What Explains Israel’s Impunity on the World Stage?
Shortly after Hamas’s surprise attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which, according to Ali Barakeh, a senior Hamas official, was in retaliation for atrocities committed by Israel against the Palestinian people in Jerusalem and the West Bank, as well as to break the siege of Gaza and free Palestinians held in Israeli jails, Israel declared war against the Palestinian militant organization, a war that has so far led to massive casualties among Palestinian civilians (mostly women and children), the displacement of around two million Gazans, the total destruction of all civilian infrastructure in Gaza, as well as the spread of hunger, famine, and disease.
As one would expect, Israel’s disproportionate response to the Hamas attack and inhumane treatment of civilians in the occupied territories have led many people around the world, as well as a number of states and world leaders, to view its war on Gaza as an ethnic-cleansing or genocidal campaign against Palestinians in the besieged enclave.
South Africa, for example, on December 29, 2023, brought a case against Israel before the United Nations’ International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing Israel of violating the Genocide Convention in its assault on Gaza. The Convention defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.” Thirteen countries have already joined or declared their intention to join South Africa’s ICJ case against Israel.
South Africa returned to the Court on May 10, 2024, to ask for additional emergency measures against Israel, citing Israel’s ongoing defiance of the Court by “trapping, besieging, and bombarding an overcrowded Rafah,” a city in southern Gaza, where more than half of Gaza’s entire population has been forced to flee to since the start of the war. As a result, the Court ordered Israel, on May 24, to immediately halt its deadly military offensive in Rafah.
Israel’s relentless assault on Rafah shows, however, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has no intention of complying with the UN top court’s decision; hence the question: why does Israel feel no pressure to abide by the Court’s orders or respect international law?
The answer to the first part of the question is that the ICJ has no enforcement powers, which means its rulings are often more symbolic than consequential. Even if the case were to be referred to the UN Security Council for a resolution reflecting the Court’s orders, the United States would veto it to protect Israel. This, however, is not to say that ICJ rulings are not important; they are, especially in relation to the horrendous nature of the war on Gaza. The words of renowned international law scholar Richard Falk are instructive here: “the importance of the ICJ, and potentially the ICC [“if it takes Netanyahu to task”], is to strengthen the growing tide of support for Palestinian rights around the world, alongside an emerging consensus of the sort that contributed to the American defeat in Vietnam and doomed the South African apartheid regime.”
The answer to the latter part of the question, which is an attempt to explain Israel’s flagrant disregard for international law, has mainly to do with the United States’ longstanding commitment to Israel’s security, which was recently reaffirmed by President Joe Biden. This commitment has been made possible by a post-WWII world order and institutional arrangement (often referred to as the “rules-based order”), in which the United States, as the dominant player or hegemon (albeit a declining one), has found it necessary to protect Israel as an ally serving US interests in the Middle East.
Interestingly, in 1986, it was then-Senator Joe Biden himself who famously said in a Senate debate: “were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region.” And, of course, knowledge of this “special relationship” has, for decades, given Israel carte blanche to do as it pleases in the region with impunity.
However, in a world that is rapidly changing in terms of geopolitical dynamics, distribution of power, and global public opinion, this special relationship is starting to cost the United States dearly, at home and abroad.
US support for Israel in its war on Gaza has not only isolated the United States on the world stage and revealed the true nature of its human rights advocacy, but also made it complicit in what may potentially be deemed genocide by the ICJ. A good indication of this is Arab public opinion.
Announced on January 10, 2024, the results of a survey conducted across 16 Arab countries by Arab Center Washington DC (ACW) and The Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS) show extreme levels of frustration and anxiety among the respondents with regard to Israel’s war on Gaza and the US response to the war.
Unsurprisingly, when asked about the US response to the war, “94% considered the US position to be bad, with 82% considering it very bad.” When asked if US policy toward the war will harm US interests or image among Arabs, 65% said it will harm US interests and 72% said it will harm the United States’ image.
Just as important are the respondents’ views on recognition of Israel by Arab governments, with 89% “rejecting the premise of recognizing Israel.” What is more, the survey results reveal that “the majority of respondents from countries whose governments have signed peace agreements with Israel . . . oppose their countries recognizing Israel. There is a near consensus in Jordan, Palestine, and Egypt opposing recognition of Israel.”
These survey results are most likely also representative of public perceptions of the US response to Israel’s war on Gaza throughout the Middle East/North Africa region and beyond. In the United States, for example, the results of a Pew Research Center survey, which were published on March 21, 2024, show that “Among both Republicans and Democrats, adults under 30 are more likely than those ages 50 and older in both parties to say Biden favors Israel too much.” The significance of this survey result and the impact that it can potentially have on the 2024 election cycle in the United States cannot be overemphasized.
It is worth noting that the results of the ACW/ACRPS survey, insofar as they relate to what may be considered longstanding Arab public opinion toward the United States, might also explain, arguably to a considerable extent, the reluctance that a number of Arab states (Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, in particular) have felt in the past and present to enter into any sort of meaningful individual or collective security agreement with the United States, fearing that such close cooperation might destabilize their regimes or monarchies over time. Of course, there are other reasons for their reluctance as well. Whatever the reasons, however, by deciding to diversify their global partnerships, these states have so far managed to establish closer ties with China, the BRICS group of emerging economies, and their neighboring countries.
The United States’ special relationship with Israel, which has enjoyed bipartisan support throughout the decades since the establishment of Israel and allowed it to act with impunity on the world stage, has also been criticized by leading international relations scholars, such as John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard University.
In their view, which is theoretically informed by the Realist school of thought in International Relations, the United States’ unconditional support for Israel has often led to adverse consequences for US standing and strategic interests in the Middle East and the world. They, thus, advise US strategists and policymakers to resistpressure by pro-Israel interest groups, which they see as having major influence on US foreign policy in the Middle East, and treat Israel like a “normal” country, the kind of treatment that would enable the United States to distance itself from Israel, whenever the latter behaves in ways that harm US interests.
Whether the United States will start treating Israel like a normal country remains to be seen. For now, it seems the United States is content with its special relationship with Israel. On June 8, for example, it took part in an Israeli rescue mission in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, which led to the massacre of more than 270 Palestinian civilians. And in response to Israel’s apparent plan to widen the scope of the current conflict by entering into a full-scale war with the Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah, the United States is merely resorting to admonition and shuttle diplomacy, rather than more concrete measures.
What is urgently needed, then, is for the international community to take action against Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to start an all-out war with Lebanon at the same time as the community continues to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories as minimal conditions for the emergence of a viable solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Ramin Mirfakhraie is a sociologist based in the US. His research interests include capitalist globalization and international politics. He holds a PhD from the University of Warwick in the UK.