This is Part Two of an interview with former United Nations Senior Human Rights official Craig Mokhiber about the efforts to support Palestine during the current United Nations General Assembly session, the peace negotiations, the Global Sumud Flotilla, and how to support Palestinian liberation. Part One of the interview is here. Listen to the full interview on Clearing the FOG.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Margaret Flowers: Let’s talk about what is being floated out there right now. There were negotiations in Doha. Israel violated international law and assassinated members of Hamas’ delegation. Now there is Trump’s plan. Netanyahu met with President Trump on September 29th. They’ve been working to bring Saudi Arabia and some of the other Arab states into being supportive of Trump’s plan. Talk about what that is and what that would actually do.
Craig Mokhiber: You mentioned what happened in Qatar. I think what’s interesting is that it’s not exceptional for Israel. Israel is a rogue regime, deeply violent, fundamentally racist, and unconstrained. It has developed a kind of arrogance that comes out of absolute impunity guaranteed by the West. That’s why they not only deployed a murderous attack in a sovereign country against people who were there to negotiate with them, but they also carried out acts of aggression against Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and in the territorial Waters of Tunisia and Malta.
This is a rogue regime that is posing a threat across Western Asia and beyond to the broader world. It’s a regime that has launched a transnational terror attack in Lebanon with booby-trapped pagers. It is a regime that occupies territory in Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. It is a regime that has attacked the UN itself, repeatedly murdering three hundred and seventy plus UN staff in the last two years, and abducting, torturing, and imprisoning countless other UN staff, attacking UN convoys, destroying UN compounds and facilities, blocking UN operations, and smearing the United Nations. And yet they continue to walk around with credentials in the UN, which could be pulled within a day. Qatar was just the latest of their bold assaults on international law and the latest piece of evidence that they are a threat, not just to the UN but ultimately to all of us.
Now you have what is originally Trump’s 21 points, and now 20 points, which are effectively terms of surrender. They’re not a peace plan. And Trump made it very clear that if the resistance in Gaza does not accept these terms, he will greenlight the total destruction of Gaza by Israel. So this is worse than gunboat diplomacy. This is genocide diplomacy.
If you look at the terms he put forward, these are clearly terms that were drafted to preserve the Israeli regime, to buttress the Israeli regime, and to begin a process toward its normalization even as it perpetrates a genocide. So you see things in here like the Palestinians, the victims of genocide, are to be deradicalized, but the perpetrators of genocide are not to be deradicalized; that all Israeli captives are supposed to be released but only some Palestinians captives; that there is space for the continuation of the murderous Global Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) scheme, which is an extension of the occupation and genocide; and, that they’re going to establish a colonial governance body by the US in consultation with its European and Arab collaborator governments in which Trump will be the grand Wizard. And they dusted off the corpse of Tony Blair, who will also serve on this colonial board governing the lives of the Palestinian people, the survivors of genocide, and that there will be external control of their economic development, and that certain groups, Hamas and others, will be not only excluded and disarmed, but they will be monitored to protect the security of the Israeli regime.
Nobody is protecting the security of the Palestinians, the victims of Gaza. There will be a proxy occupation force called a ‘Stabilization Force,’ set up by the US and collaborating governments. The US, which has been a co-perpetrator in the genocide, will be the official mediator for this process. And there’s nothing on accountability for genocide, nothing about dismantling the criminal Israeli regime, nothing about ending apartheid, no reparation for the victims, and no self-determination for the Palestinian people, just war, colonial repression, and more Israeli impunity guaranteed by the US. And it comes with this threat from Donald Trump that if the Palestinians don’t accept these terms of surrender, the genocide will be completed. That is not negotiating. It’s gunboat diplomacy. It’s armed robbery. It’s 19th-century colonialism in the 20th century. This is atrocious. This is a crime being carried out in broad daylight. And any state that goes along with this, any international institution that goes along with this, is complicit in the destruction of the Palestinian people.
MF: People have said that if this plan went forward, it would ignite the region. Many of the members of the Axis of Resistance – Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Yemen – have been under attack. It feels like the region is a bit of a powder keg. What are your thoughts on the broader politics of that region?
CM: What is unfolding, not just in the last two years, but in the last several decades, is a project of hegemony by the US-Israel axis. People focus on Israel because Israel is the attack dog. It’s carrying out most of the atrocities. Sometimes, the US gets involved directly, but it is backed up by the US. So this is entirely a US-Israel project that is destroying Western Asia and beyond. The violations that I mentioned earlier – aggression, occupation, assassinations, and outright murder and genocide – are being perpetrated by these two governments. You can go back before October 2023 and see that was unfolding under Democrats and Republicans in the United States. It doesn’t matter.
This is a project of the state where they try to co-opt every government in the region to submit to the US-Israel axis, and most governments in the region have long done so. There are a few frontline states that are resisting the horrors that have been brought to the region by the Americans and the Israelis. Those that do not submit, those that are not absolutely corrupted by the US, are destroyed as we saw in Iraq, Libya and Yemen, and now, also in Iran. That is the plan: you will submit or you will be destroyed.
That’s the project for all of Western Asia. That’s the vision of the new Middle East by the United States and Israel that the neocons started long ago with the Project for the New American Century, and that has been continued by Democratic and Republican leadership together with the Israeli regime ever since. Now, they’ve expedited those attacks. The purpose is to make sure that no state can flourish in Western Asia, because if they flourish, they become stronger. They can become a challenge to the absolute power of the US-Israel access.
And the frightening thing is that this is not a project that is reserved to that region alone, it is global. I live in the United States, and here you see levels of repression not recorded in my lifetime in North America, where they have criminalized dissent to the US-Israel project in the Middle East and Western Asia to the point where you can criticize 192 countries openly without repercussions. You can burn one hundred and ninety-two flags without repercussions. You can criticize any political ideology without repercussions. But if you criticize Israel, its ideology, or burn its flag or protest its crimes, you can be criminalized and punished. You can be expelled from your university. You can lose your tenure as a professor. You can be fired from your job. You can be beaten by police. You can be arrested and thrown in jail. You can be deported. You can suffer the full brutal force of the state in the United States, in Germany, in the United Kingdom, for exercising your internationally-guaranteed human rights of free speech and association and assembly or your right to defend human rights, which is also a human right in international law. You can criticize your own government. I can go out there now and burn the US flag and criticize US domestic and foreign policy, and I’m not going to be arrested or expelled or punished for that. But criticize this one oppressive foreign regime in the United States, and I can be punished.
That’s not a mistake. This is a part of the broader US-Israel axis project, which is fascistic in every respect. I’ve written essays pointing out that colonialism, when it comes home, is called fascism, and that’s exactly what we’re witnessing, especially in the US, but not just the US. Other Western countries whose political processes are captured by the US-Israel axis are complicit with the Israeli regime.
MF: Just before the UN General Assembly session began, there were 250 state lawmakers from the United States, Democrats and Republicans, who were brought to Israel, paid for by the Israeli government, for a conference organized by the the Israeli state, “50 States, One Israel,” basically to get them to continue doing what they’ve been doing, which is to make it illegal to criticize Israel and to make it illegal to participate in the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign. So this is continuing to go deep into our political system in the United States.
CM: Yes, that happens with every incoming freshman class in Congress. They are hauled off to a propaganda tour organized by the Israel Lobby in the United States together with the Israeli regime in Tel Aviv. When they’re brought there, they’re not just loaded with a lot of propaganda but also with threats and promises, including massive amounts of money – billions and billions of dollars that pour into the political system. It’s obvious in the US, where corruption is legalized, which is quite rare in the world. It is legal to spend billions of dollars to bribe a politician in the US. Because it is legal, groups like a PAC, but not only a PAC, the Israel Lobby has many institutions, many operating perfidiously that pretend to be organizations that are Jewish organizations or pretend to be organizations that are American interest organizations, but in fact, are Israel Lobby groups, and they operate quite openly.
In the United States, the wall of propaganda that has been put forward by media corporations is designed to protect Israel, to hide the genocide, to dehumanize the Palestinians, and to justify war crimes. Thanks to social media and other sources of information, the majority of people reject what the Israeli regime is doing and support the rights of the Palestinian people to be protected, but this is not reflected even a little bit in their so-called elected representatives. It’s very clear that what Congress, the Senate, the State Department, and the White House are doing is on behalf of this lobby of an oppressive foreign regime and is at direct odds with what their constituents want them to do. That’s American politics.
The Israeli project could not continue without this degree of political capture because it receives millions of dollars of aid every year from US taxpayers. It receives endless floods of weapons and ammunition. It receives complete protection with the US veto in the Security Council to protect it from being held accountable for its crimes, and it receives diplomatic, political, and intelligence support from the United States. So, that’s where we are. These are not our representatives. These are representatives of the pharmaceutical lobby, of the insurance lobby, of the military industrial complex, of the Israel Lobby, and so on.
MF: Let’s turn to the Global Sumud Flotilla. They should be arriving in Gaza in just a few days. This is the largest flotilla ever. I think there are more than 40 boats, and it is unprecedented that naval ships from Italy, Turkiye, and Spain have joined them. Israel tried to convince them to drop their goods off just north of Gaza. What are your thoughts on the flotilla and this historic trip?
CM: This is historic. I think it’s 47 boats carrying delegations from about 45 countries from every continent except Antarctica. These unarmed humanitarians are challenging the criminal siege on Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid to the starving victims of a genocide and to break the siege. They are on a journey toward the coast of Gaza. They’re not heading to Israel. They’re not going to enter Israeli territorial waters. Israel has no right to in any way interfere with the sail of this peaceful flotilla to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, which is not a part of Israel. Nevertheless, Israel has been attacking these boats in international waters with drones, stun grenades, and chemical irritants, and damaging the boats.
That’s not new. This started in 2006, when ordinary people said we cannot watch this siege of civilians. By the way, this is obviously not about the hostages. This has been going on since 2005, effectively. In 2008, a couple of boats actually managed to get into Gaza, which was the first breach of Israel’s Naval Brigade. Then they went on to launch more boats up until 2016, when I think more than 30 boats were launched by civilians trying to get aid into Gaza. Some of them succeeded in getting in. But since 2010, what Israel has been doing is it’s been using military force to attack them. So they’ve either been sabotaged, intercepted, or attacked by Israel in international waters.
In 2010, soldiers from the Israeli regime violently boarded the Mavi Marmara and murdered ten of the humanitarians on board in cold blood. So this time has been no exception. The Israeli regime has attacked several of their boats using drones, incendiary devices, and chemical substances. And, it has threatened that it will intercept them, it will abduct them, and it will treat them as terrorists, which means, as we know, Israel runs torture camps and carries out extrajudicial executions and brutalizes and beats Palestinians, whom it calls terrorists. It said very clearly, “That’s what you are.” That they will take Greta Thunberg and treat her and her colleagues as terrorists.
And yet, the flotilla has grown, and grown now to almost 50 boats. People are not allowing themselves to be intimidated. They are committed to the cause. And in the face of the failure or the complicity of governments and international institutions around the world, you see all the changes coming from people. It is people’s encampments on university campuses. It is the people demonstrating in capitals all around the world. It is people marching to the Rafah Gate in solidarity and trying to get through for the Palestinian people. It is people organizing people’s tribunals. It is people organizing the Global Sumud Flotilla who are saying, “We see the complicity of governments and international institutions, and we will not sit idly by, even though we know that resisting this monster comes with considerable personal risk.” That is the light in a period of darkness that we all have to look to.
MF: What do you think of these naval ships? They say they’re not going to interfere if Israel attacks, but they’ll be there to provide assistance. Don’t they have some sort of an obligation under the Genocide Convention to stop what Israel is doing?
CM: They do have an obligation. This is an affirmative obligation on the part of all states to intervene to stop the genocide. They also have an obligation to protect humanitarian ships in international waters or in territorial waters that they’re authorized to be in. And so far, the world has not met its obligations to try to stop this genocide or protect the ships. Francesca Albanese, the rapporteur of the UN on Human Rights in Palestine, has called for months for navies in the Mediterranean not just to accompany the citizen flotillas, but to break the siege themselves. They have the power to do it. They have the obligation to do it. But they have not done it so far.
This decision by Italy, Spain and Turkiye to escort the humanitarian flotilla, the Sumud Flotilla, is historic. Now, they are not sailing to make war on Israel and to liberate the Palestinian people. They are sailing to provide an escort for the humanitarian flotilla, and if something goes wrong, to provide assistance. But I think most importantly, what they’re doing is they are changing the political calculus for the Israeli regime and its American partners and saying, “Are you really going to fire on a group of ships that includes the navies of Spain, Italy, and Turkiye? Are you really going to do this?” And that’s an open question. This is a rogue regime. It is drunk with its own impunity guaranteed by the West, but will they do it in these circumstances? We’re going to find out in a matter of a few days.
MF: What are your final thoughts for the listeners? What comes next? What should we be focused on?
CM: Well, Margaret, I’m old enough to remember the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and the importance of action by all of us to help bring that to an end in solidarity with the South African people, in solidarity with the South African resistance. And what a big difference the engagement of ordinary people made in the ultimate defeat of apartheid. Those are our marching orders, as I say, that’s where the light is. It is in these tribunals and flotillas and encampments and demonstrations, civil disobedience and education. It is in individual groups and citizens bringing legal action against Israeli perpetrators in their own courts. It is in the action of people because it’s not going to come from governments. It’s not going to come from international institutions. And that’s why we are all responsible.
You cannot live in an age of genocide and be passive or inactive because that is complicity. And so we have to continue to speak out. We have to loudly reject every effort at normalizing a genocidal apartheid regime. We have to reject every effort at providing impunity to perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and apartheid. And we have to insist upon the humanization of the Palestinian people. They are human, and by virtue of being born human, are entitled to all human rights – civil, political, economic, social, and cultural. We can help them to achieve their freedom. We can help them to defeat the genocide and the apartheid that has been imposed upon them. And that means challenging these new colonial initiatives by the Americans and the French and the Saudis and others. That means demanding freedom for the Palestinian people, demanding that companies that are complicit, that governments that are complicit, also be held accountable through boycott, divestment, sanctions, education and prosecution. We have power, and if it doesn’t come from us, we will be witnessing the ultimate extermination of people in the 21st century with our tax dollars in our name. I don’t know how many of your listeners and viewers can accept that, but I’m hoping that very few can accept that and people will continue to stand up.
MF: Yes, thank you, such important advice to folks. I think we have to recognize that if we don’t rise up and stop this impunity, it only grows and only gets worse. It’s the Palestinians now, but if anybody’s feeling hesitant, we have to realize that this is a path that’s a danger to everyone in the world if we allow it to continue.
CM: Colonialism never stays in its box. It always comes home. And that’s what we’re witnessing now. So, even if your only real concern is self-preservation, we have to stand up to this evil.
Craig Mokhiber is an international human rights lawyer and activist, and a former senior United Nations human rights official. As a human rights activist in the 1980s, he went on to serve for more than three decades at the United Nations with postings in Switzerland, Palestine, Afghanistan, and the UN headquarters in New York, undertaking dozens of human rights missions. In October of 2023, Craig Mokhiber left the United Nations.
