Human Trustees

I ended my last post by referring to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem’s 2021 press release declaring that their nation was committing the crime of apartheid against the Palestinian population in the Occupied Territories. This was the subtitle, “A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: this is apartheid.”

In fact, they were referring to a United Nations convention from November 1973 (Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid) which was drafted, debated, and signed by many nations—all with reference to the South African white supremacist regime which turned the majority black population into second-class citizens and routinely trampled on their civil rights, causing them great suffering. The word “apartheid” is an Afrikaans word—a language developed by the original Dutch settlers—meaning “apartness,” or “segregation.”

If you click on my link to the B’Tselem organization, immediately you’re confronted by a gigantic title filling your page: “OUR GENOCIDE.” Go to that specific page, read it, but especially watch the just-under-8-minutes video. To describe it as “powerful” is an understatement. Coming from people who were raised in the shadow of the Holocaust—the greatest of last century’s genocides—this documentary is simply bone-chilling. And it ends with this call, “People and governments must use every means available under international law to make the Israeli government stop the genocide in Gaza now.”

The key role of international law

This is why my second post referenced the United Nations and the gradual coming together of international law. “Genocide”—a word from Greek roots meaning “the killing of a race, tribe or people,” was first recognized by the UN’s General Assembly in 1946, and later was ratified in 1948 as the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Though only 153 nations to date have ratified the Genocide Convention, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has repeatedly emphasized that all nations are “bound as a matter of law by the principle that genocide is a crime prohibited by international law” (from the UN page on genocide).

The legal definition of genocide contains two elements:

1. 1. 1. A mental element: the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such; and
      2. A physical element—any one of the following:
         1. Killing members of the group;
         2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
         3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
         4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
         5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The most difficult element to prove in a court of law is the “intent” component. But in this case, it is rather obvious. Ask the Gazan people who in the last two years have been herded like rats marked for extermination—bombed, starved, mostly cut off from clean water, electricity and fuel, and then killed by Israeli snipers when on their way to or at food distribution sites.

Also, make sure to ask Italian lawyer and academic Francesca Albanese, who was mandated by the 47-member UN Human Rights Council in May 2022 to research the actual conditions of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories (Gaza and West Bank). The first woman in this job, she was given a three-year term as Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, and then given another three-year term in April 2025.

Watch her introductory remarks as she delivered her extensive report to the council (“Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967”) on July 3, 2025. The subtitle is a short excerpt from her talk: “Israel is responsible for one of the cruelest genocides in modern history.”

For all her hard work, Albanese must have felt gratified by the approval and gratitude of the council; but she also paid a heavy price for it. Just after her talk, she was personally sanctioned by the Trump Administration (see her remarks as she was interviewed by the Associated Press about this). She will not be able to visit her daughter in the US, and can have no financial interactions with American banks.

An article in The Hill documents Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s calling on the UN Human Rights Council to fire her and quotes from a message on X in which he announces, “Today I am imposing sanctions on . . . Francesca Albanese . . . [her] campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated.”

So what did she say in her report (read it here as a pdf, but the UN page I cited above has a good summary)? Her central thesis is that Israel’s settler colonial plan began with the 1901 founding of the Jewish National Fund (a land-purchasing corporate entity), which “helped plan and carry out the gradual removal of Arab Palestinians, which intensified with the Nakba [1948 Palestinian “catastrophe”], and has continued ever since.” But this process of colonizing Palestinian land—dispossessing Palestinians of their land and replacing them with Israeli colonies—accelerated rapidly after 1967, and it was aided and abetted by global corporate interests. In her words,

“The role of corporate entities in sustaining Israel’s illegal occupation and ongoing genocidal campaign in Gaza is the subject of this investigation, which focuses on how corporate interests underpin Israeli settler-colonial [projects]—the twofold logic of displacement and replacement aimed at dispossessing and erasing Palestinians from their lands. It discusses corporate entities in various sectors: arms manufacturers, tech firms, building and construction companies, extractive and service industries, banks, pension funds, insurers, universities and charities. These entities enable the denial of self-determination and other structural violations in the occupied Palestinian territory, including occupation, annexation and crimes of apartheid and genocide, as well as a long list of ancillary crimes and human rights violations, from discrimination, wanton destruction, forced displacement and pillage, to extrajudicial killing and starvation.”

In other words, this longstanding project of settler colonialism has kicked into high gear under the most far-right government in Israeli history. It plans to expel Gaza’s two million people and do the same, as far as possible, to the West Bank. And as I write this, the stakes couldn’t be higher: Israel has begun its assault on the last remaining urban structure (Gaza City) and famine has officially been declared in the Gaza Strip.

No peace without boycotts, sanctions, and divestment (BDS)

What has been largely missing so far is a global consensus to act on established international laws—and applying in particular the UN Apartheid and Genocide Conventions in this case. The United States is already feeling the heat for its unconditional support of Israel’s genocidal war. The International Criminal court (ICC) issued last year arrest warrants against Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant “for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity” over its war in Gaza. The chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, had also issued arrest warrants against two Hamas officials, both of whom have now been assassinated by Israel.

In response, the US State Department sanctioned Karim Khan and four other ICC judges in March 2025. Ignoring the UN human rights chief who had ordered the US to withdraw its sanctions, the Trump Administration doubled down on its position in August, and it sanctioned two more judges and two more prosecutors, including a French judge, Nicolas Guillou, the one who had authorized Netanyahu’s arrest warrant. France, in turn, expressed “dismay” and joined the ICC in its condemnation of the sanctions, stating that imposing such sanctions was “in contradiction to the principle of an independent judiciary.” The ICC itself complained that they constituted “an affront against . . . the rules-based international order and, above all, millions of innocent victims across the world.”

What is the main takeaway from Albanese’s report? What are her recommendations for ending this genocidal war? Let me just cite the first three, which are addressed to member states:

1. 1. 1. To impose sanctions and a full arms embargo on Israel, including all existing agreements and dual-use items such as technology [Israel has used Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon for cloud backup, AI tools, face recognition, and surveillance analysis] and civilian heavy machinery [Caterpillar, HD Hyundai, and Volvo excavators], which has been used to demolish Palestinian homes and recently to raze whole sections of Gaza, even burying thousands of Palestinians, including, allegedly, many only injured.
      2. To suspend/prevent all trade agreements and investment relations, and impose sanctions, including asset freezes, on entities and individuals involved in activities that may endanger Palestinians.
      3. To enforce accountability, ensuring that corporate entities [a list in the hundreds] face legal penalties for their involvement in serious violations of international law.

Here is the last one, addressed to all of us: “The Special Rapporteur urges trade unions, lawyers, civil society and ordinary citizens to press for boycotts, divestments, sanctions, justice for Palestine and accountability at international and domestic levels; together we can end these unspeakable crimes.”

I posted a piece in 2019 urging readers to join in some way the international movement of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction (BDS). The first official international conference to promote BDS as a means to achieve a just peace in Israel-Palestine was convened in Ramallah, West Bank, in 2007. We’ve come a long way since then. The international protests against Israeli atrocities in Gaza over the last couple of years attest to that.

Just last week, Mondoweiss, a Jewish American website (“News & Opinion about Palestine, Israel & the United States”) published a piece entitled, “International Court of Justice Finds That BDS Is Not Just Legal, But Obligatory.” Israel’s frantic efforts in the last couple of decades to shield itself from the potential onslaught of the growing BDS movement seem to have paid off: “countless laws and policies are now on the books across the U.S. and the broader West, trampling on core constitutional principles and internationally guaranteed human rights.” But the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion last month that turns the tables on the Israeli/American rhetoric:

“In its historic ruling, the ICJ found that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza is entirely unlawful, that Israel practices apartheid and racial segregation, and that all states are under a duty to help bring this to an end, including by cutting off all economic, trade and investment relations with Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. In other words, as a matter of international law, all countries are obliged to participate in an economic boycott of Israel’s activities in the occupied Palestinian territory and to divest from any existing economic relations there.”

The current Israeli government is not denying its plan is genocide, though of course, it doesn't use that term. Have a listen to the leader of Israel's National Religious Party who has also been Netanyahu's Minister of Finance since 2022. The two clips are on Judge Napolitano's Judging Freedom's podcast and his interviewee is University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer (starting at minute 14:14).

Let’s hold on to hope

In January 2025, six nations from the Global South convened in The Hague, Netherlands, to form a new block “in defense of international law and solidarity with the Palestinian people” (Columbia, South Africa, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal, Bolivia, Cuba and Honduras). The Hague Group, as it is called, express their mission in these words,

“The choice is stark: Either we act together to enforce international law or we risk its collapse. We choose to act, not only for the people of Gaza but for the future of a world where justice prevails over impunity. Let this moment mark the beginning of a renewed commitment to internationalism and the principles that bind us as a global community.”

Francesca Albanese was invited to Bogota, Columbia, for a two-day emergency meeting of the Hague Group (July 19-20, 2025). In her address, she urged these leaders to “hold tight” to hope, as she does. She senses “a historical turning point” is underway. “Palestine’s immense suffering has cracked open the possibility of transformation.” First, “the narrative is shifting”—away from Israel’s right to self-defense “toward the long-denied Palestinian right to self-determination—systematically invisibilised, suppressed and delegitimised for decades.” And second, “we are seeing the rise of a new multilateralism: principled, courageous, increasingly led by the Global Majority.”

Even in the United States, the narrative is beginning to shift. USA Today published an OpEd by B’Tselem’s spokesperson Yair Dvir, “I’m Israeli. The world must stop our government’s genocide in Gaza while we still can.”

In the next post in this series, I will say more about what people of faith are doing in this country to stop the genocide in the Palestinian territories. And among these, American Jews are the most active and effective.

Postscript: As soon as this was written, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), the largest global organization of genocide scholars, passed a resolution stating that Israel is indeed committing genocide in Gaza. And this, according to the criteria set forth in the UN convention on genocide. Notably, with over 50,000 children either killed or injured, with “the widespread attacks on both the personnel and facilities needed for survival, including in the healthcare, aid, and educational sectors”; and the dehumanizing statements by Israeli leaders characterizing all Palestinians as enemies and their intention to “flatten Gaza” and turn it into “hell.” Finally, there is a clear intention to ethnically cleanse the territory. Meanwhile, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is still researching the case brought to its attention by South Africa in 2023 that Israel is committing genocide.

Postscript 2: On Sept. 9, 2025, the UN's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Palestinian Occupied Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel released its definitive (72-page) report after four years of fact-finding and research. It was led by a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and a former International Court of Justice (ICJ) judge, Navi Pillay. This was the first time that an official UN commission concluded that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza. In fact, Israel has "committed four genocidal acts": 1) by targetting Palestinians collectively; 2) by weaponizing the withholding of humanitarian aid; 3) by destroying Palestinian childhood; 4) by using sexualized torture. Furthermore, "the report accused Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of inciting genocide.