Venezuela, Gaza, Ukraine: Is The UN Failing?

BY JULIETTE MCINTYRE AND TAMSIN PHILLIPA PAIGE

The United Nations turned 80 in October last year; a venerable age for the most significant international organisation the world has ever seen.

But events of recent years – from last weekend’s Trumpian military action to seize Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Russia’s unlawful invasion of Ukraine in 2022, to the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza – represent major challenges to the UN system.

Many are now asking whether the United Nations has any future at all if it cannot fulfil its first promise of maintaining international peace and security.

Has the UN reached the end of its lifespan?

The UN Security Council

The organ of the UN that plays the main role maintaining peace and security is the UN Security Council.

Under the rules established by the UN Charter, military action – the use of force – is only lawful if it has been authorised by a resolution from the UN Security Council (as outlined in Article 42 of the Charter), or if the state in question is acting in self-defence.

Self-defence is governed by strict rules requiring it to be in response to an armed attack (Article 51). Even then, self-defence is lawful only until the Security Council has stepped in to restore international peace and security.

The Security Council is made up of 15 member states:

five permanent (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States – also known as the P5) ten non-permanent members elected for two-year terms.

Resolutions require nine affirmative votes and no veto from any permanent member, giving the P5 decisive control over all action on peace and security.

This was set up expressly to prevent the UN from being able to take action against the major powers (the “winners” of the second world war), but also to allow them to act as a balance to each other’s ambitions.

This system only works, however, when the P5 agree to abide by the rules.

Could the UN veto system be reformed?

As aptly demonstrated by the Russians and Americans in recent years, the veto power can render the Security Council effectively useless, no matter how egregious the breach of international law.

For that reason, the veto is often harshly criticised.

As one of us (Tamsin Paige) has explained previously, however, self-serving use of the veto power (meaning when a member state uses its veto power to further its own interests) may be politically objectionable but it is not legally prohibited.

The UN Charter imposes no enforceable limits on veto use.

Nor is there any possibility of a judicial review of the Security Council at the moment.

And herein lies one of the most significant and deliberate design flaws of the UN system.

The charter places the P5 above the law, granting them not only the power to veto collective action, but also the power to veto any attempt at reform.

Reforming the UN Security Council veto is thus theoretically conceivable – Articles 108 and 109 of the charter allow for it – but functionally impossible.

Dissolving and reconstituting the UN under a new charter is the only structural alternative.

This, however, would require a level of global collectivism that presently does not exist. One or more of the P5 would likely block any reform or redesign that would see the loss of their veto power.

An uncomfortable truth

It does, therefore, appear as though we are witnessing the collapse of the UN-led international peace and security system in real time.

The Security Council cannot – by design – intervene when the P5 (China, France, Russia, the UK and US) are the aggressors.

But focusing only on the Security Council risks missing much of what the UN actually does, every day, largely out of sight.

Despite its paralysis when it comes to great-power conflict, the UN is not a hollow institution.

The Secretariat, for instance, supports peacekeeping and political missions and helps organise international conferences and negotiations.

The Human Rights Council monitors and reports on human rights compliance.

UN-administered agencies coordinate humanitarian relief and deliver life-saving aid.

The UN machinery touches on everything from health to human rights to climate and development, performing functions that no single state can replicate alone.

None of this work requires Security Council involvement, but all of it depends on the UN’s institutional infrastructure (of which the Security Council is an integral part).

The uncomfortable truth is we have only one real choice at present: a deeply flawed global institution, or none at all.

The future of the UN may simply be one of sheer endurance, holding together what can still function and waiting for political conditions to change.

We support it not because it works perfectly, or even well, but because losing it would be much worse.

Should we work towards a better system that doesn’t reward the powerful by making them unaccountable? Absolutely.

But we shouldn’t throw out all of the overlooked good the UN does beyond the Security Council’s chambers because of the naked hypocrisy and villainy of the P5.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

In Swipe At Trump, Brazil’s Lula Tells UN That Organized Crime Is Not Terrorism

Lula dedicated part of his speech at the opening of the United Nations General Assembly to expressing his concern about the U.S. stance toward Latin America. AP Photo/Richard Drew

BY THIAGO RODRIGUES

PROFESSOR DE RELACOES

INTERNACIONAIS, UNIVERSIDADE,

FEDERAL FLUMINENSE

Much of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s address at the opening of the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly was expected.

Condemnation of U.S. interventionism against Brazil and Israeli action in the Gaza Strip have long been part of the rhetoric of the veteran leftist leader. So too has been the need to fight global hunger and speak up for global environmental initiatives.

But, besides those expected major themes, Lula’s speech also embarked on new territory, noticeably on the issue of organized crime and terrorism. “It is worrying to equate crime with terrorism,” Lula noted.

That was a direct reference to U.S. President Donald Trump’s attempts to equate Latin American organized crime groups with terrorist organizations.

Such conflation has been part of Trump’s agenda since the very first day of his second administration. On Jan. 20, 2025, he signed an executive order that ordered the inclusion of Latin American organized crime groups on the list of designated terrorist organizations.

As a result, entities like Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, Ecuador’s Los Choneros, Mexico’s Cartel de Sinaloa and El Salvador’s Mara Salvatrucha now share space with Boko Haram and the Islamic State group on the State Department’s list of “Foreign Terrorist Organizations.”

Just rhetoric?

The association between drug trafficking and terrorism is not new in U.S. foreign policy. In the 1980s, groups like Sendero Luminoso in Peru and the Medellín Cartel in Colombia were classified as “narco-terrorists” because they fought their own governments using weapons funded by cocaine trafficking.

Ronald Reagan’s administration presented narco-terrorism as a serious threat to American safety. He sent the Army to combat international trafficking and exhorted Andean countries to turn their military into anti-narcotics troops.

The policy left a strong legacy in countries like Colombia, Peru and Mexico, where armies were converted into a de facto military super-police.

In the process, they lost the capacity to act as effective national defense forces.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the relationship between drug trafficking and terrorism was updated. Islamic fundamentalist groups like al-Qaida were accused by the U.S. Department of State of financing their operations through heroin and other drug trafficking.

With the support of a frightened society, President George W. Bush’s government built an anti-terrorist legal and institutional framework that gave the state exceptional powers to repress anyone it deemed to be a “terrorist.”

And in the post-9/11 world, being a “terrorist” held serious consequences in regard to how U.S. authorities could, and would, treat you.

Terrorists were arrested without formal charges. They were tortured and detained in unknown places for an indefinite period of time. Their assets and property were confiscated, their bank accounts interdicted and their resources absorbed by the authorities without accountability.

Today, when Trump extends the classification of “terrorist” to transnational organized crime groups, the tacit understanding is it allows any Latin American accused of international drug dealing to be treated outside the rules of a democratic state of law. That includes to be captured outside the U.S. with no access to any diplomatic aid, to be sent to Guantánamo or to simply disappear.

Geopolitical pressure

Since the 1970s, the so-called “war on drugs” has been an instrument of U.S. diplomatic and geopolitical pressure. It was used to blackmail governments in Latin America, align repressive policies with U.S. guidelines and justify the presence of military personnel, intelligence and military bases in the region, among other forms of intervention.

Since 2001, the “war on terror” has served similar purposes around the world, but with little impact in Latin America. Now, the new classification for Latin American criminal organizations synchronizes the “war on drugs” with the “war on terror.”

More than rhetoric, the U.S. State Department’s updated list allows the government to reinforce the interventionism in Latin America at a particularly sensitive time.

The U.S. is facing a serious domestic political crisis and an unprecedented global challenge posed by China’s consistent and vertiginous rise as a world economic and military power.

The Chinese economic and commercial presence in Latin America poses a concrete threat to the hegemony that the U.S. established on the continent.

Brazil and Mexico – the region’s largest economies – are making Trump’s trade pressure instruments, such as tariffs, much less effective than expected.

In this context, Trump has deployed a military naval force near the Venezuelan coast, reactivating accusations that the regime led by Nicolás Maduro is a “narco-state.”

Trump accuses Maduro of being the head of a group called the Cartel de los Soles, supposedly formed by high-ranking military personnel. The only sources claiming that such a cartel exists are the U.S. itself and voices linked to the ultra-right Venezuelan opposition in exile. However, the accusation is serious and influences U.S. public opinion.

In the same vein, the U.S. government has just “decertified” Gustavo Petro’s Colombia from its list of countries partnering Washington’s effort to fight transnational drugs trafficking – a move that could lead to economic sanctions and cuts in credit lines, loans and military aid.

Following the drug money

Arguing against this logic of unilateral U.S. action, Lula, in his U.N. address, emphasized multilateral cooperation to combat international drug trafficking. And the focus, in his point of view, must be to go after the economic assets of organized crime groups, and their money laundering strategies.

The mention of money laundering refers to the recent actions taken by the Brazilian Federal Police and other local authorities that uncovered huge money laundering schemes from drug trafficking organizations in Brazil’s largest city, São Paulo.

The scheme was carried out through financial institutions, gas stations, hotels and many other “regular” businesses. The initiatives were considered successful because they led to the arrest and indictment of organized crime financial operators, and not the usual low-level streets dealers – who are invariably poor, and Black.

Lula’s talk of international cooperation likely referred to the inauguration of the Center for International Police Cooperation in the Brazilian state of Amazonas. The center is an initiative to coordinate intelligence efforts in the fight against crimes in the Amazon. It brings together representatives of nine Brazilian states and security forces from eight Pan-Amazon countries – and France, on behalf of French Guiana.

The inclusion of the issue of organized crime in Lula’s speech at the U.N. can be seen as an additional front in his opposition to the government of Trump. Like environmental issues, the issue of organized crime is both an internal and international problem for Brazil.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

Trump Tells UN In Speech That It Is ‘Not Even Coming Close To Living Up’ To Its Potential

President Donald Trump walks from Marine One with Col. Christopher Robinson, right, commander of the 89th Airlift Wing, to board Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Monday, Sept. 22, 2025, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

BY AAMER MADHANI AND FARNOUSH AMIRI

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — President Donald Trump castigated the United Nations as a feckless institution in a speech to the world body on Tuesday, praising the turn America has taken under his leadership while warning Europe will be ruined if it doesn’t turn away from a “double-tailed monster” of ill-conceived migration and green energy policies.

His roughly hourlong speech before the U.N. General Assembly was both grievance-filled and self-congratulatory as he used the platform to applaud his second-term achievements and lament that some of his fellow world leaders’ countries were “going to hell.”

The address was the latest reminder for U.S. allies and foes that the United States — after a four-year interim under the more internationalist President Joe Biden — has returned to an unapologetically “America First” posture with an antagonistic view toward the United Nations. Trump also sharply criticized the global body for inaction, saying it was filled with “empty words” that “don’t solve wars.”

“What is the purpose of the United Nations?” Trump said. “The U.N. has such tremendous potential. I’ve always said it. It has such tremendous, tremendous potential. But it’s not even coming close to living up to that potential.”

Afterward, Trump attempted to assuage fears from some diplomats by assuring the top U.N. leader that the U.S. remained “100%” supportive of the global body despite his earlier criticism.

“I may disagree with it sometimes, but I am so behind it because the potential for peace at this institution is great,” Trump told Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

It was another about-face after Trump offered a weave of jarring juxtapositions in his address to the assembly.

He trumpeted himself as a peacemaker and enumerated successes of his administration’s efforts in several hotspots around the globe. At the same time, Trump heralded his decisions to order the U.S. military to carry out strikes on Iran and more recently against alleged drug smugglers from Venezuela and argued that “globalists” are on the verge of destroying successful nations.

Warnings about ‘green scam’ and migration

Trump touted his administration’s policies allowing for expanded drilling for oil and natural gas in the United States, and aggressively cracking down on illegal immigration, implicitly suggesting more countries should follow suit.

He sharply warned that European nations that have more welcoming migration policies and commit to expensive energy projects aimed at reducing their carbon footprint were causing irreparable harm to their economies and cultures.

“I’m telling you that if you don’t get away from the ‘green energy’ scam, your country is going to fail,” Trump said. “If you don’t stop people that you’ve never seen before that you have nothing in common with, your country is going to fail.”

Trump added, “I love the people of Europe, and I hate to see it being devastated by energy and immigration. This double-tailed monster destroys everything in its wake, and they cannot let that happen any longer.”

Trump makes dramatic shift on Russia-Ukraine war

Trump also addressed Russia’s war in Ukraine, once again threatening to hit Moscow with “a very strong round of powerful tariffs” if Russian President Vladimir Putin does not come to the table to end the war.

He waited until after the speech, and a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to announce a dramatic shift in his position on the war: He said he now believes Ukraine, with the help of NATO, can win back all territory lost to Russia.

Trump wrote in part in his post. “I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form. With time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO, the original Borders from where this War started, is very much an option.”

The strengthened support from Trump, if it sticks, is a huge win for Zelenskyy, who has urged the American president to keep up the pressure on Putin to end his brutal war on Ukraine.

Trump going back to his 2024 campaign insisted that he would quickly end the war. And he’s frequently suggested that U.S. interests in the outcome were limited.

“Russia has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years a War that should have taken a Real Military Power less than a week to win,” Trump wrote. “This is not distinguishing Russia. In fact, it is very much making them look like ‘a paper tiger.’”

Trump speaks out on Palestinian statehood push

The president also pushed back on longtime American allies who are using this year’s General Assembly to spotlight the growing international campaign for recognition of a Palestinian state, a move that the U.S. and Israel vehemently oppose.

France became the latest nation to recognize Palestinian statehood on Monday at the start of a high-profile meeting at the U.N. aimed at galvanizing support for a two-state solution to the Mideast conflict.

Trump sharply criticized the effort.

“The rewards would be too great for Hamas terrorists,” Trump said. “This would be a reward for these horrible atrocities, including Oct. 7.”

The president also took part in a group meeting with officials from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan for talks focused on ending the Gaza war.

“This is my most important meeting,” Trump said. “But this is the one that’s very important to me because we’re going to end something that should have probably never started.”
Trump pokes at UN for escalator, teleprompter issues

Early in his speech, Trump broke from his prepared remarks to bemoan an inoperable escalator in U.N. headquarters that he happened upon as well as a defective teleprompter.

“These are the two things I got from the United Nations: a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter,” Trump poked, eliciting laughs from delegates and leaders.

A U.N. official said the United Nations understands that someone from the president’s party who ran ahead of him inadvertently triggered the stop mechanism on the escalator. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the White House was operating the teleprompter for the president.

Trump has Oslo dreams

The president again made clear that he wants to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, repeating his spurious claim that he’s “ended seven wars” since he returned to office.

“Everyone says that I should get the Nobel Prize — but for me, the real prize will be the sons and daughters who live to grow up because millions of people are no longer being killed in endless wars,” Trump said in his address.

Trump regularly points to his administration’s efforts to end several conflicts around the world, including fighting between Israel and Iran, India and Pakistan, and Egypt and Sudan.

“It’s too bad that I had to do these things instead of the United Nations doing them,” Trump said. “Sadly, in all cases, the United Nations did not even try to help in any of them.”

Although Trump helped mediate relations among many of these nations, experts say his impact isn’t as clear cut as he claims.

Associated Press writers Jamey Keaton in Geneva, Switzerland, Tracy Brown and Darlene Superville in Washington, Bill Barrow in Atlanta, and Edith M. Lederer contributed to this report.

Beyond Recognition: The Challenges Of Creating A New Palestinian State Are So Formidable, Is It Even Possible?

A man walks with a Palestinian flag in front of the Israeli separation barrier near Hebron in the West Bank in 2022. Abed Al Hashlamoun/EPA

BY MARTIN KEAR

SESSIONAL LECTURER, DEPARTMENT

OF GOVERNMENT AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS, UN IVERSITY OF SYDNEY

Australia will recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly meeting in September, joining the United Kingdom, Canada and France in taking the historic step.

Recognising a Palestinian state is at one level symbolic – it signals a growing global consensus behind the rights of Palestinians to have their own state. In the short term, it won’t impact the situation on the ground in Gaza.

Practically speaking, the formation of a future Palestinian state consisting of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem is far more difficult to achieve.

The Israeli government has ruled out a two-state solution and reacted with fury to the moves by the four G20 members to recognise Palestine. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the decision “shameful”.

So, what are the political issues that need to be resolved before a Palestinian state becomes a reality? And what is the point of recognition if it doesn’t overcome these seemingly intractable obstacles?

Geographical complexities of a future state

Second is the issue of a future border between a Palestinian state and Israel.

The demarcations of the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem are not internationally recognised borders. Rather, they are the ceasefire lines, known as the “Green Line”, from the 1948 War that saw the creation of Israel.

However, in the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel captured and occupied the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula (since returned), and Syria’s Golan Heights. And successive Israeli governments have used the construction of settlements in the occupied territories, alongside expansive infrastructure, to create new “facts on the ground”.

Israel solidifies its hold on this territory by designating it as “state land”, meaning it no longer recognises Palestinian ownership, further inhibiting the possibility of a future Palestinian state.

For example, according to research by Israeli professor Neve Gordon, Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries covered approximately seven square kilometres before 1967. Since then, Israeli settlement construction has expanded its eastern boundaries, so it now now covers about 70 square km.

Israel also uses its Separation Wall or Barrier, which runs for around 700km through the West Bank and East Jerusalem, to further expropriate Palestinian territory.

According to a 2013 book by researchers Ariella Azoulay and Adi Ophir, the wall is part of the Israeli government’s policy of cleansing Israeli space of any Palestinian presence. It breaks up contiguous Palestinian urban and rural spaces, cutting off some 150 Palestinian communities from their farmland and pastureland.

The barrier is reinforced by other methods of separation, such as checkpoints, earth mounds, roadblocks, trenches, road gates and barriers, and earth walls.

Then there is the complex geography of Israel’s occupation in the West Bank.

Under the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, the West Bank was divided into three areas, labelled Area A, Area B and Area C.

In Area A, which consists of 18% of the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority exercises majority control. Area B is under joint Israeli-Palestinian authority. Area C, which comprises 60% of the West Bank, is under full Israeli control.

Administrative control was meant to be gradually transferred to Palestinian control under the Oslo Accords, but this never happened.

Areas A and B are today separated into many small divisions that remain isolated from one another due to Israeli control over Area C. This deliberate ghettoisation creates separate rules, laws and norms in the West Bank that are intended to prevent freedom of movement between the Palestinian zones and inhibit the realisation of a Palestinian state.

Who will govern a future state?

Finally, there are the conditions that Western governments have placed on recognition of a Palestinian state, which rob Palestinians of their agency.

Chief among these is the stipulation that Hamas will not play a role in the governance of a future Palestinian state. This has been backed by the Arab League, which has also called for Hamas to disarm and relinquish power in Gaza.

Fatah and Hamas are currently the only two movements in Palestinian politics capable of forming a government. In a May poll, 32% of respondents in both Gaza and the West Bank said they preferred Hamas, compared with 21% support for Fatah. One-third did not support either or had no opinion.

Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Palestinian Authority, is deeply unpopular, with 80% of Palestinians wanting him to resign.

A “reformed” Palestinian Authority is the West’s preferred option to govern a future Palestinian state. But if Western powers deny Palestinians the opportunity to elect a government of their choosing by dictating who can participate, the new government would likely be seen as illegitimate.

This risks repeating the mistakes of Western attempts to install governments of their choosing in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also plays into the hands of Hamas hardliners, who mistrust democracy and see it as a tool to impose puppet governments in Palestine, as well as Israel’s narrative that Palestinians are incapable of governing themselves.

Redressing these issues and the myriad others will take time, money and considerable effort. The question is, how much political capital are the leaders of France, the UK, Canada and Australia (and others) willing to expend to ensure their recognition of Palestine results in an actual state?

What if Israel refuses to dismantle its settlements and Separation Wall, and moves ahead with annexing the West Bank? What are these Western leaders willing or able to do? In the past, they have been unwilling to do more than issue strongly worded statements in the face of Israeli refusals to advance the two-state solution.

Given these doubts around the political will and actual power of Western states to compel Israel to agree to the two-state solution, it begs the question: what and who is recognition for?

REACD STORY HERE

Are Israel’s Actions In Iran Illegal? Could It Be Called Self-Defence? An International Law Expert Explains

Ronen Zvulun/Pool Photo via AP, File

BY SHANNON BOSCH

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR (LAW),

EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY

Israel’s major military operation against Iran has targeted its nuclear program, including its facilities and scientists, as well as its military leadership.

In response, the United Nations Security Council has quickly convened an emergency sitting. There, the Israeli ambassador to the UN Danny Danon defended Israel’s actions as a “preventative strike” carried out with “precision, purpose, and the most advanced intelligence”. It aimed, he said, to:

dismantle Iran’s nuclear programme, eliminate the architects of its terror and aggression and neutralise the regime’s ability to follow through on its repeated public promise to destroy the state of Israel.

So, what does international law say about self-defence? And were Israel’s actions illegal under international law?

When is self-defence allowed?

Article 2.4 of the UN charter states:

All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

There are only two exceptions:

1. when the UN Security Council authorises force, and
2. when a state acts in self-defence.

This “inherent right of individual or collective self-defence”, as article 51 of the UN charter puts it, persists until the Security Council acts to restore international peace and security.

So what’s ‘self-defence’ actually mean?

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has consistently interpreted self-defence narrowly.

In many cases, it has rejected arguments from states such as the United States, Uganda and Israel that have sought to promote a more expansive interpretation of self-defence.

The 9/11 attacks marked a turning point. The UN Security Council affirmed in resolutions 1368 and 1373 that the right to self-defence extends to defending against attacks by non-state actors, such as terrorist groups. The US, invoking this right, launched its military action in Afghanistan.

The classic understanding of self-defence – that it’s justified when a state responds reactively to an actual, armed attack – was regarded as being too restrictive in the age of missiles, cyberattacks and terrorism.

This helped give rise to the idea of using force before an imminent attack, in anticipatory self-defence.

The threshold for anticipatory self-defence is widely seen by scholars as high. It requires what’s known as “imminence”. In other words, this is the “last possible window of opportunity” to act to stop an unavoidable attack.

As set out by then-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2005:

as long as the threatened attack is imminent, no other means would deflect it and the action is proportionate, this would meet the accepted interpretation of self defence under article 51.

As international law expert Donald Rothwell points out, the legitimacy of anticipatory self-defence hinges on factual scrutiny and strict criteria, balancing urgency, legality and accountability.
However, the lines quickly blurred

In 2002, the US introduced a “pre-emptive doctrine” in its national security strategy.

This argued new threats – such as terrorism and weapons of mass destruction – justified using force to forestall attacks before they occurred.

Critics, including Annan, warned that if the notion of preventive self-defence was widely accepted, it would undermine the prohibition on the use of force. It would basically allow states to act unilaterally on speculative intelligence.

Annan acknowledged:

if there are good arguments for preventive military action, with good evidence to support them, they should be put to the Security Council, which can authorise such action if it chooses to.

If it does not so choose, there will be, by definition, time to pursue other strategies, including persuasion, negotiation, deterrence and containment – and to visit again the military option.

This is exactly what Israel has failed to do before attacking Iran.

Lessons from history

Israel’s stated goal was to damage Iran’s nuclear program and prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon that could be used against it.

This is explicitly about preventing an alleged, threatened, future attack by Iran with a nuclear weapon that, according to all publicly available information, Iran does not currently possess.

This is not the first time Israel has advanced a broad interpretation of self-defence.

In 1981, Israel bombed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor, which was under construction on the outskirts of Baghdad. It claimed a nuclear-armed Iraq would pose an unacceptable threat. The UN Security Council condemned the attack.

As international law stands, unless an armed attack is imminent and unavoidable, such strikes are likely to be considered unlawful uses of force.

While there is still time and opportunity to use non-forcible means to prevent the threatened attack, there’s no necessity to act now in self defence.

Diplomatic engagement, sanction, and international monitoring of Iran’s nuclear program – such as through the International Atomic Energy Agency – remain the lawful means of addressing the emerging threat posed by Tehran.

Preserving the rule of law

The right to self-defence is not a blank cheque.

Anticipatory self-defence remains legally unsettled and highly contested.

So were Israel’s attacks on Iran a legitimate use of “self-defence”? I would argue no.

I concur with international law expert Marko Milanovic that Israel’s claim to be acting in preventive self-defence must be rejected on the facts available to us.

In a volatile world, preserving these legal limits is essential to avoiding unchecked aggression and preserving the rule of law.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

UN Investigates Sexual Exploitation Allegations Against Aid Workers In Chad Following AP Story

A woman who fled war in Sudan and requested anonymity because she fears retribution after reporting sexual exploitation, holds her injured arm in a refugee camp in Andre, Chad, Thursday, October 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick)

BY SAM MEDNICK

DAKAR, SENEGAL (AP) — The United Nations in Chad has launched an internal investigation, following an Associated Press report on allegations of sexual exploitation of Sudanese refugees, which included aid workers.

The statement, written days after the AP published the story last week, was seen on Tuesday. It said the seriousness of the allegations cited in the AP’s story, warranted immediate and firm measures and that those responsible should be punished.

“Refugees are already vulnerable and traumatized by the events that led them to flee their country and under no circumstances should they be the victims of abuse by those who are supposed to help them,” said Francois Batalingaya, the U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator in Chad.

The U.N. did not immediately respond to questions about what the internal investigation entailed.

Earlier this month, the AP reported accusations by some Sudanese women and girls that men, including those meant to protect them such as humanitarian workers and local security forces, had instead sexually exploited them in Chad’s sites for displaced people. They said the men offered money, easier access to assistance, and jobs. Such sexual exploitation in Chad is a crime.

Hundreds of thousands of people, most of them women, have streamed into Chad to escape Sudan’s civil war, which has killed over 20,000 people.

Sexual exploitation during large humanitarian crises is not uncommon, especially in displacement sites. Aid groups have long struggled to combat the issue, citing a lack of reporting by women, not enough funds to respond and a focus on first providing basic necessities.

Experts say exploitation represents a deep failure by the aid community and that people seeking protection should never have to make choices driven by survival.

The U.N. said it raised the risk alert level for protection against sexual exploitation of abuse to four, which is very high, especially since Chad was already classified as a country at high risk. Raising the alert is meant to enable the U.N. to take rapid measures in the next three months, according to an internal email about the AP’s article, circulated among aid groups and seen by the AP.

The UN said it’s cooperating with local authorities and human rights groups to hold those responsible to account and that refugees’ trust in humanitarians is paramount.

The organization has encouraged anyone with information about exploitation to come forward.

Here’s What To Know About The New Funding Deal That Countries Agreed To At UN Climate Talks

Activists participate in a demonstration for climate finance at the COP29 United Nations Climate Summit, Friday, November 22, 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

BY MELINA WALLING

BAKU, AZERBAIJAN (AP) — In the wee hours Sunday at the United Nations climate talks, countries from around the world reached an agreement on how rich countries can cough up the funds to support poor countries in the face of climate change.

It’s a far-from-perfect arrangement, with many parties still unsatisfied but some hopeful that the deal will be a step in the right direction.

World Resources Institute president and CEO Ani Dasgupta called it “an important down payment toward a safer, more equitable future,” but added that the poorest and most vulnerable nations are “rightfully disappointed that wealthier countries didn’t put more money on the table when billions of people’s lives are at stake.”

The summit was supposed to end on Friday evening but negotiations spiraled on through early Sunday. With countries on opposite ends of a massive chasm, tensions ran high as delegations tried to close the gap in expectations.

Here’s how they got there:

What was the finance deal agreed at climate talks?

Rich countries have agreed to pool together at least $300 billion a year by 2035. It’s not near the full amount of $1.3 trillion that developing countries were asking for, and that experts said was needed. But some delegations said this deal is headed in the right direction, with hopes that more money flows in the future.

The text included a call for all parties to work together using “all public and private sources” to get closer to the $1.3 trillion per year goal by 2035. That means also pushing for international mega-banks, funded by taxpayer dollars, to help foot the bill. And it means, hopefully, that companies and private investors will follow suit on channeling cash toward climate action.

The agreement is also a critical step toward helping countries on the receiving end create more ambitious targets to limit or cut emissions of heat-trapping gases that are due early next year. It’s part of the plan to keep cutting pollution with new targets every five years, which the world agreed to at the U.N. talks in Paris in 2015.

The Paris agreement set the system of regular ratcheting up climate fighting ambition as away to keep warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. The world is already at 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) and carbon emissions keep rising.

What will the money be spent on?

The deal decided in Baku replaces a previous agreement from 15 years ago that charged rich nations $100 billion a year to help the developing world with climate finance.

The new number has similar aims: it will go toward the developing world’s long laundry list of to-dos to prepare for a warming world and keep it from getting hotter. That includes paying for the transition to clean energy and away from fossil fuels. Countries need funds to build up the infrastructure needed to deploy technologies like wind and solar power on a large scale.

Communities hard-hit by extreme weather also want money to adapt and prepare for events like floods, typhoons and fires. Funds could go toward improving farming practices to make them more resilient to weather extremes, to building houses differently with storms in mind, to helping people move from the hardest-hit areas and to help leaders improve emergency plans and aid in the wake of disasters.

The Philippines, for example, has been hammered by six major storms in less than a month, bringing to millions of people howling wind, massive storm surges and catastrophic damage to residences, infrastructure and farmland.

“Family farmers need to be financed,” said Esther Penunia of the Asian Farmers Association. She described how many have already had to deal with millions of dollars of storm damage, some of which includes trees that won’t again bear fruit for months or years, or animals that die, wiping out a main source of income.

“If you think of a rice farmer who depends on his or her one hectare farm, rice land, ducks, chickens, vegetables, and it was inundated, there was nothing to harvest,” she said.

Why was it so hard to get a deal?

Election results around the world that herald a change in climate leadership, a few key players with motive to stall the talks and a disorganized host country all led to a final crunch that left few happy with a flawed compromise.

The ending of COP29 is “reflective of the harder geopolitical terrain the world finds itself in,” said Li Shuo of the Asia Society. He cited Trump’s recent victory in the US — with his promises to pull the country out of the Paris Agreement — as one reason why the relationship between China and the EU will be more consequential for global climate politics moving forward.

Developing nations also faced some difficulties agreeing in the final hours, with one Latin American delegation member saying that their group didn’t feel properly consulted when small island states had last-minute meetings to try to break through to a deal. Negotiators from across the developing world took different tacks on the deal until they finally agreed to compromise.

Meanwhile, activists ramped up the pressure: many urged negotiators to stay strong and asserted that no deal would be better than a bad deal. But ultimately the desire for a deal won out.

Some also pointed to the host country as a reason for the struggle. Mohamed Adow, director of climate and energy think tank Power Shift Africa, said Friday that “this COP presidency is one of the worst in recent memory,” calling it “one of the most poorly led and chaotic COP meetings ever.”

The presidency said in a statement, “Every hour of the day, we have pulled people together. Every inch of the way, we have pushed for the highest common denominator. We have faced geopolitical headwinds and made every effort to be an honest broker for all sides.”

Shuo retains hope that the opportunities offered by a green economy “make inaction self-defeating” for countries around the world, regardless of their stance on the decision. But it remains to be seen whether the UN talks can deliver more ambition next year.

In the meantime, “this COP process needs to recover from Baku,” Shuo said.

Associated Press reporters Seth Borenstein and Sibi Arasu contributed to this report.

UN Report Says 282 Million People Faced Acute Hunger In 2023, With The Worst Famine In Gaza

FILE - Palestinians line up for a meal in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Friday, Feb. 16, 2024. According to the Global Report on Food Crises released Wednesday, April 24, nearly 282 million people in 59 countries suffered from acute hunger in 2023, with war-torn Gaza the territory with the largest number of people facing famine. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair, File)

BY EDITH M. LEDERER

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Nearly 282 million people in 59 countries suffered from acute hunger in 2023, with war-torn Gaza as the territory with the largest number of people facing famine, according to the Global Report on Food Crises released Wednesday.

The U.N. report said 24 million more people faced an acute lack of food than in 2022, due to the sharp deterioration in food security, especially in the Gaza Strip and Sudan. The number of nations with food crises that are monitored has also been expanded.

Máximo Torero, chief economist for the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, said 705,000 people in five countries are at Phase 5, the highest level, on a scale of hunger determined by international experts — the highest number since the global report began in 2016 and quadruple the number that year.

Over 80% of those facing imminent famine — 577,000 people — were in Gaza, he said. South Sudan, Burkina Faso, Somalia and Mali each host many thousands also facing catastrophic hunger.

According to the report’s future outlook, around 1.1 million people in Gaza, where the Israel-Hamas war is now in its seventh month, and 79,000 in South Sudan are projected to be in Phase 5 and facing famine by July.

It said conflict will also continue to drive food insecurity in Haiti, where gangs control large portions of the capital.

Additionally, while the El Nino phenomenon peaked in early 2024, “its full impact on food security – including flooding and poor rain in parts of east Africa and drought in southern Africa, especially Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe – are like to manifest throughout the year.”





U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the report “a roll call of human failings,” and that “in a world of plenty, children are starving to death.”

“The conflicts erupting over the past 12 months compound a dire global situation,” he wrote in the report’s foreword.

Guterres highlighted the conflict in the Gaza Strip, as the enclave holds the highest number of people facing catastrophic hunger. There is also the year-old conflict in Sudan, which has created the world’s largest internal displacement crisis “with atrocious impacts on hunger and nutrition,” he added.

According to the report, over 36 million people in 39 countries and territories are facing an acute hunger emergency, a step below the famine level in Phase 4, with more than a third in Sudan and Afghanistan. It’s an increase of a million people from 2022, the report said.

Arif Husain, the U.N. World Food Program’s chief economist, said every year since 2016 the numbers of people acutely food insecure have gone up, and they are now more than double the numbers before the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the report looks at 59 countries, he said the target is to get data from 73 countries where there are people who are acutely food insecure.

Secretary-General Guterres called for an urgent response to the report’s findings that addresses the underlying causes of acute hunger and malnutrition while transforming the systems that supply food. Funding is also not keeping pace with the needs, he stressed

“We must have the funding, and we also must have the access,” WFP’s Husain said, stressing that both “go hand-in-hand” and are essential to tackle acute food insecurity.

The report is the flagship publication of the Food Security Information Network and is based on a collaboration of 16 partners including U.N. agencies, regional and multinational bodies, the European Union, the U.S. Agency for International Development, technical organizations and others.

Funding For Refugees Has Long Been Politicized − Punitive Action Against UNRWA And Palestinians Fits That Pattern

BY NICHOLAS R, MICINSKI AND KELSEY NORMAN

At least a dozen countries, including the U.S., have suspended funding to the UNRWA, the United Nations agency responsible for delivering aid to Palestinian refugees.

This follows allegations made by Israel that 12 UNRWA employees participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. The UNRWA responded by dismissing all accused employees and opening an investigation.

While the seriousness of the accusations is clear to all, and the U.S. has been keen to downplay the significance of its pause in funding, the action is not in keeping with precedent.

Western donors did not, for example, defund other U.N. agencies or peacekeeping operations amid accusations of sexual assault, corruption or complicity in war crimes.

In real terms, the funding cuts to the UNRWA will affect 1.7 million Palestinian refugees in Gaza along with an additional 400,000 Palestinians without refugee status, many of whom benefit from the UNRWA’s infrastructure. Some critics have gone further and said depriving the agency of funds amounts to collective punishment against Palestinians.

Refugee aid, and humanitarian aid more generally, is theoretically meant to be neutral and impartial. But as experts in migration and international relations, we know funding is often used as a foreign policy tool, whereby allies are rewarded and enemies punished. In this context, we believe the cuts in funding for the UNRWA fit a wider pattern of the politicization of aid to refugees, particularly Palestinian refugees.

What is the UNRWA?

The UNRWA, short for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, was established two years after about 750,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled from their homes during the months leading up to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent Arab-Israeli war.

Prior to the UNRWA’s creation, international and local organizations, many of them religious, provided services to displaced Palestinians. But after surveying the extreme poverty and dire situation pervasive across refugee camps, the U.N. General Assembly, including all Arab states and Israel, voted to create the UNRWA in 1949.

Since that time, the UNRWA has been the primary aid organization providing food, medical care, schooling and, in some cases, housing for the 6 million Palestinians living across its five fields: Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, as well as the areas that make up the occupied Palestinian territories: the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The mass displacement of Palestinians – known as the Nakba, or “catastrophe” – occurred prior to the 1951 Refugee Convention, which defined refugees as anyone with a well-founded fear of persecution owing to “events occurring in Europe before 1 January 1951.” Despite a 1967 protocol extending the definition worldwide, Palestinians are still excluded from the primary international system protecting refugees.

While the UNRWA is responsible for providing services to Palestinian refugees, the United Nations also created the U.N. Conciliation Commission for Palestine in 1948 to seek a long-term political solution and “to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation.”

As a result, the UNRWA does not have a mandate to push for the traditional durable solutions available in other refugee situations. As it happened, the conciliation commission was active only for a few years and has since been sidelined in favor of the U.S.-brokered peace processes.

Is the UNRWA political?

The UNRWA has been subject to political headwinds since its inception and especially during periods of heightened tension between Palestinians and Israelis.

While it is a U.N. organization and thus ostensibly apolitical, it has frequently been criticized by Palestinians, Israelis as well as donor countries, including the United States, for acting politically.

The UNRWA performs statelike functions across its five fields – including education, health and infrastructure – but it is restricted in its mandate from performing political or security activities.

Initial Palestinian objections to the UNRWA stemmed from the organization’s early focus on economic integration of refugees into host states.

Although the UNRWA officially adhered to the U.N. General Assembly’s Resolution 194 that called for the return of Palestine refugees to their homes, U.N., U.K. and U.S. officials searched for means by which to resettle and integrate Palestinians into host states, viewing this as the favorable political solution to the Palestinian refugee situation and the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In this sense, Palestinians perceived the UNRWA to be both highly political and actively working against their interests.

In later decades, the UNRWA switched its primary focus from jobs to education at the urging of Palestinian refugees. But the UNRWA’s education materials were viewed by Israel as further feeding Palestinian militancy, and the Israeli government insisted on checking and approving all materials in Gaza and the West Bank, which it has occupied since 1967.

While Israel has long been suspicious of the UNRWA’s role in refugee camps and in providing education, the organization’s operation, which is internationally funded, also saves Israel millions of dollars each year in services it would be obliged to deliver as the occupying power.

Since the 1960s, the U.S. – UNRWA’s primary donor – and other Western countries have repeatedly expressed their desire to use aid to prevent radicalization among refugees.

In response to the increased presence of armed opposition groups, the U.S. attached a provision to its UNRWA aid in 1970, requiring that the “UNRWA take all possible measures to assure that no part of the United States contribution shall be used to furnish assistance to any refugee who is receiving military training as a member of the so-called Palestine Liberation Army (PLA) or any other guerrilla-type organization.”

The UNRWA adheres to this requirement, even publishing an annual list of its employees so that host governments can vet them, but it also employs 30,000 individuals, the vast majority of whom are Palestinian.

Questions over the links of the UNRWA to any militancy has led to the rise of Israeli and international watch groups that document the social media activity of the organization’s large Palestinian staff.

Repeated cuts in funding

The United States has used its money and power within the U.N. to block criticism of Israel, vetoing at least 45 U.N. resolutions critical of Israel.

And the latest freeze is not the first time the U.S. has cut funding to the UNRWA or other U.N. agencies in response to issues pertaining to the status of Palestinians.

In 2011, the U.S. cut all funding to UNESCO, the U.N. agency that provides educational and cultural programs around the world, after the agency voted to admit the state of Palestine as a full member.

The Obama administration defended the move, claiming it was required by a 1990s law to defund any U.N. body that admitted Palestine as a full member.

But the impact of the action was nonetheless severe. Within just four years, UNESCO was forced to cut its staff in half and roll back its operations. President Donald Trump later withdrew the U.S. completely from UNESCO.

In 2018, the Trump administration paused its US$60 million contribution to the UNRWA. Trump claimed the pause would create political pressure for Palestinians to negotiate. President Joe Biden restarted U.S. contributions to the UNRWA in 2021.

Politicization of refugee aid

Palestinian are not the only group to suffer from the politicization of refugee funding.

After World War II, states established different international organizations to help refugees but strategically excluded some groups from the refugee definition. For example, the U.S. funded the U.N. Relief and Rehabilitation Administration to help resettle displaced persons after World War II but resisted Soviet pressure to forcibly repatriate Soviet citizens.

The U.S. also created a separate organization, the precursor to the International Organization for Migration, to circumvent Soviet influence. In many ways, the UNRWA’s existence and the exclusion of Palestinian refugees from the wider refugee regime parallels this dynamic.

Funding for refugees has also been politicized through the earmarking of voluntary contributions to U.N. agencies. Some agencies receive funding from U.N. dues; but the UNRWA, alongside the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration, receive the majority of their funding from voluntary contributions from member states.

These contributions can be earmarked for specific activities or locations, leading to donors such as the U.S. or European Union dictating which refugees get aid and which do not. Earmarked contributions amounted to nearly 96% of the UNHCR’s budget, 96% of the IOM’s budget and 74% of UNRWA funding in 2022.

As a result, any cuts to UNRWA funding will affect its ability to service Palestinian refugees in Gaza – especially at a time when so many are facing hunger, disease and displacement as a result of war.

READ ORIGINAL STORY AT THE ONVERSATION

Document Spells Out Allegations Against 12 UN Employees Israel Says Participated In Hamas Attack

Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip walk through a makeshift tent in Rafah on Saturday, January 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)

BY TIA GOLDENBERG, NAJIB JOBAIN AND JACK JEFFERY

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL (AP) — An Israeli document obtained Monday spelled out allegations against a dozen U.N. employees the country says participated in Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault — claiming seven stormed into Israeli territory, including two who participated in kidnappings.

The allegations against staffers with the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees prompted Western countries to freeze funds vital for the body, which is a lifeline for desperate Palestinians in Gaza. The U.N. fired nine of the 12 accused workers and condemned “the abhorrent alleged acts” of staff members.

The accusations come after years of tensions between Israel and the agency known as UNRWA over its work in Gaza, where it employs roughly 13,000 people.

Despite the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in the besieged territory — where Israel’s war against Hamas has displaced the vast majority of the population and officials say a quarter of Palestinians are starving — major donors, including the U.S. and Britain, have cut funding. On Monday, Japan and Austria joined them in pausing assistance.

With the majority of its budget in doubt, UNRWA says it will be forced to halt operations within weeks if funding isn’t restored.

The threat to the U.N. agency came as Israel said cease-fire talks held Sunday were constructive but that “significant gaps” remained in any potential agreement. The talks are meant to bring about some respite to war-torn Gaza and secure the release of more than 100 hostages still held in the territory.

Fighting continued, further complicating assistance to war-weary people in Gaza. Israel issued an evacuation order to residents in the western part of Gaza City, urging them to head south. The order indicated that battles are still being waged in northern Gaza, an area Israel pummeled in the first weeks of the war and where it had previously said it held military control.

The war was sparked with Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and saw some 250 people taken captive, according to Israeli authorities.

The attack set off an intense air, sea and ground offensive that has killed more than 26,000 Palestinians, most of them women and minors, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.

The war has also threatened to set off a wider regional conflict, with the U.S. announcing three of its troops killed in a strike blamed on Iran-backed militias in Jordan.

UNRWA WORKERS

The Israeli document, which has been shared with U.S. officials and was obtained by The Associated Press, lists 12 people, their alleged roles in the attack, job descriptions and photos.

The document said intelligence gathered showed that at least 190 UNRWA workers were Hamas or Islamic Jihad operatives, without providing evidence.

It said of the 12 workers, nine were teachers and one a social worker. Seven of the employees were accused of crossing into Israel on Oct. 7. Of those, two were alleged to have kidnapped or assisted in the abduction of Israelis and another two were said to have participated in raids on communal farming villages, according to the document.

One was accused of arming himself with an anti-tank missile the night before the attack, while the document claimed another took photos of a female hostage.

Some were accused of “participating in a terror activity” or coordinating the movement of trucks or weapons used in the attack. Ten were listed as having ties to Hamas and one to the Islamic Jihad militant group.

The names and photos of the accused workers could not immediately be verified.

Two of the 12 have been killed, according to the document. The U.N. previously said one was still being identified.

The allegations have stoked longstanding tensions between Israel and UNRWA. Israel says Hamas uses the agency’s facilities to store weapons or launch attacks from. UNRWA says it does not knowingly tolerate such behavior and has internal safeguards to prevent abuses and discipline any wrongdoing.

The agency’s commissioner, Philippe Lazzarini, recently announced that he was ordering an external review of the agency’s operations and its safeguards.

Israel has long been critical of the agency and accuses it of helping to perpetuate the 76-year-old Palestinian refugee crisis. UNRWA says it cares for the vast needs of millions of Palestinians across the Middle East that have been sharply exacerbated by the latest war.

CALL TO RESUME FUNDING

The U.N. says the entire agency should not be penalized by the alleged actions of the dozen workers, who it says will be held accountable if true. It has called for the donors to resume funding.

The United States, the agency’s largest donor, cut funding over the weekend, followed by several other countries. Together, they provided more than 60% of UNRWA’s budget in 2022.

UNRWA provides basic services for Palestinian families who fled or were driven out of what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding the country’s creation. The refugees and their descendants are the majority of Gaza’s population.

Since the war began, most of the territory’s 2.3 million people depend on the agency’s programs for “sheer survival,” including food and shelter, Lazzarini said.

A quarter of Gaza’s population is facing starvation as fighting and Israeli restrictions hinder the delivery of aid, which has been well below the daily average of 500 trucks before the war.

Communications Director Juliette Touma warned that the agency would be forced to stop its support in Gaza by the end of February.

Jobain reported from Rafah, Gaza Strip, and Jeffery from London.

Follow AP’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Nelson Mandela’s Support For Palestinians Endures With South Africa’s Genocide Case Against Israel

Late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, left, embraces the late former South Africa President Nelson Mandela, right, at a meeting in Johannesburg Thursday May 3, 2001. (AP Photo/Denis Farrell, File)

BY GERALD IMRAY

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA (AP) — Barely two weeks after he was released from prison in 1990, Nelson Mandela flew to Zambia to meet with African leaders who had supported his fight against South Africa’s apartheid system of forced racial segregation.

One figure stood out among the men in dark suits eagerly waiting to greet Mandela on the airport tarmac: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, wearing his black and white checkered keffiyeh headdress, had traveled to see the newly freed Mandela.

He grabbed Mandela in a bear hug and kissed him on each cheek. Mandela smiled broadly. It was confirmation of the solidarity between two men who considered their peoples’ struggles for freedom to be the same.

South Africans continue to support the Palestinian cause, and the country has taken the rare step of bringing a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice because of its war in Gaza.


South Africa is not a diplomatic heavyweight and is geographically far from the conflict. But its ruling African National Congress, which Mandela led from an anti-apartheid liberation movement to a political party in government, has retained its strong pro-Palestinian stance even after Mandela died in 2013.





“We have stood with the Palestinians and we will continue to stand with our Palestinian brothers and sisters,” Mandela’s grandson, Mandla Mandela, said at a pro-Palestinian rally in Cape Town in October, days after the Hamas attack in southern Israel spurred the war on Gaza. Mandla Mandela, an ANC lawmaker, wore a black and white Palestinian keffiyeh around his neck as he spoke to a large crowd.
A SHARED STRUGGLE

Nelson Mandela regularly raised the plight of the Palestinians. Three years after apartheid and white minority rule was dismantled in South Africa and Mandela was elected president in historic all-race elections in 1994, he thanked the international community for its help. He added: “But we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

Mandela and South African leaders after him compared the restrictions Israel placed on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank with the treatment of Black South Africans during apartheid, framing the two issues as fundamentally about people oppressed in their homeland. Israel provided weapons systems to South Africa’s apartheid government and maintained secret military ties with it up until the mid-1980s, even after publicly denouncing apartheid.

The ANC has consistently criticized Israel as an “apartheid state,” even before the current war. International rights groups have also accused Israel of the crime of apartheid against Palestinians and that “resonates strongly with South Africa,” said Thamsanqa Malusi, a South African human rights lawyer.

Israel adamantly rejects that characterization, saying its Arab minority enjoys full civil rights. It views Gaza, from which it withdrew soldiers and settlers in 2005, as a hostile entity ruled by the Islamic militant group Hamas, and it considers the West Bank to be disputed territory subject to peace negotiations — which collapsed more than a decade ago.

Malusi said many in the South African government experienced the oppression of apartheid and that could help explain its decision to lodge the case against Israel at the U.N.'s top court.

While Mandela, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning statesman, also reached out to Israel in an attempt to foster a peaceful solution, anti-Israeli rhetoric in South Africa has strengthened over the years, sometimes seeping into everyday life. For example, the ANC’s youth wing pressured South African grocery store chains to drop Israeli products and threatened to forcibly shut them down if they didn’t.
RESPONSE TO THE WAR


Israel’s assault on Gaza sparked renewed solidarity with the Palestinian cause in South Africa. Thousands have marched in support of Gaza in Cape Town and Johannesburg, and buildings in the Cape Town neighborhood of Bo Kaap were adorned with pro-Palestinian graffiti in the weeks after the war broke out.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa — the current leader of the ANC — has criticized both Israel and Hamas for what he calls atrocities committed by both sides in the conflict. But he also appeared in public wearing a keffiyeh and holding a Palestinian flag, even as he offered condolences to Israel over the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, leaving little doubt where South Africa’s sympathies lie.
HAMAS CONNECTIONS


ANC officials, including Mandla Mandela, hosted three Hamas officials in South Africa last month, including the group’s top representative in Iran. They attended a ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s death before a statue of the former South African President at the seat of government in a nod to his historic connection with the Palestinian cause.

On Wednesday, the eve of the court proceedings, Palestinians in the West Bank city of Ramallah crowded around another statue of Mandela, waving Palestinian and South African flags and holding signs that read: “Thank You South Africa.”

The Hamas visit to South Africa was not welcomed by all, though.

South Africa’s main opposition party has said it considers Hamas a terrorist organization, as do the United States and European Union, and support for Palestinians in South Africa has complicated racial connotations. Black and mixed-race South Africans, brutally oppressed under apartheid, have been at the forefront of the support for Palestinians. Support is not as pronounced among South Africa’s white minority.
ACCUSATIONS OF HYPOCRISY

South Africa’s ANC-led government says it is taking a moral stance in its genocide case against Israel, first seeking an order for Israel to stop the assaults in Gaza that have killed more than 23,300 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

But the case has given rise to accusations of hypocrisy: The ANC has itself ignored international court orders.

The ANC government refused to arrest then-Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir when he visited South Africa in 2015 while the subject of a warrant on allegations of genocide by the separate International Criminal Court. South Africa has also retained strong ties with Russia and President Vladimir Putin since the invasion of Ukraine, overlooking an ICC indictment against Putin for alleged war crimes in relation to the abduction of children from Ukraine.

Israel vehemently disputes the genocide claims, saying it is fighting a war of self-defense after Hamas militants launched its Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking roughly 250 hostage. Israel says its actions comply with international law and that it does its best to prevent harm to civilians, blaming Hamas for embedding in residential areas.
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