Dear All,

he recent resignation by a top United Nations human rights official over the way in which the UN has responded to the situation in Gaza – which he termed a “text-book case of genocide” – has focused attention on the selectivity with which Western powers apply international law and the conventions of war.

Craig Mokhiber‘s resignation last week was followed by his farewell letter to his former boss, the UN Human Rights Commissioner in Geneva. It is being shared widely across the world media.

Mokhiber described the situation in Gaza as a “text-book case of genocide,” and went on to say, “the European, ethno-nationalist, settler colonial project in Palestine has entered its final phase, towards the expedited destruction of the last remnants of indigenous Palestinian life in Palestine.” He also said that Western governments were “wholly implicit in the horrific assault.”

Following the publicity surrounding Mokhiber’s resignation, the response from the pro-Israel lobby was predictable: it sought to smear and discredit him, to accuse him of bias and anti-Semitism. As this smear campaign follows close upon the enraged reaction by Israel to UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remark that “the attack by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,” it appears that the UN is now going to be a target of Israel’s fury.

The reaction of the Israeli ambassador to the UN illustrates this rage well. He demanded the secretary general’s resignation saying his statement that the attack “did not happen in a vacuum” violated all “morality and impartiality” and that what the UNSG had said was “heinous.”

Is a statement of historical fact heinous? Is pointing out that the conflict or the atrocities did not begin just a month ago heinous? Apparently, in Israel’s book, it is. What is not heinous, apparently, is what has been done in Gaza: relentless bombing which has claimed the lives of over eight thousand civilians. What is not heinous apparently is the killing of thousands of children, many of whose bodies could not be recovered from the rubble. What is not heinous apparently is destroying homes and livelihoods, cutting off water and power from the area and refusing to allow food trucks and medical aid in. What is not heinous apparently is the flouting of all the rules of international law and brazenly ignoring the Geneva Convention….

The publicity following Mokhiber’s resignation certainly allowed a different narrative to be heard on the media, albeit for a very limited time. But the points he has made are very interesting. One is, of course, the double standards that Western powers choose to apply to various conflicts – the way these powers respond to Russia’s attacks on Ukraine is completely different to Israel’s attacks on Gaza and their citing of the principles of international law is done on a selective and biased manner. Mokhiber speaks of the power balance in terms we seem to have stopped using: the Global North and the Global South, terms used to describe a grouping of countries on the basis of socio-economic and political characteristics.

The North is made up of mostly white, former colonial powers, colonist invader countries where indigenous populations have been decimated or marginalised (for example, the USA and Australia) while the South is typically made up of impoverished, developing or ‘less developed’ countries most of which have been ravaged and looted by colonial rule.

These terms – the Global North and South – seem to have fallen out of favour in academic and development work even though they effectively contain within them the sense of colonial history and global inequality underlying these countries’ condition. Mokhiber used the terms when he was asked by Democracy Now! about the International Criminal Court’s actions (or lack thereof). He said, “It does not have a very strong record of holding Northern countries — Israel, the United States and others — to account for their crimes under international criminal law, and yet is very anxious to move forward on cases in the Global South.”

The Democracy Now! interview with the former UN official is a very interesting one in that it includes some excellent clips. Not only do we see and hear the Israeli ambassador’s rant against the UNSG and an IDF spokesperson admitting to making a densely populated civilian community (the Jabalia refugee camp) a target to eliminate one Hamas leader, but we also hear about protests that have taken place in the US. One of these protests happened at a US Senate hearing on October 31 when Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was to testify about the White House’s $106 billion national security funding request.

Protestors stood up one by one as Blinken was to start his testimony. They held up red-stained hands and small cardboard signs and repeatedly called out “ceasefire now!” Among those quickly bundled out by security guards was a former State Department official, Ann Wright. Wright was able to have her voice heard as she was being taken out. She said “Come on. I’m an Army colonel. I’m a former diplomat. I resigned on that War in Iraq that you talked about. That was a terrible thing. And what you’re doing right now in supporting Israel’s genocide of Gaza is a terrible thing, too. Stop the war! Ceasefire now!” Presumably, the pro-Israel lobby will soon label Ann Wright and the anti-war group CodePink as ‘anti-Semitic’ etc…

Any plea to have a ceasefire in Gaza or allow humanitarian assistance to Gazans is now depicted as anti-Semitic hate speech. Two weeks ago I was one of the over 100,000 people who marched in a ‘stop the war’ coalition protest from Marble Arch to Parliament Square. It was well organised and it was peaceful but soon some of the slogans were being termed hate speech and the Metropolitan police was criticised for not cracking down on ‘offensive’ slogans. What were the offensive words? Well, apparently the chant ‘From the mountains to the sea, Palestine will be free!’ is an example of hate speech. Yup.

The fact of the matter is that Israel and the US have made a mockery of the United Nations and of the rules of war. The Geneva Conventions mean nothing now to Western powers. Nor do they mean much to the Arab nations who stand by these powers even as their region is being destroyed and thousands of civilians are being bombed and starved. The mainstream media continues to toe the line they are given by these powers. They don’t see through the false equivalence that is used; they don’t read up on humanitarian or international law; and they certainly don’t refer to history much. And they are afraid.

When Mokhiber spoke on CNN of the genocide of the Palestinians and the situation in Gaza, the interviewer became a little rattled and asked him if he would agree that the October 7 Hamas attack was also genocide. This seems a little odd since that particular incident can probably be more accurately described as a deadly attack in which 1,400 people were killed. Similarly, The Guardian replaced their story about Mokhiber’s resignation quite quickly with a story in which the top line cast doubts on his integrity and cited accusations of him being biased.

Mokhiber also made a very good point about UN workers on the ground being betrayed by the political leadership of the organisation. On October 31, the United Nations Refugee Agency, the UNRWA, confirmed that 63 of their staff members had been killed in the Israeli attacks on Gaza. These relief workers are cannon fodder… just as Palestinian civilians appear to be.

Let’s see how all of this unfolds for the UN as a whole. Let’s observe how Israel undermines the peace project that became the UN.

The author is a former BBC broadcaster and producer and one of the founding editors of Newsline

Umber Khairi