Gaza & Empire: Webinar

4 Jan

In this time of humanitarian emergency and criminality, the enraged voices of the people must be heard above the tsunami of state propaganda controlled by Israel and its geopolitical supporters in the Global West. It is no longer necessary or useful to debate whether this spectacle of horror satisfies the legal definition of ‘genocide.’ Lawyers and bureaucrats can indefinitiely prolong debate while children daily die and homes of previously abused persons continue to be destroyed. We are all responsible to act now to stem the high tide of Palestinian blood flowing across a still passive human terrain.

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Gaza Webinar: Is Israel Cornered?

2 Jan

Israel despite a transparent genocidal onslaught in Gaza that has gone on for more than three months may find itself cornered: unable to prevail, unable to accept defeat. What then?

Wed., Jan. 10 at 7 PM Eastern: The Gaza War, Short & Long-Term Diplomatic Imperatives, & Implications for the Middle East and Geopolitics, with panelists Richard Falk, Irene Gendzier, and Assaf Kfoury. Discussing: What must be done to end the war? To prevent escalation to a still more catastrophic regional war? To begin the difficult diplomacy to ensure the rights, dignity, and security of both the Palestinian and Israeli peoples? To create U.S. policies that defuse rather than exacerbate militarism, divisions, and tensions across the Middle East?

Sponsored by: Campaign for Peace, Disarmament, and Common Security

* Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University

* Irene L. Gendzier isProfessor Emerita at Boston University, Dept. of History and Political Science

* Assaf Kfoury is a professor in the Computer Science Department at Boston University

>>> To register, click at https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_3bx1nQUoQrGAV__F9ZqEkw#/registration

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Linking to the Declaration of Conscience of Global Intellectuals and Meeting the Challenges of 2024

24 Dec

Several blog readers have requested information about the link to the Declaration of Conscience and Concern of Global Intellectual to Stop Genocide in Gaza. Here is the link that can be used to endorse or by anyone in your network to endorse:

https://www.change.org/p/declaration-of-conscience-and-concern-of-global-intellectuals-on-gaza-genocide

Let me take the opportunity at this time of Christmas to wish all a better year in 2024 when glimpses of light penetrate the darks skies above many sites of suffering throughout the world. If ever the combined energies of ethical concern for human wellbeing joined with the ecological imperatives of an enhanced stewardship with the natural habitats of the human species needed the active engagement of persons and movements of good will and spiritual energy it is now. With prayer, witnessing, and sacrifice it remains possible to dream of a humane future, but only if enough of us are awakened from prolonged complacency.

We might start the awakening process by acting on the realization that we are united the world over as indigenous peoples of the earth, and what that means in how we feel, act, and hope.

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David Krieger (1942-2023): A Life of Dedication to the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons

21 Dec

[Prefatory Note: My In Memorium essay honoring David Krieger’s notable life was published in the December 21 Santa Barbara weekly newapaper, The Independent. Although David devoted his professional life to anti-nuclear scholarship and activism, his underlying motivationa were guided by fervent hopes for a world anchored in dignity for all and respect for the authority of international law and a robust United Nations]

Remembering my long, close, cherished friendship reinforces my sense of loss resulting from the death of David Krieger.

Our primary interests were unusually congruent. We were devoted to a world in which nuclear weapons and the danger of a nuclear war had become an unpleasant recollection rather than an existential menace. We both found great satisfaction as well as a sense of personal liberation playing competitive tennis as often as our schedules would allow. And we both expressed our deepest feelings about the world through poetry, both reading and writing poems.

David excelled in each of these spheres while I struggled, but despite this hierarchy of relative achievements, we managed to find pleasure through sharing much that seemed happily uncorrupted by the pressures of normal professional life.

David was well-known in Santa Barbara. He was the founding president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in 1982 until his reluctant retirement in 2020. He managed to sustain this nongovernmental organization (NGO) through the support from an array of donors, many drawn from local sources. He put together a Board of Directors and staff that shared his single-minded dedication to the abolition of nuclear weapons, which for him was the darkest cloud overhanging the future of humanity.

David firmly believed that reliable knowledge conveying the drastic havoc of a nuclear war would awaken both the citizenry and its governmental representatives to the menace that threatened the future, ever since the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. The spirit of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation was well captured by its website adages: “For the human race, Not the arms race” and “Abolish nuclear weapons before they abolish us.”

David never lost his hope for such a peaceful future for the country and the world, despite his knowledge of how deeply embedded nuclearism was in the political and economic consciousness of the nation, through the arms industry, a subservient Congress and media, and militarist foreign policy.

In lectures of invited peace luminaries and awards for life achievements, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation honored those who contributed to realizing its goals, including Daniel Ellsberg, Noam Chomsky, and Robert Jay Lifton, celebrated activists such as Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire and Helen Caldicott, and notable personalities such as Queen Noor and Oliver Stone.

For such prolonged anti-nuclear efforts, it is hardly surprising that David and the Peace Foundation were nominated on several occasions for the Nobel Peace Prize. In the recent book, The Real Nobel Peace Prize: A Squandered Opportunity to Abolish War, the renowned Norwegian expert on this most coveted of peace prizes, Fredrik Heffermehl, writes convincingly that David deserved the prize more than many of its recipients because his life’s work and that of the foundation he created. Heffermehl believed that the foundation’s contributions were in keeping with what Alfred Nobel had in mind when he established the prize to realize a vision of a world without war. David’s focus on nuclear weaponry was the vital first step in achieving this goal.

If nuclearism was what David hated, what he loved, besides his family, was poetry. It was a great joy for me to exchange haiku with David on a regular basis. Here are two examples of his haiku that should be read in relation to the profound impact the Hiroshima experience had on David’s life:

There, in the dark sky
through the sycamore leaves
the full moon

A rare good fortune —
to awaken from dreaming
in the moonlight

Although disease made him unable to speak, David remained alert until the end of his life, undoubtedly mourning the terrible wars in Ukraine and Gaza, but I also imagine him glimpsing glimmers of light, none brighter than knowing that the foundation his life was built around would continue to thrive under the sway of its inspirational new president, Ivana Hughes. She shares David’s passion, exhibiting a nurturing energy far and wide that spreads the message of nuclear disarmament, effectively introducing the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation abolitionist perspective into the practical activities of the United Nations and many other global venues around the world.

A second glimmer of light is the entry into force of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 2021. Although the treaty is opposed by NATO countries, including of course the United States, as well as by the other eight nuclear states, it is supported by governments representing a majority of the world’s peoples. David never lost his faith in respect for international law as the pathway to a peaceful world. This new treaty gives peace activists a powerful instrument by which to work toward a denuclearizing world, but it will not happen without a robust worldwide movement of people. That alone, with the capacities to mobilize sufficient democratic pressures, will lead governments — above all, ours — to finally do the right thing.

Above all, David believed in the transforming potential of love and beauty. His life was memorable for more than being a warrior for nuclear abolition. He was blessed by the love and the extraordinary support of his life partner, Carolee; children who made him proud; and grandchildren who kept him young as he grew old. It was Carolee who was so steadfast in her loving vigil of recent years as to make David’s transition from life to death as bearable, even mostly joyful, as it appeared to be.

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Declaration of Conscience and Concern of Global Intellectuals on Gaza Genocide

20 Dec

[Prefatory Note: What follows is a Declaration of Conscience of Global Intellectual on Gaza Genocide prepared by Ahmet Davutoglu and myself, with the assistance of Abudllah Ahsan and Hilal Elver. It sought to enlist an initial list of signatories from around the as representative as possbile, and gender balance. We invite others to join by sending their endorsement to <change.org> listed under the heading of Declaration of Conscience. I will post a link as it is available. We view the virtual annihilation of Gaza as a societal grouping and its people as an imminent possibility. As of 12/20.23 it is reported that 88% of the population has insufficient food, and potable water is 90% less that minimum needs for sustainable health.]

On November 30, the Government of Israel resumed the genocidal onslaught it inicted on Palestinians in Gaza after a much overdue but brief “humanitarian pause.” In doing so, Israel has ignored the worldwide protests of people as well as the fervent pleas of moral, religious, and political authority gures throughout the world to convert the hostage/prisoner exchange pause into a permanent ceasere. The overriding intention was to avert the worsening of the ordeal of the Gazan population. Israel was urged to choose the road to peace not only for humanitarian reasons but also for the sake of achieving real security and respect for both Palestinians and Israelis. Yet now the bodies are again piling up, the Gaza medical system can no longer offer treatment to most of those injured, and threats of widespread starvation and disease intensify daily.

Under these circumstances, this Declaration calls not only for the denunciation of Israel’s genocidal assault but also for taking effective action to permanently prevent its repetition. We come together due to the urgency of the moment, which obliges global intellectuals to stand against the ongoing horric ordeal of the Palestinian people and, most of all, to implore action by those who have the power, and hence the responsibility, to do so. Israel’s continuing rejection of a permanent ceasere intensies our concerns. Many weeks of cruel devastation caused by Israel’s grossly disproportionate response to the October 7 attack, continues to exhibit Israel’s vengeful fury. That fury can in no way be excused by the horrendous violence of Hamas against civilians in Israel or inapplicable claims of self-defense against an occupied population.

Indeed, even the combat pause seems to have been agreed upon by the Israeli government mainly to ease pressures from Israeli citizens demanding greater efforts to secure the release of the hostages. The United States government evidently reinforced this pressure as a belated, display to the world that it was not utterly insensitive to humanitarian concerns. Even this gesture was undercut before the pause started by the deant public insistence of Prime Minister Netanyahu to resume the war immediately after the pause. It is more appropriate to interpret these seven days without combat as a pause in Israel’s genocidal operations in Gaza rather than as a humanitarian pause. If truly humanitarian, it would not have crushed hopes of ending the genocide and conjointly resuming efforts to negotiate the conditions for an enduring and just peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

The revival of this military campaign waged by Israel against the civilian population of Gaza amounts to a repudiation of UN authority, of law and morality in general, and of simple human decency. The collaborative approval of Israel’s action by the leading liberal democracies in the Global

West, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom, accentuates our anguish and disgust. These governments pride themselves on adherence to the rule of law and yet have so far limited their peacemaking role to PR pressures on Israel to conduct its exorbitant actions in a more discreet manner. Such moves do little more than soften the sharpest edges of Israel’s genocidal behavior in Gaza. At the same time continuing to endorse Israel’s false rationale of self-defense, which is inapplicable in a Belligerent Occupation framework established by the UN in the aftermath of the 1967 War, shielded this brazenly criminal conduct from legal condemnation and political censure at the UN and elsewhere.

We deplore the reality that these governments continue to lend overall support to Israel’s announced intention to pursue its combat goals, which entail the commission of severe war crimes that Tel Aviv does not even bother to deny. These crimes include the resumption of intensive bombing and shelling of civilian targets, as well as reliance on the cruel tactics of forced evacuation, the destruction of hospitals, bombings of refugee camps and UN buildings that are sheltering many thousands of civilians and the destruction of entire residential neighborhoods. In addition, Israel has been greenlighting settler-led violence and escalating ethnic cleansing efforts in the West Bank. Given these developments we urge national governments to embargo and halt all shipments of weapons to Israel, especially the United States and the United Kingdom, which should also withdraw their provocative naval presences from the Eastern Mediterranean; we urge the UN Security Council and General Assembly to so decree without delay.

We also support the Palestinian unconditional right as the indigenous people of the land to give or withhold approval to any proposed solution bearing upon their underlying liberation struggle.

The deteriorating situation poses an extreme humanitarian emergency challenging the UN system to respond with unprecedented urgency. We commend UNICEF for extending desperately needed help to wounded children as well as to children whose parents were killed or seriously injured every continuing effort. We also commend WHO for doing all in its power to help injured Palestinians, especially pregnant women and children, and to insist as effectively as possible on the immediate reconstruction and reopening of hospitals destroyed and damaged by Israeli attacks. We especially commend UNRWA for continuing the sheltering of many thousands of Palestinians in Gaza displaced by the war and for providing other relief in the face of heavy staff casualties from Israeli repeated bombardment of UN buildings. Beyond this, UNESCO should be implored to recognize threats to religious and cultural sites and give its highest priority to their protection against all manner of violation, especially the Masjid al-Aqsa; the Israeli government should be warned about its unconditional legal accountability for protecting these sites.

We also propose that the UN Human Rights Council should act now to establish a high-profile expert commission of inquiry mandated to ascertain the facts and law arising from the Hamas attack and Israel’s military operations in Gaza since October 7, 2023. The commission should offer recommendations in its report pertaining to the responsibility and accountability of principal perpetrators for violations of human rights and humanitarian norms that constitute war crimes and genocide.

We also view the desperation of the situation to engage the responsibility of governments, international institutions, and civil society to act as well as to speak, and use their diplomatic and economic capabilities to the utmost with the objective of bringing the violence in Gaza to an end now!

As signatories of this Declaration, we unequivocally call for an immediate ceasefire and the initiation of diplomatic negotiations under respected and impartial auspices, aimed at terminating Israel’s long and criminally abusive occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. This process must be fully respectful of the inalienable right to self-determination of the Palestinian people and take proper account of relevant UN resolutions.

SIGN THE PETITION

Declaration of Conscience and Concern of Global Intellectuals on Gaza Genocide

Signatories

  1. Ahmet Davutoğlu, Former Foreign Minister and Prime Minister, Türkiye;
  2. Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied since 1967 (2008-2014), Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University;
  3. Dr. Moncef Marzouki, Former President of Tunisia;
  4. Mahathir Mohamed, Former Prime Minister of Malaysia;
  5. Georges Abi-Saab, Professor Emeritus, Graduate Institute Geneva and Cairo University, Former UN Advisor to the Secretary Generals of the UN; Former Judge of the International Court of Justice, Egypt;
  6. Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate (1976), Member of Russell Tribunal, Northern Ireland;
  7. Amr Moussa, Former Secretary General of the Arab Leauge, Former Foreign Minister, Member of the UN’s High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change for International Peace and Security, Egypt;
  8. M. Javad Zarif, Professor, University of Tehran, Former Foreign Minister, Iran;
  9. Hamid Albar, Former Foreign Minister, First Chancellor of the Asia e University, Malaysia;
  10. Brigette Mabandla, Former Minister of Justice and anti-Apartheid Activist, South Africa;
  11. Judith Butler, Professor, University of California at Berkeley; Feminist Studies, USA;
  12. KamalHossein,FormerForeignMinister,Bangladesh;
  13. PauloSergia,ProfessorofPoliticalScience(USP)andFormerMinisterofHuman Rights, Brazil;
  14. ChrisHedges,Pulitzer-prizeWinningReporterandFormerMiddleEastBureau Chief for The New York Times, USA;
  15. TuWeiming,MemberofUNGroupofEminentPersonsfortheDialogueAmong Civilizations, Professor Emeritus, Harvard University, USA; Founding Director of the Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies, Peking University, China;
  1. JohnEsposito,ProfessorofInternationalRelationsandtheFoundingDirectorofthe Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University; Member of High Level Group of the UN Alliance of Civilizations, USA;
  2. Arundhati Roy, Author of God of Small Things, Human Rights Activist, India;
  3. SusanAbulhawa,PalestinianNovelist,AuthorofMorningsinJenin,USA;
  4. HansvonSponeck,FormerUNAssistantSecretary-General,FacultyMemberat Conict Research Center, University of Marburg, Germany;
  5. Angela Davis, Berkeley, USA;
  6. HilalElver,ProfessorofInternationalLaw,UNSpecialRapporteuronRighttoFood (2014-2020), Türkiye;
  7. Abdullah Ahsan, Professor of History International Islamic University Malaysia and Istanbul Şehir University, USA;
  8. Phyllis Bennis, Journalist, Author and Social Activist, Institute of Policy Studies, USA;
  9. Noura Erakat, Activist and Professor, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, Co-founder of Jadalliyah, USA;
  10. Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Former UN Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development; Deputy Director UN FAO, Malaysia;
  11. Victoria Brittain, Former Foreign Editor of the Guardian, worked closely with anti-Apartheid Movement, Founder of the annual Palestine Festival of Literature, UK;
  12. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak FBA, Professor, Columbia University, received Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy 2012, India;
  13. Ali Bardakoğlu, Professor of Theology, Former President of Directorate of Religious Affairs, Türkiye;
  14. Mustafa Ceric, Grand Mufti Emeritus of Bosnia, President of the World Bosniak Congress, co-recipient UNESCO Felix Houphouet-Bougny Peace Prize, Bosnia and Herzegovina;
  15. Maung Zarni, Human Rights Activist, Member of the Board of Advisors of Genocide Watch, Co-founder of Free Burma Coalition, Free Rohingya Coalition and Forces of Renewal Southeast Asia, Myanmar;
  16. JosephCamilleri,EmeritusProfessor,LaTrobeUniversity,Co-ConvenerofSHAPE Melbourne, Australia;
  17. Mahmood Mamdani, Herbert Lehman Professor of Government Columbia University, Chancellor of Kampala University, Uganda;
  18. Dayan Jayatilleka, Former Ambassador to UN (Geneva), France; Journalist, Sri Lanka;
  1. Elisabeth Weber, Professor of German Literature and Philosopy, University of Califor-nia at Santa Barbara, Germany/USA;
  2. Marjorie Cohn, Dean of the Peoples Academy of International Law, Professor Emerita, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, USA;
  3. Jan Oberg, Chairman of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, Sweden;
  4. Ramzy Baroud, Author, Academic, Editor of The Palestine Chronicle, Palestine/ USA;

33. Saree Makdisi, Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Author of Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, USA;

  1. Roger Leger, Retired Professor of Philosophy at the Military College of Saint-Jean, Québec, Canada;
  2. Usman Bugaje, Professor, Former Adviser to the Vice President of Nigeria, Nigeria;
  3. ChandraMuzaffar,President,InternationalMovementforaJustWorld(JUST), Malaysia;
  4. Avery F. Gordon, Professor Emerita University of California Santa Barbara, USA;
  5. Arlene Elizabeth Clemesha, Professor of Contemporary Arab History at the University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil;
  6. Ömer Dinçer, Professor, Former Minister of Education, Former President of Şehir University, Türkiye;
  7. Fethi Jarray, Former Education Minister, current Chairperson of the National Mechanism on Torture Prevention, Tunisia;
  8. Alfred de Zayas, Former UN Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order, USA;
  9. Walid Joumblatt, Member of Lebanese Parliament, Leader of the Progressive Socialist Party, Lebanon;
  10. Elmira Akhmetova, Professor at the Institute of Knowledge Integration in Georgia, Russia;
  11. Sami Al-Arian, Professor, Director of Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) at Istanbul Zaim University, Türkiye;
  12. George Sabra, Signatory of the Damascus Declaration (2005), Former President of the Syrian National Council, Syria;
  13. RayMcGovern,Activist,VeteransforPeace,Supporteroftheanti-wargroupNotin Our Name, USA;
  14. Juan Cole, Professor of History, The University of Michigan, Former Editor of The Internatioanl Journal of Middle East Studies, USA;
  1. Penny Green, Professor of Law and Globalization, Director, International State Crime Initiative Queen Mary University of London, UK;
  2. Bishnupriya Ghosh, Professor of English and Global Studies, UC Santa Barbara, USA/India;
  3. Nader Hashemi, Professor, Director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University, USA;
  4. Ahmed Abbes, Mathematician, Director of Research at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientiques Paris, France, Tunisia;
  5. Bhaskar Sarkar, Professor of Film and Media, UC Santa Barbara, USA/India;
  6. AkeelBilgrami,ProfessorofPhilosophyatColumbiaUniversity,USA,India;
  7. Assaf Kfoury, Mathematician and Professor of Theoretical Computer Science, Boston University, USA;
  8. Helena Cobban, Journalist, Author, President of Just World Educational, USA;
  9. BilijanaVankovska,ProfessorandHeadoftheGlobalChnagesCenter,Cyriland Mehtodius University, Skopje, Macedonia;
  10. David Swanson, Author, Executive Director of World BEYOND War, USA;
  11. Radmila Nakarada, Professor, Faculty of Political Science, University of Belgrade; Spokesperson of the Yugoslav Truth and Reconciliation Committee, Serbia;
  12. Fredrick S. Heffermehl, Lawyer and Author, Norway;
  13. Anis Ahmad, Emeritus Professor and President Riphah International University Islamabad, Pakistan;
  14. Lisa Hajjar, Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA;
  15. Dr. Sayyid M. Syeed, President Emeritus , Islamic Society of North America, USA;
  16. Muhammed al-Ghazzali, Professor, Judge Supreme Court of Pakistan, Pakistan;
  17. Syed Azman Syed Ahmad, Former Member of Malaysia Parliament, Chairman of Asia Forum for Peace and Development (AFPAD), Malaysia;
  18. Osman Bakar, Al-Ghazali Chair of Epistemology and Civilisational Renewal, International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization, Malaysia;
  19. IbrahimMZein,ProfessorofIslamicStudies,QatarFoundation,Qatar;
  20. Engin Deniz Akarlı, Professor of History Emeritus, Brown University, Türkiye;
  21. Francesco Della Puppa, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice; Italy;
  22. Julio da Silveira Moreira, Professor, Federal University of Latin-American Integration, Brazil;
  1. Nabeel Rajab, Founder and former president of the Gulf Center for Human Rights; Former Deputy Secretary-General of the International Federation for Human Rights, Recipient of the Ion Ratiu Award for Democracy and Human Rights, Bahrain;
  2. Feroz Ahmad, Emeritus Professor of History and Internatiıonal Relations, Harvard University, USA, India;
  3. Serap Yazıcı, Professor of Constitutional Law, MP, Turkish Parliament, Türkiye;
  4. Natalie Brinham, Genocide and Statelessness Scholar, UK;
  5. Ayçin Kantoğlu, Author, Türkiye;
  6. Dania Koleilat Khatib, ME Scholar and President of RCCP TrackII Organisation, UAE;
  7. Imtiyaz Yusuf, Assoc. Prof. Dr., Non-Resident Research Fellow Center for Contemporary Islamic World (CICW), Shenandoah University, USA/Vietnam;
  8. Kamar Oniah Kamuruzaman, Former Professor of Comparative Religion, International Islamic University, Malaysia;
  9. Ümit Yardım, Former Ambassador of Türkiye to Tehran, Moscow and Vienna, Türkiye;
  10. Ahmet Ali Basic, Professor, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina;
  11. Kani Torun, Former Ambassador of Türkiye to Somalia, Former Head of Doctors Worlwide, Member of Parlament, Türkiye;
  12. Ermin Sinanovic, Center for Islam in the Contemporary World at Shenandoah University, USA/ Bosnia and Herzegovina;
  13. Nihal Bengisu Karaca, Journalist, Türkiye
  14. Alkasum Abba, Emeritus Professor of History, Abuja, Nigeria;
  15. Hassan Ahmed Ibrahim, Professor of History and Civilization, Former Dean, Faculty of Arts, University of Khartoum, Sudan;
  16. Anwar Alrasheed, Khiam Rehabilitation Center, The victims of Torture (KRC), Representative of the International Council for Fair Trials and Human Rights in the State of Kuwait and the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries, Kuwait;
  17. MohdHishamMohdKamal,Assoc.Prof.Dr.,AhmadIbrahimKulliyyahofLaws, Malaysia/ Indonesia;
  18. Syed Arabi Bin Syed Abdullah, Former Rector, International Islamic University, Malaysia;
  19. Yusuf Ziya Özcan, Former President of Council of Higher Education, Türkiye;
  20. Mohamed Jawhar Hassan, Former Chairman and Chief Executive, Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia;

95. Shad Faruqi, Professor of Law, University of Malaya, Malaysia;

  1. Mohammad Ahmadullah Siddiqi, Professor Emeritus of Journalism and Public Relations, Western Illinois University, Macomb IL USA/India;
  2. Mohamed Tarawna, Judge at the Cassation Tribunal, Jordan;
  3. Etyen Mahcupyan, Author, Former Chief Advisor to Prime Minister of Türkiye;
  4. Khawla Mattar, the Director of the United Nations Information center in Cairo, Former UN Deputy Special Envoy for Syria, Bahrain;
  5. Aslam Abdullah, Senior Journalist, USA/India;
  6. Stuart Rees, Professor Emeritus, University of Sydney, Australia;
  7. Hatem Ete, Academic, Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University, Department of Sociology, Türkiye;
  8. Karim Makdisi, Professor of Political Science, American University of Beirut, Lebanon;
  9. Camilo Pérez-Bustillo, National Taiwan University, Taiwan;
  10. Bridget Anderson, Professor of Migration, Mobilities and Citizenship, University of Bristol, UK;
  11. William Spence, Professor of Theoretical Physics, Queen Mary University of London, UK;
  12. Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Professor of Law, Founding CEO of the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies, Malaysia/Afghanistan;
  13. Ferid Muhic, Prof of Philosophy, Krill Metodius University, Macedonia;
  14. Frej Fenniche, Former Senior Human Rights Ofcer/UN, OHCHR, Switzerland;
  15. Sevinç Alkan Özcan, Associate Professor, International Relations Department, Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University;
  16. Sigit Riyanto, Professor, Faculty of Law Universitas, Indonesia;
  17. Khaled Khoja, Former President of Syrian National Coalition;
  18. Tarık Çelenk, Former Chairman of Ekopolitik, Türkiye;
  19. M. Bassam Aisha, Human Rights Expert, Libya;
  20. Naceur El-Ke, Academician and Human Rights Activist, Tunisia;
  21. Jean-Daniel Biéler, Former Ambassador, Special Advisor, Human Security Division, Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Switzerland;

117. Fajri Matahati Muhammadin, Faculty of Law, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia;

  1. Ahmet Okumuş, Chairman of The Foundation for Sciences and Arts (BİSAV), Türkiye;
  2. Khan Yasir, Dr., Director In-Charge, Indian Institute of Islamic Studies and Research, India;
  3. Mahmudul Hasan, Md., Professor, International Islamic University Malaysia/ Bangladesh;
  4. Tara Reynor O’Grady, General Secretary for Human Rights Sentinel, USA;
  5. NurullahArdıç,ProfessorofSociology,IstanbulTechnicalUniversity,Türkiye;
  6. PharKimBeng,FounderandCEOofStrategicPan-PacicArena,Malaysia;
  7. Dinar Dewi Kania, M.M, .M.Sos, Trisakti Institute of Transportation and Logistics. Jakarta, Indonesia
  8. MulyadhiKartanegara,ProfessorofIslamicphilosophyat,UniversitasIslamNegeri Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta, Indonesia;
  9. Habib Chirzin, Academic and Human Rights activist, IIIT, Indonesia

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30 Nov
a Call by Palestinian Universities on Gaza and the future that is calm, clear, strong, persuasive, and sensible, but will not be heeded in Tel Aviv or Washington without an unrising by people representing civil society/

https://www.birzeit.edu/en/news/unified-call-justice-and-freedom-palestine

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Gaza: After Genocide What Future?

29 Nov

[Prefatory Note: Responses to questions posed by ODVV (Organization for Defending Victims of Violence). The ODVV website is www.odvv.org. At the moment many prayers call fervently for a permanent ceasefire, but the future is suspended in doubt, and the pre-pause Israeli genocidal onslaught casts a dark shadow over all of humanity. Many innocent lives in Gaza stilll remain in jeopardy if the pause or truce is not converted into a ceasefire and emergency relief on a large scale. My responses waver between fears of a resumed Israeli military operation and hopes of confronting day after issues of post-genocidal economic reconstruction and scenarios of political transformation.]

1.Horrible media outlets focus on the access to food and other essential items for the Gaza civilians. What do you think of the starvation of civilians and children as a tool for war?

Policies of war combatants that deliberately focus on starvation or denial of access to food as a tactic or tool of war are guilty of war crimes. It is usual for such tactics to be disavowed by their perpetrators as collateral damage with no intention to target civilians of any category. If the targeting appears deliberate, continues in similar patterns disregarding predominant civilian targeting, and inflicts heavy civilian casualties, as has been the case with respect to the Israeli attacks in Gaza since the October 7 Hamas attack, it is viewed as criminal activity. The fact that the October 7 itself included severe war crimes does not in any way justify Israeli conduct in a retaliatory mode that is disproportional or criminal. Starvation intentionally directed at civilians is unconditionally prohibited by the Geneva Conventions and an inherent war crime, which if repeated or continuous can be prosecuted as a Crime against Humanity or even Genocide if the instrument of starvation seems to be used for the purpose of destroying a racial, ethnic, or religious group in whole or in part.

2.How do you see the limitation of access to electricity, water, medicine, and hygiene items to be affecting people’s and children’s lives?

In the context of Israel’s ‘war’ on Gaza such restrictions, applied to an impoverished population without qualification, are genocidal examples of aggravated war crimes explicitly prohibited by provisions of the 4th Geneva Convention on Belligerent Occupation. Israel as the Occupying Power does not right enjoy any right of self-defense against an Occupied People, and is under a pervasive duty to protect the civilian population under all circumstances. Israel’s implementation of its government order totally cutting off Gaza’s access to food, fuel and electricity has contributed to the destruction of medical system, imperiling the entire population of Gaza, killing many children and women, as well as men, and the cause of widespread suffering of all Gazans, including children at women. 

Specific provisions are found in the Geneva Convention that confirm this assessment. Article 6 indicates the full reach of the protective legal duties of the Occupying Power to the civilian population under their control. The text of this provision underlies the commitment of International Humanitarian Law to the protection of civilians:

ART. 6. — “The present Convention shall apply from the outset of any conflict or occupation mentioned in Article 2.

In the territory of Parties to the conflict, the application of the present Convention shall cease on the general close of military operations.

In the case of occupied territory, the application of the present Convention shall cease one year after the general close of military operations; however, the Occupying Power shall be bound, for the duration of the occupation, to the extent that such Power exercises the functions of government in such territory, by the provisions of the following Articles of the present Convention: 1 to 12, 27, 29 to 34, 47, 49, 51, 52, 53, 59, 61 to 77, 143.”

Protected persons whose release, repatriation or re- establishment may take place after such dates shall meanwhile continue to benefit by the present Convention.”

In addition, because so responsive to inquiry as to the status of starvation under international humanitarian law, the partial texts of Article 55 & 56 is reproduced below:

ART. 55. — “To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate.”

ART. 56. — “To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring and maintaining, with the co-operation of national and local authorities, the medical and hospital establishments and services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory, with particular reference to the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics. Medical personnel of all categories shall be allowed to carry out their duties.“3.Over the decades, the world has witnessed a multitude of various rounds of attacks on Gaza, with no achievements, in your opinion, what is the reason for the inability of the international community to address the gross violations of human rights by Israel?

3.We have witnessed the dreadful attack on Gaza Hospital, what do you think of the air raids that seem to be indiscriminately targeting the places that are supposed to serve as civilians’ sanctuary in wartime?

The wording of the question suggests the confusion surrounding this important dimension of the most serious allegations of ‘indiscriminate targeting’ when contrary to the literalness of the alllegations, the targets are obviously being selected and targeted by Israel’s precision weaponry against just such legally protected sites and civilians, including hospitals, refugee camps, sick and wounded patients, forced civilian evacuees compelled by Israel mandatory order to leave their homes in the north of Gaza for the southern portion of the strip. The entire military operation against Gaza is seemingly intended to create an ethnic cleansing phenomenon comparable to the forced dispossession of more than 700,000 Palestinians. This happened in the final phases of the 1948 War known to Palestinians as the Nakba (or catastrophe)

4.The message that the Palestinians were receiving from pressure against them by Israel including building settlements and killing civilians in Gaza is that Israel is against the two-state solution question. So, it’s a big question mark on the two-state solution. Do you think that a two-state solution is still a valid solution and can be a way to get out of this deadlock and war? or do you believe that these current incident events have also brought this solution to a dead end?

This is a puzzling time for those thinking about a benevolent future for both Palestinians and Israelis. At the moment external voices that are seeking a permanent ceasefire, including the UN Secretary-General, as well as many longtime Jewish supporters of Israel, continue to act as if a two-state is the best and only feasible solution despite seemingly formidable obstacles that are being overlooked. The first set of obstacles is the extensive and militant settler phenomenon, which has been consistently viewed at the UN and most international venues as being in direct violation of Article 49(6) of Geneva IV. There are currently about 250 settlements spread around the West Bank and as many as 500,000 settlers who would resist by force any arrangement calling for their relocation in pre-1967 Israel (as did the 2005 ‘Disengagement’ from Gaza). The second obstacle is the known opposition of Likud leadership, including Netanyahu, to meaningful forms of Palestinian statehood, most dogmatically and openly by Netanyahu’s coalition partner, the Religious Right Party, as most prominently represented in the current so-called ‘uniity government’ by Ben Gvir and Smotrich. A possible third obstacle relates to the likelihood of a Palestinian refusal to accept an inferior form of statehood involving permanent demilitarization, Israel’s retention of West Bank settler enclaves, and some West Bank land transfers to Israel.

A sustainable peace depends on political arrangements based on equality between the two peoples as well as upholding the dignity of other minorities (Druze, Bedoin). If this skepticism about a two-state solution seems to imply a single state it would highlight the principal obstacle that would doubtless come from Zionists who remain deeply committed to a Jewish supremist state and to a lesser extent from Palestinians demanding the full right of return of the five million or more Palestinian refugees and involuntary exiles living in camps or spread around the world. Given the depth of resentment that is associated with events since October 7 even a confederal union of the two peoples is hardlly even thinkable under present conditions. At the same time, to restore the former status quo seems impossible given the devastation of Gaza, underscored by the lingering prospect of mass homelessness affecting the entire populaton of northern Gaza. Innovative solutions involving federation or confederation with either Lebanon or Egypt seems also non-viable at this point, although given the absence of a feasible peace arrangement are making the advocacy of innovative solutions the least bad of plausible day after options.

5.Considering the scope and intensity of the destruction of the civilian infrastructure and the blockade which is imposed on Gaza, in your opinion, what strategy should be implemented to firstly end the siege of Gaza (permanently and not return to the pre-conflict situation that practically turned Gaza a prison) and secondly, what should be done to heal this 75-year-old wound which was created since the establishment of Israel?

These are difficult questions for which there may no satisfactory answers to long as Israel is governed by such an extreme government and continues to enjoy the support of the US and strongest members of the EU. I think that even these governments supporting Israel throughout the horrifying genocidal spectacle feel increasing pressure from their own citizenry to find a more humane future for the people of Gaza and all of occupied Palestine, and in this sense, that the devastation wrought by Israel has backfired as a strategy that coupled security concerns with expansionist ambitions, although it is too soon to be confident of such an assessment.

I think the first priority after a permanent ceasefire is established would be to secure the withdrawal of Israel armed forces from Gaza, followed by an emergency international relief effort that gave priority to rebuilding destroyed residential neighborhoods and family residences, as well as the despatch of some form of international peacekeeping force, whether under UN auspices or otherwise. The forced evacuations together with intensity of bombardment has destroyed over 76% of the residences in northern Gaza. Of course, the rebuilding of hospitals and the repair of damage to UN structures, mosques and churches, and refugee facilities should also be included by international donors in their effort to meet this gigantic challenge of devastation at a time of cold weather and overcrowding.

More difficult by far is to end the iron grip on Gaza that has been maintained in different cruel forms ever since 1967. A first step would be a demand by the UNSC, and possibly such other intergovernmental groupings as the BRICs, to lift the blockade imposed in 2007 and agree with a Palestinian unity governance council on mutually administered border controls and an international protection force to monitor arms inputs ideally to both Gaza and Israel. It is virtually certain that these steps could not be taken until the certain political preconditions were met. Of vital political, perhaps indispensable, importance in day after contexts would be the replacement of the Netanyahu government by a new coalition with a commitment to a sustainable peace.. Hopefully a new Israeli leadership committed to finding a neutral framework for negotiating a genuine political compromise that must finally give recognition to the basic rights of the Palestinian people.

These ideas may seem utopian at present, but they represent the only practical alternative to the sort of exterminist politics that Israel has so far relied upon in responding to the October 7 attack, which were immediately seized upon as an opportunity by the Israeli government to carry out the expansionist final phases of the Zionist Project, which included sovereign control and Palestinian dispossession in the West Bank and overall international erasure of the Palestinian people and extinguishing any remaining statehood expectations. Destroying Hamas was never the entire, and perhaps not the main, rationale for the disproportionate Israeli response, and may have also been motivated by the perceived need of the Tel Aviv leaders to divert attention of Israelis and the world from the inexcusable security failures of the Israeli government that allowed Hamas to plan and carry out its October 7 attack. For Israel to achieve the political space required to fulfill the maximalist Zionist vision required several development: the demonization of Hamas, the exaggeration of future security threats facing Israel, and the genocidal onslaught that inflicted undeserved and horrifying punishment upon 99% innocent and previously victimized Gaza civilians while distracting attention of the world to the wider policy agenda of the Tel Aviv leadership. In thinking about the future it is helpful to separate the humanitarian urgency of funding livable conditions for the people of Gaza from a politics that aimed at the transformation of the underlying conflict. Yet to leave the political track to the parties would invite future tragedies arising from the contradictory goals inherent in settler colonialism and those of a national movement of resistance in a post-colonial setting.

You Tube: 2023 AUC Lecture on Gaza/Edward Said

26 Nov

In response to inquiries I am providing the link to my lecture honoring the legacy of Edward Said on Nov. 4, a time of genocide in Gaza.

Interrupting Genocide: Humanity Challenged as Never Before

25 Nov

[Prefatory Note: The post below is a modified version of an opinion piece published in CounterPunch on November 24, 2023. The ‘pause’ or ‘truce’ as it frequently called, in Western media is detached from the genocide that preceded and closely linked to the Hamas Attack of October 7th, which is characterized as ‘terrorism’ whereas Israeli genocidal violence is treated as Israel defending itself or less approvingly as an excessive and disproportionate recourse to violence that seemed to focus its fury on target inflicting massive casualties on Palestinian civilians. Sustained warfare almost inevitably produces suffering for the innocent, often minimized as ‘collateral damage,’ but the Israeli campaign has seemed to aim at maximize acute suffering of the whole of civilian Gaza. If this is not ‘terrorism,’ public language serves as a tool to validate the priorities of the powerful while casting the actions of its adversary as pure evil, distorting expectations about a reasonable outcome.]  

The ‘humanitarian pause’ started on November 24 after elaborate negotiations between adversaries who must interact despite an atmosphere of intense hostility and bitter resentment. The pause now often referred to as a ‘truce’ is supposed to last for four days, but is thought likely to be extended if Hamas can be induced to release additional hostages. Israel’s Prime Minister, Netanyahu, and leaders of Israel’s unity government repeatedly pledge to renew their ‘war’ when the pause ends, and resume pursuing its earlier objectives in Gaza until all are achieved.

We in the public, are not told very clearly about the attitude of Hamas toward the pause but we can imagine that any relief from Israel’s devastating 24/7 attacks brings welcome relief, yet is accompanied by a sense a continuing resolve on the part of the Hamas leadership to resist Israel’s oppressive occupation of Gaza, and its preferred outcome that seems to include substantial ethnic cleansing in the form of permanent forced evacuation of more than half of the 2.3 million Palestinians from northern Gaza leaving what remains of the Palestinian in the previously overcrowded southern Gaza to be utterly dependent on UN relief efforts for the necessities of life including housing and daily needs. If funding becomes available on more that a subsistence level of ‘bare existence’ it will undoubted come, not from Israel, but  from those ‘humanitarian’ governments,  guilt-ridden by their positive entanglement with Israel’s genocidal onslaught, especially if it resumes in a few days.

We know something about ‘the fog of war,’ the hidden motivations and the confused perceptions, the devious methods and justifications, and the subtle unacknowledged change of goals, but most of us trust the specious clarity of mainstream media and ‘never-wrong’ leaders despite the ‘discourse fog,’ that is, the partisan use of language and ‘facts’ by opinion-maker twist ‘the hearts and minds’ of viewers and readers. Even when, as during this period since October 7th, the events and images are so rending and so extreme if regarded from a humane angle, there is a deliberate, unacknowledged, perhaps automatic tendency, to create perceptions of ethical symmetry between antagonists and indulge ‘war is hell’ reactions in which both sides are locked in a death dance.

In all respects, going back to before the establishment of Israel as a state and member of the United Nations in 1948, Israel has worked hard to neutralize criticism based on law and morality, by itself occupying the high moral ground based on empathy for the victimization of Jews, on the myth of ‘a land without people for a people without land,’ on the romanticizing of the kibbutzim and ‘making the desert bloom,’ on the Orientalist reductive distortions of ‘the dirty Arab’ or the Arab mind that only can be tamed to behave properly by ‘pressure,’ a coded word that acts as a synonym for genocide in the context of the Israel Operation of Iron Swords (Biden implicitly chooses these tropes and partial truths to cast Hamas into a realm of outer darkness while staying mum about moral and legal accountability on the Israeli side), on the master premise of modernist world order that deifies the state and demonizes its victimized adversaries that is in denial about the minor premise of rights of resistance that rose up to defeat the superior military forces at the disposal of the imperial Global West. The Palestinian ordeal epitomizes the confluence of these and other adverse features of political life during the last hundred years to produce an appalling human catastrophe made worse because it has unfolded so transparently and exposed the pathetic weakness of moral scruples if clashing with strategic interests of onlooking political leaders.

The rhetoric of ‘humanitarian pause’ is illustrative of a media disinformation campaign designed to affirm certain attitudes and stigmatize others. For instance, the Israeli pledge to resume the war after this brief interlude of relative calm rarely includes critical comments on the sinister nature of this commitment to reengage Hamas by recourse to genocidal warfare victimizing the entire population of Gaza. In contrast, when released hostages report humane treatment by their captors this is either belittled or altogether ignored, whereas if released Palestinian prisoners were to make analogous comments about how they enjoyed Israeli prisons their words would be highlighted. We can only imagine the harsh response of Western media outlets to Russia’s participation in a comparable pause in the Ukraine War, dismissing any humanitarian pretensions by Moscow as cynical state propaganda, and insisting with righteous indignation that the pause be transformed into a ceasefire unless the war was going well for the Ukrainians. A critical media would feast over the double standards and moral hypocrisy, but that presupposes what doesn’t any longer exist, an independent media on global issues.

Unless properly addressed the whole provenance of ‘humanitarian pause’ is misunderstood. Remember that Israel’s political leaders went ahead with such an alternative only when it was made clear that Israel had no intention of converting the pause into a longer-range ceasefire, to be followed by ‘day after’ negotiations as to the viability of continuing occupation and a new agreement as to governance arrangements for Gaza and the role to be played by Hamas. Rather than sustaining their statist cult by dismissing Hamas as ‘terrorists’ the security of Israel would almost certainly be dramatically enhanced by treating Hamas as a legitimate political entity, which although guilty of violations of international law, is far less guilty than Israel if an objective comparative evaluation is made, and some account is taken of Hamas’ long-term ceasefire diplomacy summarily rejected by Israel, although a preferable security alternative than the decades of cross-border violent eruptions that kill, deepen enmity, and solve nothing.

In retrospect, I understand better the rationale behind this apparently genuine Hamas efforts, which I received first-hand contact with as a result of my extended conversations with Hamas leaders living in Doha and Cairo while I was UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories a decade ago. Israel could not take seriously what appeared to be beneficial from its security perspective of such Hamas initiatives or the 2002 Arab Peace Proposal issued in Mecca. Both Hamas and the Arab proposal conditioned peace on withdrawal from the Occupied Territory of the West Bank, which has long been in the gun sights of the settler wing of the Zionist Project, and consistently privileged over Israeli security by its leaders, long before Netanyahu’s Coalition Government made this unmistakably clear when it took over in January of 2023. Israel never convincingly accepted the internationally presumed notion that a Palestinian state would include the West Bank and have its capital in East Jerusalem, despite gesturing at various times in such a direction, but always framed in a manner that was so one-sided as to ensure Palestinian rejection, although the Palestinian leadership did their cause no good by failing to put forward a counter-offer or make a stronger effort to achieve unity as between the PLO and Hamas so long as the liberation struggle was not resolved.

It is this unwillingness to take account of the master/slave structure of a prolonged, abusive occupation that renders plausibility to the both sides’ narratives embodying the delusion that Israel and Occupied Palestine are formally and existentially equal as profoundly misleading. Such narratives equate, or invert, the Hamas attack with the Israeli genocidal onslaught that followed, regarding the former as ‘barbaric’ while the latter is generally sympathetically or at least neutrally described as Israel’s reasonable and necessary entitlement to defend itself. Variations of such themes are integral to the apologetics of former US mediating officials such as Dennis Roth or liberal Zionist casuists such as Thomas Friedman.

A final observation relates to the inappropriateness of the word ‘humanitarian’ if the object is to understand and express the motivations of Israel. Of course, Israel seeks both security for its Jewish citizens, including the settlers, but when forced to choose between security and territory it has consistently opted to pay the costs associated with fulfilling the territorial goals of the Zionist Project. The current unity government of Israel only accepted the pleas of the hostage families and succumbed to pressures from Washington after its several security services and military commanders gave reassurances that Hamas could not take tactical advantage of the pause, and that the Israel campaign could resume within the pre-pause unrestrained parameters after it was over. In other words, the pause was politically motivated as a way of allowing Israel to seem responsive to domestic and external humanitarian pressures without the slightest show of responsiveness to the governments throughout the Global South that called for a ceasefire to halt genocide and by the enraged protesters in city streets in all parts of the world. The ‘humanitarian pause’ as the deal has been presented is totally an initiative rooted in the Global West, admittedly with support from a scattering of autocratic governments elsewhere. We do not know why Hamas went along with such a plan, but a safe conjecture is that it sought some days of relief from Israel’s tactics of devastation and may have wanted to reduce its responsibilities of caring for children and injured or elderly hostages under such dangerous circumstances.

As the ‘humanitarian pause’ goes into effect, it is bound to create surprises and impart a greater understanding of the ‘fog of humanitarianism.’ What it should not do is to induce complacency among those who honor the fundamental commitment of the Genocide Convention to do all in their power to prevent the onset or continuation of the crime of crimes and to take steps to punish its most prominent perpetrators.

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Justifying Genocide, A Shameful Transparent Spectacle

21 Nov

[Prefatory Note: A revised version of responses to questions below posed by Mohaddeseh Pakravan o Mehr News Agency, and published in the Tehran Times on Nov. 18, 2023]

1-How do you assess the international developments taking place around the Gaza war? Can the support of the United States and some European countries to the Israeli regime be justified?

There are two broad responses to this question. The first distinguishes between the Global West, including several EU countries, especially the US that are supportive enablers of Israel and the Global South in which there is present on every continent widespread opposition to the genocidal violence of the Israeli response to the October 7 Hamas attack.

The second line of response is to distinguish between the people in the countries supporting Israel and their governments. Even in the United States and Western Europe, street protests and demonstrations, as confirmed by public opinion polls, suggest that the people are calling for, even demanding, a Gaza ceasefire while governments continues to abstain or even continue to endorse Israel’s military operations despite its daily atrocities, although the support for Israel is expressed in a less unqualified way verbally as the Hamas attacks recedes from consciousness and as Palestinian bodies pile up, especially those of infant children.

The Israeli justification for unleashing this tsunami of violence against an entrapped civilian population was initially expressed in the vengeful language of its leaders in response to the Hamas attack. Such an outrageous embrace of violence failed to produce any dissenting comments from official circles in the Global West. Later Israel and supporters put forward somewhat more standard justifications based on its claimed right to defend itself, which seems to imply that Israel is exercising its international law right of self-defense, but the vague language used may be a deliberate attempt to gain greater latitude than is associated with the scope of self-defense under international law. Israel seems to be issuing itself a license for an unlimited recourse to punitive violence which is not permissible under international law. In any event, Israel’s disproportionate, indiscriminate, and grossly excessive violence that is further aggravated by the targeting of such protected sites as hospitals, mosques and churches, crowded refugee camps, UN buildings, and schools throughout Gaza. Such behavior discredits any Israeli defensive security justifications both legally and morally.

There are additional problems with Israel’s onslaught being carried out against the civilian population of Gaza under the glare of journalistic coverage and TV cameras. Because Israel remains the Occupying Power in Gaza it is subject to the legal framework set forth in the 4th Geneva Convention on Belligerent Occupation, and possesses a primary duty that is spelled out in the provisions of the treaty to protect the wellbeing and rights of the occupied population. It has no right of self-defense as the concept is understood in international law, or set forth in the constraining language of Article 51 of the UN Charter, which presupposes a prior sustained armed attack across an international border by a foreign actor, and not just a single incident of the sort caused by  Hamas, an actor internal to Israel’s de facto domain of sovereign authority, although limited by its duties in relation to the administration of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which has been Israel’s responsibility since the end of the 1967 War.

In 2005 for a variety of reasons associated with a pragmatic approach to national interests, Israel implemented a ‘disengagement’ plan in Gaza, which included withdrawing its troops and security forces from occupied Palestinian territories to Israel proper and dismantling the unlawful settlements that had been established in Gaza between 1967 and 2005. Israel contended that these moves of disengagement ended its responsibilities under international humanitarian law as the Occupying Power. This view was rejected by the UN and the weight of assessment by international jurists because Israel retained effective control over the borders, including the entry and exit of persons and traded goods, as well as exerting its authority to impose continuing control of Gaza’s air space and coastal waters, including a highly restrictive blockade since 2007, confining the identity of Hamas to that of ‘terrorists’ despite its success in internationally monitored election in 2006. Israel made no secret of its policy of keeping the population on what governmental officials called ‘a subsistence diet’ as periodically reinforced by major military incursions luridly described by Tel Aviv as ‘mowing the lawn.’ Such genocidal tropes anticipate the behavior and language relied upon in the ongoing all out attack on Gaza.

From 1967 until the present there have been resistance initiatives undertaken by the Palestinians in Gaza, including the Intifada of 1987, the Great March of Return in 2018, and rocket launches that did minimal damage and always were either in response to Israeli provocations or followed by disproportionate Israel air strikes. Even after its disengagement plan was put in operation the people of Gaza were subjected to a variety of serious forms of collective punishment as prohibited by Ariticle 33 of Geneva IV. The overall conditions of Gaza led prominent international observers to describe  Gaza ‘the world’s largest open air prison,’ a damning indictment of Israel’s dereliction of its duties as Occupying Power.

By way of open diplomacy and by concerted recourse to back channel efforts Hamas from the time of its election victory in 2006 put forward a variety of proposals for an extended ceasefire for as long as 50 years, but Israel showed no interest in exploring such a prospect.

During this period UN Special Rapporteurs chosen by the Human Rights Commission in Geneva reported on Israeli violations of human rights, making various policy recommendations that were never carried out due to geopolitical leverage exerted to insulate Israel from legal accountability.

2-Although the Israeli regime is clearly violating international law, international organizations including the United Nations have failed to take a decisive practical measure against Tel Aviv. Why cannot such organizations take serious measures to stop Israeli crimes?

In the last years i=of World War II the founders designed the UN to be weak regarding the management of power and strategic rivalry, giving a veto power in the Security Council to the winners in the war, presumed then to be the most powerful and dangerous countries in the world. This view seemed to reflect accurately power hierarchies as of 1945. In one respect it was confirm by the fact of the first five nuclear powers were the same five countries given this privileged status in the UN System.

Such an arrangement was also expressed by making the General Assembly’s authority expressly limited to making recommendations and specific fact-finding initiatives despite it being the UN political organ most representative of the peoples of the world. It is made clear in numerous provisions of the Charter that the Organization formally defers to the primacy of geopolitics in a large variety of situations that occur within the UN, including the selection of the Secretary-General, the amendment of the Charter and reform of the UN, the enforcement of International Court of Justice decisions, and the implementation of policy recommendations from the various entities comprising the UN System. This means in practice, the UN can only be effective when P5 reach agreement, and paralyzed when disagreement is fundamental as it is with respect to the present unfolding genocide victimizing the Palestinian civilian population of Gaza, and less directly the whole of the Palestinian presence in both the entire occupied territories and Israel itself.

Even if the Security Council reaches an agreement, the UN does not. possess the capabilities to implement its decisions without the voluntary provision of funds and personnel for peacekeeping and humanitarian undertakings, which presupposes the presence of a supportive political will. The UN can be effective, perhaps too effective, if a Security Council resolution as was the case in 2011, which authorized a limited intervention in Libya. The use of force was implemented by NATO capabilities in a manner that greatly exceeded what the Security Council, producing a regime-changing intervention, angering countries that had abstained and undermining trust among the P5, as well as causing chaos in the country that has lasted up to the present. In the Libyan case the UN allowed itself to be geopolitically manipulated by NATO seeking to legitimize its regime-changing mission that violated Libya’s sovereign rights.

 
3- How successful do you see the Zionist-affiliated world stream media in justifying the Israeli regime’s brutal attacks on civilians in Gaza?

The global media, by and large, did provide credibility for the initial phases of the Israeli response. It became harder to do this as the narrative about the Hamas attack of October 7 receded in time and the Israeli attack took on such visibly vicious characteristics of disproportionate violence and genocide, given an explicit transparency by the statements of numerous Israeli leaders including Netanyahu and the Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant. Gallant issued a notorious decree denying the people of Gaza food, fuel, and electricity and comparing the beleaguered Palestinian civilians to ‘human animals’ who deserved to be treated “accordingly”, a dehumanizing language confirming genocidal intent. Such intent was manifest in the repeated attacks on prohibited targets, producing high casualties including among children, sick and disabled Palestinians, health and aid workers, and those sheltering in UN buildings and hospitals. Israel completely abandoned the canons of responsible statecraft and made no effort to uphold the duties of an Occupying Power. Even before this eruption the UN was seeking guidance from the ICJ and a specially constituted Commission of Inquiry as to whether the UN should formally terminate Israel’s status as Occupying Power and call for Israel’s withdrawal to its former borders from the three Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. It should be remembered that an unanimous Security Council Resolution, 242, anticipating a temporary occupation followed by such a withdrawal. Such thinking was shaped by the view that international law prohibited the acquisition of foreign territory by forcible means. It should also be appreciated that Israel was deemed an apartheid by a wide range of respected civil society human rights civil society non-governmental organizations, which is a serious crime that is continuous as embedded in the structure of Israel’s system of oppressive control of the Palestinian people in their distinct circumstances.

4-What Should Muslim leading countries do to stop Israeli crimes?

This is the most important challenge faced by Muslim majority countries since the end of the Cold War. In essence, the governments of Muslim countries should feel obligated to do more than call for a ceasefire, but they should certainly at least do this, and have yet to do. More is needed by way of punitive and substantive action in the form of boycotts and sanctions, censure for genocide to halt and oppose the Israeli war machine. More is also needed as to the future, ideally accountability for Israel, major reconstruction aid and pressure for a just peace that realizes the Palestinian right of self-determination. This is a. moment of truth for the entire world, and it could become a turning point for a better future for humanity, but only if actions taken are done to oppose Israel’s genocidal campaign in a spirit of urgency, sacrifice, sufficiency, and a re-humanizing solidarity. We cannot let ourselves, wherever located, become resigned to a toxic fate for the Palestinians imposed by Israeli criminality. Better to heed the words and slogans of the enraged masses in the streets of cities throughout the world than resign ourselves to the rhetoric of governmental leaders that condemns but stays on the sidelines. Of course, worse than a failure of commitment to take action in opposition to genocide and Palestinian victimization, is the continuing unwillingness of leading Western countries to show concern for acute and massive patterns of victimization except with respect to the hostages seized by Hamas in the course of their attack that combined armed resistance with terrifying criminal acts of violence inflicted on innocent Jewish civilians as well as on Israeli military forces.

From a Western perspective it may be relevant to reconsider the Huntington contention that after the Cold War the West would face a challenge from the Islamic world, what he labeled ‘a clash of civilizations’ along the faultlines where Muslim majority countries are in direct contact with Western states. It is notable that the Hamas allies in Gaza are all Muslim, and the allies of Israel are European or whit settler colonial countries.

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