The Great Sufi Qushayri on “Responding to Evil with the Greatest Good” (Peace on Earth, Good Will toward Men in Islam) In honor of the season’s ‘Peace on Earth, Good Will toward Men” |
This fall I published an article, “Sufi Commentaries on a Quranic Peace Verse: Responding to Evil with the greatest Good in Q. 41:33–35,” in the Journal of Pacifism and Nonviolence 2 (2024): 213 – 232. Here, I’m blogging one of its sections. This essay is part of my project on Islamic Peace Studies, an extremely neglected but very important field. Peace practices and movements have been very important in history, but they have been very little written about, as I pointed out recently in The Oxford Handbook of Peace History . One of the morally more complex passages in the Qur’ān is Distinguished 41:33-35. It advocates responding to harmful actions with virtuous ones, suggesting that this approach can turn adversaries into allies or supporters. This passage echoes themes found in the Sermon on the Mount in the New Testament. Despite its significance, this and other verses promoting peace in the Qur’ān have not been critically examined by scholars, and little focus has been given to their reception in later Muslim commentaries. In this context, I investigate the commentaries on this passage by a renowned medieval Sufi scholar, who devoted particular attention to Qur’anic ethics and the spiritual growth these verses inspire. I translate the passage as follows: “Whose discourse is more beautiful than one who calls others to God and performs good works and proclaims, ‘I am among those who have submitted to God’’ The good deed and the evil deed are not equal. Repel the latter with what is best, and behold, it will be as though your enemy is a devoted patron. Yet to none is this granted save the patient, and to none is it granted save the supremely fortunate.” The moral agent capable of carrying out this exceptional act toward harmful adversaries acquires the power to transform them into allies and supporters. This transformation is attainable only by those who possess boundless patience and are endowed with great good fortune. Responding to wrongdoing with acts of kindness is emphasized here as an extraordinary accomplishment for the faithful. The Qur’ān presents the idea that responding to hostility with kindness has a transformative effect. Some commentators have pointed out that the Christian teaching of “love your enemies” is less reciprocal, addressing only one side of the relationship. The mystic Abū al-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Karīm Qushayrī (d. 1072) of Nishapur was a leading Sufi authority of his time. Britannica defines Sufi Islam this way: “Sufism, mystical Islamic belief and practice in which Muslims seek to find the truth of divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of God.” His family, originating from Khorasan, claimed Arab lineage and provided him with an education in literature and martial arts. At the age of 15, he moved to Nishapur to study practical matters in hopes of reducing taxes in his village. However, he instead became a disciple of the spiritual teacher Abū ʿAlī Daqqāq. Alongside conventional Islamic studies, such as law, Qushayrī ultimately dedicated himself to the Sufi path. He later succeeded Daqqāq as the head of his seminary. Qushayrī became entangled in the conflicts between the Ḥanafī and Shāfiʿī legal schools in Seljuk-era Nishapur around 1038. These disputes led to his exile, possibly to avoid imprisonment by Ḥanafīs, as Nishapur faced violent clashes between supporters of the two schools. He returned only after stability was restored. Some mystics envisioned Sufism as a spiritual movement that could transcend the divisions of legal schools, offering a unifying Muslim identity to end the sectarian strife. Qushayrī gained renown as the author of a significant Qur’ān commentary, The Subtleties of the Allusions. He addresses Q. 41:34, “The good deed and the evil deed are not equal. Repel the latter with what is best . . .” He asserts that the verse counsels repelling the evil deed by the traits of character that are best, that is, by giving up on revenge and overlooking the past moral mistakes of others. Regarding “and behold, it will be as though your enemy is a devoted patron,” Qushayrī explains that this practice exemplifies proper spiritual conduct. It involves demonstrating patience and forbearance toward His creation out of devotion to God. Additionally, he highlights that in your interactions with others, it reflects a noble character to refrain from seeking personal revenge and instead to choose to forgive your adversary. From the early eleventh century, Sufi lodges began to appear in Khorasan, initially funded by affluent Sufis or private patrons. Figures such as Sulamī, Abū ʿAlī Daqqāq, and Qushayrī were closely connected to these establishments, which served as spaces for spiritual retreats and accommodations for visitors. By the mid-eleventh century, Seljuk officials began extending state support to these centers.
Lloyd Ridgeon argues that the emergence of the Sufi center created a social venue for Sufis to engage in their rituals while also welcoming “lay affiliates” who sought to interact with more dedicated practitioners. These institutions often served charitable purposes, providing meals for the needy and lodging for travelers. Lay affiliates included a broad range of people, from peasants to urban laborers. According to Ridgeon, this environment fostered an expanded understanding of Sufi ethical conduct, aimed not only at training initiates but also at shaping the behavior of the general populace. Among those drawn to Sufism were urban trades guilds and groups adhering to a code of chivalry One prominent figure, Qushayrī turns to Q. 41:35, “Yet to none is this granted save the patient, and to none is it granted save the supremely fortunate.” He emphasizes that these qualities of character can only truly be attained by those who are strengthened by patience and capable of transcending trivialities to embrace lofty moral virtues. Only those who endure hardships and challenges with perseverance can ascend to the highest levels of excellence. These sentiments also resemble the medieval Muslim conception of chivalry. One principle of chivalry that Qushayrī mentions is “It means that you do not care whether the guest that you entertain at your table is a friend of God or an unbeliever.” A passage by this author in another work exemplifies the principle:
About the AuthorPalestinian Christians call on Western Churches to ‘Humanize’ the Children of Gaza By Jane Barter, University of Winnipeg (The Conversation) – The human rights group, Amnesty International, recently issued a report concluding that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute a genocide. The war in Gaza has led to widespread calls for a ceasefire. This situation, and its ripple effects globally, have also raised questions and reckonings among varied […] |
By Jane Barter, University of Winnipeg (The Conversation) – The human rights group, Amnesty International, recently issued a report concluding that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute a genocide. The war in Gaza has led to widespread calls for a ceasefire. This situation, and its ripple effects globally, have also raised questions and reckonings among varied communities and institutions around how to respond to suffering and how to witness and hope for transformation. In a recent message for the first Sunday of Advent, the Rev. Munther Isaac, one of the foremost Palestinian Christian theologians, issued a letter pleading for the world to “humanize the children of Gaza, the children of Palestine.” Similar pleas are also being made from Muslim and Jewish voices in support of Palestinian human rights. Such faith-based communities protesting Israel’s occupation and genocide say that criticizing Zionist ethnonationalism is not to be equated with antisemitism. Israel disputes the accusation of genocide and states that it is acting in self-defence following the Oct. 7 attacks. As a Christian theologian and a professor of religion and culture, I have been considering what this call to “humanize” means for Christian churches and theologians. I co-authored a recent article with theology professor Michel Andraos of Saint Paul University, “A Sin against Humanity and God: the Genocide of the Palestinian People and the Churches’ Silence.” This article explores how and why many abiding silences pervade western church responses to the crisis in Gaza. Last year, at his church in Bethlehem, Isaac created a manger scene featuring the Christ-child in a keffiyeh amidst strewn rubble, a reminder of the one whom many liberation theologians, like Isaac, believe to be on the side of the marginalized and the oppressed. This crêche aimed to remind Christians of the Christ-child whom they believe was born in a makeshift shelter, in a land under military occupation, and to prompt new acknowledgement of Palestinian suffering. Isaac put it in his Christmas sermon/lament last year: “I invite you to see the image of Jesus in every child killed and pulled from under the rubble.” Silences around settler colonial ideologies
Some churches and church agencies in Canada have called for a ceasefire, humanitarian aid and an end to all weapon transfers to Israel. Last Feburary, some urged the Canadian government to live up “to its obligation to prevent the crime of genocide where it might plausibly occur.” Yet, many silences pervade church responses. One is around settler colonial ideologies. As Palestinian theologian Mitri Raheb writes in his book Decolonizing Palestine: The Land, The People, The Bible, there is a need to unpack connections between western settler colonialism, Christian theology, Zionism and the Palestinian territories.
In October 2023, an Open Letter to Western Christian leaders and theologians from Kairos Palestine, a Christian Palestinian movement, called on churches in the West to “repent of their indifference to Palestinian suffering.” The letter said this indifference is reflected in a western double standard that “humanizes Israeli Jews while insisting on dehumanizing Palestinians and whitewashing their suffering.” This double standard reflects “an entrenched colonial discourse that has weaponized the Bible to justify the ethnic cleansing of Indigenous Peoples in the Americas, Oceania, and elsewhere.” Since the letter was issued, the death toll in Gaza has sharply increased. While conservative Christian Zionism is a well-known phenomenon in North America, lesser recognized forms of Christian Zionism can be seen in Catholicism, Anglicanism and Lutheranism. Church calls
Another way churches reflect silences towards violence in Gaza is in interfaith dialogue. We argue that the mainline or liberal churches remain bound to what the late Jewish theologian Marc Ellis called an “interfaith ecumenical deal.” Ellis argued that this deal consists of the churches repenting of their long-standing history of anti-Judaism and antisemitism largely by remaining silent on Zionist ethnonationalism and the oppression of Palestinians. In other words, Palestinians become the sacrificial victim of Christian guilt over Christian anti-Judaism/antisemitism and for their complicity in the Holocaust (Shoah). Christians in Canada and elsewhere must challenge older models of interfaith dialogue that do not address Israel’s occupation. This reasoning is flawed. For one, it supports an ideology that Jewish safety is only secured through military ethnonationalism. Second, it offloads the responsibility to protect Jewish life onto Israel alone. Jewish people must experience security throughout the world. Christians must reject the ideology that protesting the genocide of the Palestinian people is an assault on Jewish freedom. Jewish and Palestinian freedom are inextricably bound, and unless we understand liberation in universal terms, we create new forms of tyranny. Neutrality equates to complicity
Palestinian Christian theologians maintain that western Christian neutrality equates to complicity. As Isaac put it:
The stances of most mainline churches when it comes to Israel are a marked exception to their historical responses during other atrocities and large-scale human rights abuses, which they roundly condemned, such as Apartheid in South Africa. Need to support BDS strategies, arms embargoes
Effective actions reflecting concern for Palestinian lives can be seen in some church responses. At the United Church of Canada’s recent General Council meeting, the church adopted a resolution which:
Some other church leaders are speaking up. Pope Francis has called for an investigation to determine whether genocide is taking place in Gaza. In August, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said “the State of Israel has been denying the Palestinian people dignity, freedom and hope,” and called for an end to the occupation. These latter comments signal steps in the right direction, however church leaders must go beyond words toward action. Actions should include lobbying western governments to impose arms embargos, and explicitly advocating for a lasting ceasefire to stop the genocide. Roles for theologians
A significant contribution towards church responses of solidarity can come from Canadian theologians. Theologians can contribute by investigating the abiding connections between the theological justification of settler colonialism in both the Palestinian territories and in Canada, the genocide of Indigenous Peoples and Christian anti-Judaism and antisemitism (for example, ideas around Christians “replacing” Jews as God’s “covenant people”). Working with Palestinian, Muslim and Jewish and decolonial groups campaigning against Israel’s occupation can be a source of interfaith solidarity and action. Soon, two Christmases will have passed with no end to the killing and destruction. Two Christmases in which Palestinian Christians have called out to western churches to repent and to respond, and two Christmases in which their cries have fallen largely on unhearing ears. Jane Barter, Professor, Department of Religion and Culture, University of Winnipeg This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. About the AuthorIsrael invades and Occupies more of Syria, as World stands By ( Code Pink ) – The United States, Turkey and Israel all responded to the fall of the Assad government in Damascus by launching bombing campaigns on Syria. Israel also attacked and destroyed most of the Syrian Navy in port at Latakia, and invaded Syria from the long-occupied Golan Heights, advancing to within 16 miles […] |
( Code Pink ) – The United States, Turkey and Israel all responded to the fall of the Assad government in Damascus by launching bombing campaigns on Syria. Israel also attacked and destroyed most of the Syrian Navy in port at Latakia, and invaded Syria from the long-occupied Golan Heights, advancing to within 16 miles of the capital, Damascus.
The United States said that its bombing campaign targeted remnants of Islamic State in the east of the country, hitting 75 targets with 140 bombs and missiles, according to Air Force Times.
A long-standing force of 900 U.S. troops illegally occupy that part of Syria, partly to divert Syria’s meagre oil revenues to the U.S.’s Kurdish allies and prevent the Syrian government regaining that source of revenue. U.S. bombing badly damaged Syria’s oil infrastructure during the war with the Islamic State, but Russia has been ready to help Syria restore full output whenever it recovers control of that area. U.S. forces in Syria have been under attack by various Syrian militia forces, not just the Islamic State, with at least 127 attacks since October 2023.
Meanwhile, Turkiyë is conducting airstrikes, drone strikes and artillery fire as part of a new offensive by a militia it formed in 2017 under the Orwellian guise of the “Syrian National Army” to invade and occupy parts of Rojava, the autonomous Kurdish enclave in northeast Syria.
Israel, however, launched a much broader bombing campaign than Turkey or the U.S., with about 600 airstrikes on post-Assad Syria in the first eight days of its existence. Without waiting to see what form of government the political transition in Syria leads to, Israel set about methodically destroying its entire military infrastructure, to ensure that whatever government comes to power will be as defenseless as possible.
Israel claims its new occupation of Syrian territory is a temporary move to ensure its own security. But while Israel bombed Syria 220 times over the past year, killing about 300 people, Syria showed restraint and did not retaliate for those attacks.
The pattern of Israeli history has been that land grabs like this usually turn into long-term illegal Israeli annexations, as in the Golan Heights and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. That will surely be the case with Israel’s new strategic base on top of Mount Hermon, overlooking Damascus and the surrounding area, unless a new Syrian government or international diplomacy can force Israel to withdraw.
Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, Russia and the UN have all joined the global condemnation of the new Israeli assault on Syria. Geir Pedersen, the UN Special Envoy to Syria, called Israel’s military actions “highly irresponsible,” and UN peacekeepers have removed Israeli flags from newly-occupied Syrian territory.
The Qatari Foreign Ministry called Israel’s actions “a dangerous development and a blatant attack on Syria’s sovereignty and unity as well as a flagrant violation of international law… that will lead the region to further violence and tension.”
The Saudi Foreign Ministry reiterated that the Golan Heights is an occupied Arab territory, and said that Israel’s actions confirmed “Israel’s continued violation of the rules of international law and its determination to sabotage Syria’s chances of restoring its security, stability and territorial integrity.”
The only country in the world that has ever recognized Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights is the United States, under the first Trump administration, and it is part of Biden’s disastrous legacy in the Middle East that that he failed to stand up for international law and reverse Trump’s recognition of that illegal Israeli annexation.
As people all over the world watch Israel ignore the rules of international law that every country in the world is committed to live by, we are confronted by the age-old question of how to respond to a country that systematically ignores and violates these rules. The foundation of the UN Charter is the agreement by all countries to settle their differences diplomatically and peacefully, instead of by the threat or use of military force.
As Americans, we should start by admitting that our own country has led the way down this path of war and militarism, perpetuating the scourge of war that the UN Charter was intended to provide a peaceful alternative to.
“Mt. Hermon,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3 / IbisPaint, 2024
As the United States became the leading economic power in the world in the 20th century, it also built up dominant military power. Despite its leading role in creating the United Nations and the rules of the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions, it came to see strict compliance with those rules as an obstacle to its own ambitions, from the UN Charter’s prohibition against the threat or use of military force to the Geneva Conventions’ universal protections for prisoners of war and civilians.
In its “war on terror,” including its wars on Iraq and other countries, the United States flagrantly and systematically violated these bedrock foundations of world order. It is a fundamental principle of all legal systems that the powerful must be held accountable as well as the weak and the vulnerable. A system of laws that the wealthy and powerful can ignore cannot claim to be universal or just, and is unlikely to stand the test of time.
Today, our system of international law faces exactly this problem. The U.S. presumption that its overwhelming military power permits it to violate international law with impunity has led other countries, especially U.S. allies but also Russia, to apply the same opportunistic standards to their own behavior.
In 2010, an Amnesty International report on European countries that hosted CIA “black site” torture chambers called on U.S. allies in Europe not to join the United States as another “accountability-free zone” for war crimes. But now the world is confronting a U.S. ally that has not just embraced, but doubled down on, the U.S. presumption that dominant military power can trump the rule of law.
The Israeli government refuses to comply with international legal prohibitions against deliberately killing women and children, by military force and by deprivation; seizing foreign territory; and bombing other countries. Shielded from international accountability behind the U.S. Security Council veto, Israel thumbs its nose at the world’s impotence to enforce international law, confident that nobody will stop it from using its deadly and destructive war machine wherever and however it pleases.
So the world’s failure to hold the United States accountable for its war crimes has led Israel to believe that it too can escape accountability, and U.S. complicity in Israeli war crimes, especially the genocide in Gaza, has inevitably reinforced that belief.
U.S. responsibility for Israel’s lawlessness is compounded by the conflict of interest in its dual role as both Israel’s military superpower ally and weapons supplier and the supposed mediator of the lopsided “peace process” between Israel and Palestine, whose inherent flaws led to Hamas’s election victory in 2006 and now to the current crisis.
Instead of recognizing its own conflict of interest and deferring to intervention by the UN or other neutral parties, the U.S. has jealously guarded its monopoly as the sole mediator between Israel and Palestine, using this position to grant Israel total freedom of action to commit systematic war crimes. If this crisis is ever to end, the world cannot allow the U.S. to continue in this role.
While the United States bears a great deal of responsibility for this crisis, U.S. officials remain in collective denial over the criminal nature of Israel’s actions and their instrumental role in Israel’s crimes. The systemic corruption of U.S. politics severely limits the influence of the majority of Americans who support a ceasefire in Gaza, as pro-Israel lobbying groups buy the unconditional support of American politicians and attack the few who stand up to them.
Despite America’s undemocratic political system, its people have a responsibility to end U.S. complicity in genocide, which is arguably the worst crime in the world, and people are finding ways to bring pressure to bear on the U.S. government:
Members of CODEPINK, Jewish Voice For Peace and Palestinian-, Arab-American and other activist groups are in Congressional offices and hearings every day; constituents in California are suing two members of Congress for funding genocide; students are calling on their universities to divest from Israel and U.S. arms makers; activists and union members are identifying and picketing companies and blocking ports to stop weapons shipments to Israel; journalists are rebelling against censorship; U.S. officials are resigning; people are on hunger strike; others have committed suicide.
It is also up to the UN and other governments around the world to intervene, and to hold Israel and the United States accountable for their actions. A growing international movement for an end to the genocide and decades of illegal occupation is making progress. But it is excruciatingly slow given the appalling human cost and the millions of Palestinian lives at stake.
Israel’s international propaganda campaign to equate criticism of its war crimes with antisemitism poisons political discussion of Israeli war crimes in the United States and some other countries.
But many countries are making significant changes in their relations with Israel, and are increasingly willing to resist political pressures and propaganda tropes that have successfully muted international calls for justice in the past. A good example is Ireland, whose growing trade relations with Israel, mainly in the high-tech sector, formerly made it the fourth largest importer of Israeli products in the world in 2022.
Ireland is now one of 14 countries who have officially intervened to support South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – the others are Belgium, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Libya, the Maldives, Mexico, Nicaragua, Palestine, Spain and Turkiyë. Israel reacted to Ireland’s intervention in the case by closing its embassy in Dublin, and now Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has smeared Ireland’s Taoiseach (prime minister) Simon Harris as “antisemitic.”
The Taoiseach’s spokesperson replied that Harris “will not be responding to personalized and false attacks, and remains focused on the horrific war crimes being perpetrated in Gaza, standing up for human rights and international law and reflecting the views of so many people across Ireland who are so concerned at the loss of innocent, civilian lives.”
If the people of Palestine can stand up to bombs, missiles and bullets day after day for over a year, the very least that political leaders around the world can do is stand up to Israeli name-calling, as Simon Harris is doing.
Spain is setting an example on international efforts to halt the supply of weapons to Israel, with an arms embargo and a ban on weapons shipments transiting Spanish ports, including the U.S. naval base at Rota, which the U.S. has leased since it formed a military alliance with Spain’s Franco dictatorship in 1953.
Spain has already refused entry to two Maersk-owned ships transporting weapons from North Carolina to Israel, while dockworkers in Spain, Belgium, Greece, India and other countries have refused to load weapons and ammunition onto ships bound for Israel.
The UN General Assembly (UNGA) has passed resolutions for a ceasefire in Gaza; an end to the post-1967 Israeli occupation; and for Palestinian statehood. The General Assembly’s 10th Emergency Special Session on the Israel-Palestine conflict under the Uniting for Peace process has been ongoing since 1997.
The General Assembly should urgently use these Uniting For Peace powers to turn up the pressure on Israel and the United States. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has provided the legal basis for stronger action, ruling that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories Israel invaded in 1967 is illegal and must be ended, and that the massacre in Gaza appears to violate the Genocide Convention.
Inaction is inexcusable. By the time the ICJ issues a final verdict on its genocide case, millions may be dead. The Genocide Convention is an international commitment to prevent genocide, not just to pass judgment after the fact. The UN General Assembly has the power to impose an arms embargo, a trade boycott, economic sanctions, a peacekeeping force, or to do whatever it takes to end the genocide.
When the UN General Assembly first launched its boycott campaign against apartheid South Africa in 1962, not a single Western country took part. Many of those same countries will be the last to do so against Israel today. But the world cannot wait to act for the blessing of complacent wealthy countries who are themselves complicit in genocide.
( Code Pink ) – The United States, Turkey and Israel all responded to the fall of the Assad government in Damascus by launching bombing campaigns on Syria. Israel also attacked and destroyed most of the Syrian Navy in port at Latakia, and invaded Syria from the long-occupied Golan Heights, advancing to within 16 miles of the capital, Damascus.
The United States said that its bombing campaign targeted remnants of Islamic State in the east of the country, hitting 75 targets with 140 bombs and missiles, according to Air Force Times.
A long-standing force of 900 U.S. troops illegally occupy that part of Syria, partly to divert Syria’s meagre oil revenues to the U.S.’s Kurdish allies and prevent the Syrian government regaining that source of revenue. U.S. bombing badly damaged Syria’s oil infrastructure during the war with the Islamic State, but Russia has been ready to help Syria restore full output whenever it recovers control of that area. U.S. forces in Syria have been under attack by various Syrian militia forces, not just the Islamic State, with at least 127 attacks since October 2023.
Meanwhile, Turkiyë is conducting airstrikes, drone strikes and artillery fire as part of a new offensive by a militia it formed in 2017 under the Orwellian guise of the “Syrian National Army” to invade and occupy parts of Rojava, the autonomous Kurdish enclave in northeast Syria.
Israel, however, launched a much broader bombing campaign than Turkey or the U.S., with about 600 airstrikes on post-Assad Syria in the first eight days of its existence. Without waiting to see what form of government the political transition in Syria leads to, Israel set about methodically destroying its entire military infrastructure, to ensure that whatever government comes to power will be as defenseless as possible.
Israel claims its new occupation of Syrian territory is a temporary move to ensure its own security. But while Israel bombed Syria 220 times over the past year, killing about 300 people, Syria showed restraint and did not retaliate for those attacks.
The pattern of Israeli history has been that land grabs like this usually turn into long-term illegal Israeli annexations, as in the Golan Heights and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. That will surely be the case with Israel’s new strategic base on top of Mount Hermon, overlooking Damascus and the surrounding area, unless a new Syrian government or international diplomacy can force Israel to withdraw.
Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, Russia and the UN have all joined the global condemnation of the new Israeli assault on Syria. Geir Pedersen, the UN Special Envoy to Syria, called Israel’s military actions “highly irresponsible,” and UN peacekeepers have removed Israeli flags from newly-occupied Syrian territory.
The Qatari Foreign Ministry called Israel’s actions “a dangerous development and a blatant attack on Syria’s sovereignty and unity as well as a flagrant violation of international law… that will lead the region to further violence and tension.”
The Saudi Foreign Ministry reiterated that the Golan Heights is an occupied Arab territory, and said that Israel’s actions confirmed “Israel’s continued violation of the rules of international law and its determination to sabotage Syria’s chances of restoring its security, stability and territorial integrity.”
The only country in the world that has ever recognized Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights is the United States, under the first Trump administration, and it is part of Biden’s disastrous legacy in the Middle East that that he failed to stand up for international law and reverse Trump’s recognition of that illegal Israeli annexation.
As people all over the world watch Israel ignore the rules of international law that every country in the world is committed to live by, we are confronted by the age-old question of how to respond to a country that systematically ignores and violates these rules. The foundation of the UN Charter is the agreement by all countries to settle their differences diplomatically and peacefully, instead of by the threat or use of military force.
As Americans, we should start by admitting that our own country has led the way down this path of war and militarism, perpetuating the scourge of war that the UN Charter was intended to provide a peaceful alternative to.
“Mt. Hermon,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3 / IbisPaint, 2024
As the United States became the leading economic power in the world in the 20th century, it also built up dominant military power. Despite its leading role in creating the United Nations and the rules of the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions, it came to see strict compliance with those rules as an obstacle to its own ambitions, from the UN Charter’s prohibition against the threat or use of military force to the Geneva Conventions’ universal protections for prisoners of war and civilians.
In its “war on terror,” including its wars on Iraq and other countries, the United States flagrantly and systematically violated these bedrock foundations of world order. It is a fundamental principle of all legal systems that the powerful must be held accountable as well as the weak and the vulnerable. A system of laws that the wealthy and powerful can ignore cannot claim to be universal or just, and is unlikely to stand the test of time.
Today, our system of international law faces exactly this problem. The U.S. presumption that its overwhelming military power permits it to violate international law with impunity has led other countries, especially U.S. allies but also Russia, to apply the same opportunistic standards to their own behavior.
In 2010, an Amnesty International report on European countries that hosted CIA “black site” torture chambers called on U.S. allies in Europe not to join the United States as another “accountability-free zone” for war crimes. But now the world is confronting a U.S. ally that has not just embraced, but doubled down on, the U.S. presumption that dominant military power can trump the rule of law.
The Israeli government refuses to comply with international legal prohibitions against deliberately killing women and children, by military force and by deprivation; seizing foreign territory; and bombing other countries. Shielded from international accountability behind the U.S. Security Council veto, Israel thumbs its nose at the world’s impotence to enforce international law, confident that nobody will stop it from using its deadly and destructive war machine wherever and however it pleases.
So the world’s failure to hold the United States accountable for its war crimes has led Israel to believe that it too can escape accountability, and U.S. complicity in Israeli war crimes, especially the genocide in Gaza, has inevitably reinforced that belief.
U.S. responsibility for Israel’s lawlessness is compounded by the conflict of interest in its dual role as both Israel’s military superpower ally and weapons supplier and the supposed mediator of the lopsided “peace process” between Israel and Palestine, whose inherent flaws led to Hamas’s election victory in 2006 and now to the current crisis.
Instead of recognizing its own conflict of interest and deferring to intervention by the UN or other neutral parties, the U.S. has jealously guarded its monopoly as the sole mediator between Israel and Palestine, using this position to grant Israel total freedom of action to commit systematic war crimes. If this crisis is ever to end, the world cannot allow the U.S. to continue in this role.
While the United States bears a great deal of responsibility for this crisis, U.S. officials remain in collective denial over the criminal nature of Israel’s actions and their instrumental role in Israel’s crimes. The systemic corruption of U.S. politics severely limits the influence of the majority of Americans who support a ceasefire in Gaza, as pro-Israel lobbying groups buy the unconditional support of American politicians and attack the few who stand up to them.
Despite America’s undemocratic political system, its people have a responsibility to end U.S. complicity in genocide, which is arguably the worst crime in the world, and people are finding ways to bring pressure to bear on the U.S. government:
Members of CODEPINK, Jewish Voice For Peace and Palestinian-, Arab-American and other activist groups are in Congressional offices and hearings every day; constituents in California are suing two members of Congress for funding genocide; students are calling on their universities to divest from Israel and U.S. arms makers; activists and union members are identifying and picketing companies and blocking ports to stop weapons shipments to Israel; journalists are rebelling against censorship; U.S. officials are resigning; people are on hunger strike; others have committed suicide.
It is also up to the UN and other governments around the world to intervene, and to hold Israel and the United States accountable for their actions. A growing international movement for an end to the genocide and decades of illegal occupation is making progress. But it is excruciatingly slow given the appalling human cost and the millions of Palestinian lives at stake.
Israel’s international propaganda campaign to equate criticism of its war crimes with antisemitism poisons political discussion of Israeli war crimes in the United States and some other countries.
But many countries are making significant changes in their relations with Israel, and are increasingly willing to resist political pressures and propaganda tropes that have successfully muted international calls for justice in the past. A good example is Ireland, whose growing trade relations with Israel, mainly in the high-tech sector, formerly made it the fourth largest importer of Israeli products in the world in 2022.
Ireland is now one of 14 countries who have officially intervened to support South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – the others are Belgium, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Libya, the Maldives, Mexico, Nicaragua, Palestine, Spain and Turkiyë. Israel reacted to Ireland’s intervention in the case by closing its embassy in Dublin, and now Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has smeared Ireland’s Taoiseach (prime minister) Simon Harris as “antisemitic.”
The Taoiseach’s spokesperson replied that Harris “will not be responding to personalized and false attacks, and remains focused on the horrific war crimes being perpetrated in Gaza, standing up for human rights and international law and reflecting the views of so many people across Ireland who are so concerned at the loss of innocent, civilian lives.”
If the people of Palestine can stand up to bombs, missiles and bullets day after day for over a year, the very least that political leaders around the world can do is stand up to Israeli name-calling, as Simon Harris is doing.
Spain is setting an example on international efforts to halt the supply of weapons to Israel, with an arms embargo and a ban on weapons shipments transiting Spanish ports, including the U.S. naval base at Rota, which the U.S. has leased since it formed a military alliance with Spain’s Franco dictatorship in 1953.
Spain has already refused entry to two Maersk-owned ships transporting weapons from North Carolina to Israel, while dockworkers in Spain, Belgium, Greece, India and other countries have refused to load weapons and ammunition onto ships bound for Israel.
The UN General Assembly (UNGA) has passed resolutions for a ceasefire in Gaza; an end to the post-1967 Israeli occupation; and for Palestinian statehood. The General Assembly’s 10th Emergency Special Session on the Israel-Palestine conflict under the Uniting for Peace process has been ongoing since 1997.
The General Assembly should urgently use these Uniting For Peace powers to turn up the pressure on Israel and the United States. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has provided the legal basis for stronger action, ruling that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories Israel invaded in 1967 is illegal and must be ended, and that the massacre in Gaza appears to violate the Genocide Convention.
Inaction is inexcusable. By the time the ICJ issues a final verdict on its genocide case, millions may be dead. The Genocide Convention is an international commitment to prevent genocide, not just to pass judgment after the fact. The UN General Assembly has the power to impose an arms embargo, a trade boycott, economic sanctions, a peacekeeping force, or to do whatever it takes to end the genocide.
When the UN General Assembly first launched its boycott campaign against apartheid South Africa in 1962, not a single Western country took part. Many of those same countries will be the last to do so against Israel today. But the world cannot wait to act for the blessing of complacent wealthy countries who are themselves complicit in genocide.
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