “The government and others keep telling us to shut up. But me, I won’t shut up. We victims are tired. We want to be recognised as victims. We want to be heard,” she told a UN report.
Looking at Gaza being bombed and millions being made homeless makes me wonder whether any kind of justice will ever emerge. The crimes of both Hamas and the Israeli military will have to be carefully investigated. Yet so many Palestinians have become used to not seeing justice, having endured the misery of the Nakba since 1948.
Perhaps one of the most effective transitional justice tools is engagement with the youth. My last trip to Gaza, in 2021, was spent with young people such as the impressive coding institute, Gaza Sky Geeks. Most probably it is rubble now, but back then it was a clear example of empowerment.
Some of the young people I spoke with there were trying to meet their Israeli counterparts to begin back-channel engagement, to feed into eventual peace processes. This is known as Track 2 and Track 3 diplomacy. Will they be able to rebuild these processes and restore trust after October 7 and the destruction of Gaza?
The sorrow of war is that the same mistakes are endlessly repeated. But cycles of violence can and must be broken. The philosopher George Santayana’s best-known quote is perhaps the clearest illustration of transitional justice in action: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Dr Peter Glaser was a Czech-born space tech pioneer who moved to the United States in 1948 where he studied mechanical engineering at Columbia.
He is best known as the inventor of the Solar Power Satellite, a concept which he presented in the journal Science in 1968 under the title Power from the Sun: It’s Future.
Five years later, he was granted a US patent to supply power from space, however it was considered too large to launch economically from Earth.
It was suggested it could be constructed in space, using lunar and asteroid materials, by a team permanently based in space, but it was never put into practice.
He was project manager for the Apollo 11 ‘Laser Ranging Retroflecter Array’ which was installed on the moon in 1969.
He served on several Nasa committees and was inducted into the Space Technology Hall of Fame in 1996.
He died in 2014, aged 87
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Founders: Michele Ferrario, Nino Ulsamer and Freddy Lim Started: established in 2016 and launched in July 2017 Based: Singapore, with offices in the UAE, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand Sector: FinTech, wealth management Initial investment: $500,000 in seed round 1 in 2016; $2.2m in seed round 2 in 2017; $5m in series A round in 2018; $12m in series B round in 2019; $16m in series C round in 2020 and $25m in series D round in 2021 Current staff: more than 160 employees Stage: series D Investors: EightRoads Ventures, Square Peg Capital, Sequoia Capital India
Picture of Joumblatt and Hariri breaking bread sets Twitter alight
Mr Joumblatt’s pessimism regarding the Lebanese political situation didn’t stop him from enjoying a cheerful dinner on Tuesday with several politicians including Mr Hariri.
Caretaker Culture Minister Ghattas Khoury tweeted a picture of the group sitting around a table at a discrete fish restaurant in Beirut’s upscale Sodeco area.
Mr Joumblatt told The National that the fish served at Kelly’s Fish lounge had been very good.
“They really enjoyed their time”, remembers the restaurant owner. “Mr Hariri was taking selfies with everybody”.
Mr Hariri and Mr Joumblatt often have dinner together to discuss recent political developments.
Mr Joumblatt was a close ally of Mr Hariri’s assassinated father, former prime minister Rafik Hariri. The pair were leading figures in the political grouping against the 15-year Syrian occupation of Lebanon that ended after mass protests in 2005 in the wake of Rafik Hariri’s murder. After the younger Hariri took over his father’s mantle in 2004, the relationship with Mr Joumblatt endured.
However, the pair have not always been so close. In the run-up to the election last year, Messrs Hariri and Joumblatt went months without speaking over an argument regarding the new proportional electoral law to be used for the first time. Mr Joumblatt worried that a proportional system, which Mr Hariri backed, would see the influence of his small sect diminished.
With so much of Lebanese politics agreed in late-night meetings behind closed doors, the media and pundits put significant weight on how regularly, where and with who senior politicians meet.
In the picture, alongside Messrs Khoury and Hariri were Mr Joumbatt and his wife Nora, PSP politician Wael Abou Faour and Egyptian ambassador to Lebanon Nazih el Nagari.
The picture of the dinner led to a flurry of excitement on Twitter that it signified an imminent government formation. “God willing, white smoke will rise soon and Walid Beik [a nickname for Walid Joumblatt] will accept to give up the minister of industry”, one user replied to the tweet. “Blessings to you…We would like you to form a cabinet”, wrote another.
The next few days will be crucial in determining whether these wishes come true.
Race results:
1. Thani Al Qemzi (UAE) Team Abu Dhabi: 46.44 min
2. Peter Morin (FRA) CTIC F1 Shenzhen China Team: 0.91sec
3. Sami Selio (FIN) Mad-Croc Baba Racing Team: 31.43sec
How to keep control of your emotions
If your investment decisions are being dictated by emotions such as fear, greed, hope, frustration and boredom, it is time for a rethink, Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at online trading platform IG, says.
Greed
Greedy investors trade beyond their means, open more positions than usual or hold on to positions too long to chase an even greater gain. “All too often, they incur a heavy loss and may even wipe out the profit already made.
Tip: Ignore the short-term hype, noise and froth and invest for the long-term plan, based on sound fundamentals.
Fear
The risk of making a loss can cloud decision-making. “This can cause you to close out a position too early, or miss out on a profit by being too afraid to open a trade,” he says.
Tip: Start with a plan, and stick to it. For added security, consider placing stops to reduce any losses and limits to lock in profits.
Hope
While all traders need hope to start trading, excessive optimism can backfire. Too many traders hold on to a losing trade because they believe that it will reverse its trend and become profitable.
Tip: Set realistic goals. Be happy with what you have earned, rather than frustrated by what you could have earned.
Frustration
Traders can get annoyed when the markets have behaved in unexpected ways and generates losses or fails to deliver anticipated gains.
Tip:Accept in advance that asset price movements are completely unpredictable and you will suffer losses at some point. These can be managed, say, by attaching stops and limits to your trades.
Boredom
Too many investors buy and sell because they want something to do. They are trading as entertainment, rather than in the hope of making money. As well as making bad decisions, the extra dealing charges eat into returns.
Tip: Open an online demo account and get your thrills without risking real money.
Name: Thndr Started: 2019 Co-founders: Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr Sector: FinTech Headquarters: Egypt UAE base: Hub71, Abu Dhabi Current number of staff: More than 150 Funds raised: $22 million
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
Micro-retirement is not a recognised concept or employment status under Federal Decree Law No. 33 of 2021 on the Regulation of Labour Relations (as amended) (UAE Labour Law). As such, it reflects a voluntary work-life balance practice, rather than a recognised legal employment category, according to Dilini Loku, senior associate for law firm Gateley Middle East.
“Some companies may offer formal sabbatical policies or career break programmes; however, beyond such arrangements, there is no automatic right or statutory entitlement to extended breaks,” she explains.
“Any leave taken beyond statutory entitlements, such as annual leave, is typically regarded as unpaid leave in accordance with Article 33 of the UAE Labour Law. While employees may legally take unpaid leave, such requests are subject to the employer’s discretion and require approval.”
If an employee resigns to pursue micro-retirement, the employment contract is terminated, and the employer is under no legal obligation to rehire the employee in the future unless specific contractual agreements are in place (such as return-to-work arrangements), which are generally uncommon, Ms Loku adds.
UAE v IRELAND
All matches start at 10am, and will be played in Abu Dhabi
