Nobel Peace Prize Recipient's Article On Gaza Genocide

 

The 2026 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to South African attorney and judge Navanethem "Navi" Pillay for her lifetime of work defending human rights. Here (from The New York Times) is an article she wrote last year on genocide in Gaza (while serving as chair of the U.N. Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory).

In 1995 President Nelson Mandela of South Africa asked me to serve as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The judicial panel over which I presided convicted three Rwandans of genocide. So I understand the word “genocide,” and it is not one I use lightly. It is the deliberate attempt to destroy, in whole or in part, a people. It represents the most serious violation of our shared humanity and the gravest breach of international law.

Today the United Nations commission that I lead is publishing its legal analysis of Israel’s conduct in the Gaza Strip. Our conclusion is stark: Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. This finding is based on investigations and extensive evidence into the period between Oct. 7, 2023, when the war began, and July 31, 2025. It has been corroborated by multiple sources and assessed through the rigorous legal framework of the U.N. Genocide Convention of 1948, to which Israel is a party.

My organization, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, was established by the United Nations’ Human Rights Council in 2021. It is overseen by appointed experts who are supported by staff from the U.N. secretariat. The Commission reports its findings to the Human Rights Council and General Assembly.

The scale of destruction is devastating. More than 64,000 Palestinians have been killed, including over 18,000 children and nearly 10,000 women, according to Gazan health officials. Estimated life expectancy in Gaza has collapsed from 75 years to just over 40 in a single year, one of the steepest declines recorded. Hospitals, schools, churches, mosques and entire neighborhoods have been destroyed. Our analysis found that starvation has been used as a weapon of war and that the medical system has been deliberately destroyed. Maternal health care has been severely undermined. Children have been starved, shot and buried under rubble. According to UNICEF, one child has died every hour in Gaza. These are not the accidents of war. They are acts calculated to bring about the destruction of a people.

Establishing genocide requires not only the act but also the intent. Here, too, the evidence is clear. Senior Israeli leaders, including the president, the prime minister and the former defense minister, have dehumanized Palestinians. Yoav Gallant, the defense minister at the time of the Oct. 7 attacks, said, “We are fighting human animals,” while President Isaac Herzog proclaimed that the entire Palestinian nation was responsible. Their words have been matched by deeds: indiscriminate bombardment making Gaza uninhabitable, the blocking of humanitarian aid, sexual and gender-based violence and a siege we concluded was designed to starve the population to death. Together these constitute a pattern that demonstrates genocidal intent.

The commission also found that Palestinians have been killed while seeking food at distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the Israel and U.S.-backed entity that largely replaced the existing aid network. Hundreds, including children, have been shot while trying to access aid.

Some argue that the term “genocide” is too grave to apply while Israel’s war continues. But the law is explicit: The obligation to prevent genocide arises the moment a serious risk is evident. That threshold was crossed long ago in this war. In January 2024 the International Court of Justice put all states on notice that there was a serious risk that genocide was being committed in Gaza. Since then, the evidence has only deepened, and the killing has multiplied.

What does this mean for the international community? It means its obligations are not optional. Every state has an obligation to prevent genocide wherever it occurs. That obligation requires action: halting the transfer of weapons and military support used in genocidal acts, ensuring unimpeded humanitarian assistance, stopping the mass displacement and destruction, and using all available diplomatic and legal means to stop the killing. To do nothing is not neutrality. It is complicity.

I do not write these words as an adversary of Israel. I recognize the suffering of Israelis who lost loved ones in the horrific Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, which killed some 1,200 people, and the pain of the families of the roughly 50 hostages who remain in captivity, including about 20 still believed to be alive. Our commission has documented the crimes by Hamas. But no crime, however grave, justifies genocide. To respond to atrocity with atrocity is to abandon the very values international law was created to protect.

History will judge how the world responds. In Rwanda, the international community did not prevent the genocide, nor did it intervene to stop the killing once the genocide began. Today the international community is again failing to act — this time, in Gaza. The facts are reported daily. The warnings are unequivocal. The law is clear. The stakes, the survival of a people, could not be higher.

The obligation to prevent genocide belongs not only to states but also to the international system as a whole. The U.N. Security Council must not be the graveyard of conscience. Regional organizations, national parliaments, civil society and ordinary citizens all have a role to play in pressing governments to act. The Genocide Convention was born from the ashes of the Holocaust with a solemn vow: “Never again.” That vow is meaningless if it applies only to some and not to others.

I urge every government, every leader and every citizen to ask: What will we say when our children and grandchildren ask what we did while Gaza was burned to the ground? Every act of genocide is a test of the humanity that binds us.

The prevention of genocide is not a matter of discretion of states. It is a legal and moral obligation, and it admits no delay. The law requires action. Our common humanity demands it.

Israel Is Losing The Support Of U.S. Voters

 

The charts above reflects the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between August 15th and 18th of a nationwide sample of 1,408 registered voters, with a 3.2 point margin of error.

Is Netanyahu Intentionally Trying To Starve Gaza Residents?

The people of Gaza are starving, and they have been for weeks. The World Central Kitchen (and other aid organizations) are trying to get food into Gaza, and President Biden even flew an airlift of food (dropping food from the air). But it is not enough.

Why? Because the Israeli government (headed by Netanyahu) is not allowing enough aid to enter. They drug their feet for weeks before allowing any food aid to enter, and still don't allow enough to enter. Now Israeli forces have attacked a food convoy from the World Central Kitchen, killing seven aid workers.

Netanyahu said the attack was "unintended". That's hard to believe. The convoy was clearly marked on the roofs of the vehicles. In addition, Chef Andres (World Central Kitchen founder) said his aid workers never moved anywhere without first notifying Israeli forces and getting clearance.

The deadly attack has aid organizations suspending their efforts to feed the starving Gaza's because it is too dangerous. Was that what Netanyahu wanted?

There are two possible reasons for the attack. Either the Israeli Defense Forces are extremely incompetent (which is not likely since they have always shown high competence in the past), or Netanyahu is trying to starve Gaza into submission.

The latter is not only a WAR CRIME, but would be a failure in subduing Hamas (since they are going to grab for themselves any food allowed to enter). The real victims are the innocent people of Gaza. It is bad enough that many have died from bombs and the lack of medical supplies, but starvation is an unnecessary crime. 

If the attack was truly unintended, then Israel must immediately allow massive food aid to enter Gaza and insure those delivering that aid are protected.

The world is watching and doesn't like what it is seeing. It is starting to look like intentional genocide! 

Trump And Kushner Committed A "Crime Against Humanity"

Donald Trump has broken American laws, and committed actions that were both unconstitutional and hurtful to many American citizens.

But in conjunction with his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, he has done something that is far worse than his other crimes. It is a crime against humanity, and demands his removal from office -- and his arrest and conviction after that.

Here's just a part of an op-ed in the Washington Monthly by David Atkins about the atrocious crime:

Last month, I wrote that president Trump had admitted to a crime against humanity. It was true. The president had openly bragged about deliberately slowing down COVID-19 testing for political gain, thereby causing the deaths of untold numbers of Americans to make himself look better. It is a monstrous crime for which he has not yet been held accountable.

But a new report from Vanity Fair implicates both Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner of an unspeakable horror orders of magnitude greater. Instead of implementing a comprehensive and aggressive national testing plan as originally recommended by the White House coronavirus task force, Kushner scuttled it. The president and his son-in-law were instead content to allow tens of thousands of Americans die as long as they were mostly people of color, and hailing from Democratic states and counties. Not only that, they saw it as a political opportunity to both cull the numbers of opposing voters and lay blame on Democratic governors at the same time. . . .

If this is true–and there is very little reason to doubt its veracity, despite the White House press secretary’s denials–it would constitute perhaps the greatest crime against humanity of any president in American history. Andrew Jackson’s Trail of Tears was more deliberately vicious and murderous; George W. Bush’s immoral war of choice in Iraq killed more people overall.

But no American president has ever betrayed his oath of office more profoundly than in deliberately allowing the deaths of more than 150,000 of his own fellow citizens and counting for partisan political gain.

We even lack the vocabulary to describe it. “Gross negligence” doesn’t reach the level of the crime. “Murder” is lurid, but frankly not comprehensive enough in scope to describe the death of 150,000. “Treason” comes to mind when considering that the President of the United States knowingly allowed 150,000 Americans to die because they were mostly his political opponents–but despite his Russia entanglements, there is no direct evidence he did so on behalf of a foreign power.

But there’s another option: “genocide.” The known racial bias of the deaths overlaps with the political bias–black and brown Americans tend to be Democrats and live in Democratic areas, and are disproportionately falling victim to the virus–which in turn would make “genocide” the most compelling way to describe what Trump and Kushner have done.

Genocide. Yes, it sounds preposterous. It sounds like the hyperbole of the deeply unserious. But what else can you call it? No word is perfect, but the crime must have a name that fits the enormous scope of its evil. It must describe what actually happened. And what happened is that the president and his son-in-law deliberately allowed 150,000 (and counting) Americans to die of a pandemic, because it would mostly kill off their political opponents. Because it would kill off mostly poor people of color. Because they thought they could gain an upper hand by blaming opposing governors. But they thought it would advantage them politically. It’s like a plot out of a bad action movie with a comic book villain, except it’s real life and those villains are still governing and making decisions. . . .

The majority of Americans, the ones not enthralled by conservative infotainment and the Trump propaganda machine, are suffering from years of collective trauma and looking forward to the November election as a means of escape. One can hardly blame them. Nor would many be to blame for wanting to put this entire era behind us and never look back.

But assuming democracy remains intact and Trump is driven from office, this enormous crime cannot be forgotten. It cannot be ignored. There must be accountability for this genocide, the greatest crime in American history.

Americans Coming To Grip With Their Dark History ?

These charts are made from a new YouGov Poll done between June 5th and 7th of a random national sample of 1,000 adults, with a 4.1 point margin of error.

I must say I was rather pleasantly surprised at this survey's results. It tells me that many Americans are starting to understand and admit that not everything in our history was good. In fact, especially in our actions toward Native Americans (and African slaves), our history is pretty dark -- full of heinous acts based on a view of white privilege and superiority.

This has in the past been something most Americans didn't want to admit (or even discuss). Even as late as the 1950's and 1960's, when I was in school, the idea of "Manifest Destiny" was being taught in all the schools -- which is little more than a thinly disguised excuse for white superiority. It was the idea that Americans, mostly white and christian, had the right to use any means necessary to achieve their goal of expansion.

Maybe we are finally moving beyond this hideous view of U.S. history. A plurality of 40% will now admit that the U.S. committed genocide against Native Americans. I think that should be a higher percentage, but it's only recently that we will even discuss the possibility that we committed genocide.

It does get better though. A clear majority of 57% say the U.S. did commit "crimes against humanity" in its westward expansion. About 52% say the government owes an apology to Native Americans, and a whopping 80% believe it is important to preserve Native American cultures.

Maybe America is finally starting to grow up.

Bush Opposes Genocide Declaration

We've known for quite a while now that the truth means very little to our inept president. Bush will lie at the drop of a hat, if he thinks it will get him something he wants. Now we learn that he has as little respect for history as he does for truth.

Our House of Representatives is considering taking up a measure that would declare the mass killings of Armenians during the early part of the twentieth century to be organized genocide. The matter goes before the Foreign Relations Committee next Wednesday, and could soon be taken up by the full House.

Most historians agree that this was indeed an organized genocide, and should be represented as such for historical accuracy. But the Bush White House is working to see that the measure doesn't pass. That's because the Turkish government opposes it.

Last year, the French passed a law making it a crime to deny the Armenian genocide. Turkey promptly cut its military ties with France. Turkey has promised that if the measure passes in the U.S., there will be consequences. That's why Bush opposes the measure -- he's running scared of the Turkish government.

Bush is willing to bury historical truth to avoid Turkey becoming angry with us. But the truth is important. The Turks must come to terms with their World War I era behavior, just as the Germans have with their World War II actions. You cannot get past your mistakes until you recognize their existence.

It is silly for Bush to let Turkey write history for us. If the Turks don't want to be our friend, so be it. I think they will probably find that they need us far more than we need them.

Bush Imposes Sanctions On Sudan

"For too long, the people of Darfur have suffered at the hands of a government that is complicit in the bombing, murder and rape of innocent civilians. I promise this to the people of Darfur. The United States will not avert our eyes from a crises that challenges the conscience of the world".

It's hardly believable, but those are the words of George Bush, our very own president. The man that is so good at creating a crises is now trying to stop one. On Tuesday, Bush announced sanctions against 30 companies and three individuals in Sudan, that would ban them from using the U.S. Banking system.

He has also directed Sec. Rice to push the matter in the United Nations. He wants the UN to continue to fund the ineffectual 7,000 man African peacekeeping force already in Darfur, and create a no-fly zone over contested areas in Darfur.

It seems like too little too late, but I guess he is at least doing something. I was beginning to think he would never take any action at all. I do wonder about his priorities though.

He's willing to send over a hundred thousand troops to steal Iraq's oil. But when the genocide of a whole region is at stake, all he can do is tell those naughty people that they can't use our banking system. I'll bet there're quaking in their boots!

Bush tried to make himself look good today, but I'm afraid he's just embarrassed the US with his timid and inconsequential action.