Chris Hedges
LAWLESSNESS has been a common theme characterising the events of the first weeks of the year. The kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the murder of Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, the threat of bombing Iran by the Trump administration. Perhaps one of the worst violations of the law has slipped under the radar amidst the chaos — the continued genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the United Nations’ abetting of Israel and the US’s efforts to ethnically cleanse the region.
Professor Norman Finkelstein, author and scholar of the Middle East, knows better than anyone how to interpret international action at the hands of the United Nations in relation to Palestine and Israel. As for the adoption of Resolution 2803 (2025) in November, Finkelstein tells host Chris Hedges, “[The resolution] abolished 70 years of UN history… [It] gave Gaza to Donald J. Trump.”
The resolution, Finkelstein points out, legitimises Israel and the US’s ethnonationalist and imperialist goals and delegitimises the sanctity of international law. He explains, “there was a robust consensus on how to resolve the conflict, which means that Israel didn’t have a leg to stand on. But guess what? It now has a leg to stand on. It has you right here.”
Transcript
Chris Hedges
The US peace plan — “President Donald J. Trump’s Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict” — in an act of stunning betrayal of the Palestinian people, was endorsed by most of the U.N. Security Council in November, with China and Russia abstaining. Member states washed their hands of Gaza. They turned their backs on the genocide.
The adoption of Resolution 2803 (2025), as the Middle East scholar Norman Finkelstein writes, “was simultaneously a revelation of moral insolvency and a declaration of war against Gaza. By proclaiming international law null and void, the Security Council proclaimed itself null and void. Vis-à-vis Gaza, the Council transmuted into a criminal conspiracy.”
The next phase is supposed to see Hamas surrender its weapons and Israel withdraw from Gaza. But these two steps will never happen. Hamas — along with other Palestinian factions — reject the Security Council resolution. They say they will disarm only when the occupation ends and a Palestinian state is created. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that if Hamas does not disarm, it will be done “the hard way.”
The “Board of Peace,” headed by Trump, will ostensibly govern Gaza along with armed mercenaries from the Israel-allied International Stabilisation Force, although no country seems anxious to commit their troops. Trump promises a Gaza Riviera that will function as a “special economic zone” — a territory operating outside of state law governed entirely by private investors, such as the Peter Thiel-backed charter city in Honduras.
This will be achieved through the “voluntary” relocation of Palestinians — with those fortunate enough to own land offered digital tokens in exchange. Trump declares that the US “will take over the Gaza Strip” and “own it.” It is a return to the rule of viceroys — though apparently not the odious Tony Blair. Palestinians, in one of the most laughable points in the plan, will be “deradicalised” by their new colonial masters.
But these fantasies will never come to fruition. Israel knows what it wants to do in Gaza. It knows no nation will intercede. Palestinians will struggle to survive in primitive and dehumanising conditions. They will, as they have so many times in the past, be betrayed.
December saw an average of 140 aid trucks allowed into Gaza each day — instead of the promised 600 — to keep Palestinians on the edge of famine and ensure widespread malnutrition.
In October, some 9,300 children in Gaza under five were diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition, according to UNICEF. Israel has opened the border crossing into Egypt at Rafah, but only for Palestinians leaving Gaza. It is not open for those who want to return to Gaza, as stipulated in the agreement.
Israel has seized some 58 percent of Gaza and is steadily moving its demarcation line — known as “the yellow line” — to expand its occupation. Palestinians who cross the arbitrary line — which constantly shifts and is poorly marked when it is marked at all — are often killed.
Ninety-two percent of Gaza’s residential buildings have been damaged or destroyed and around 81 percent of all structures are damaged, according to UN estimates. The Strip, some 20 miles long and seven-and-a-half miles wide, has been reduced to 61 million tons of rubble, including nine million tons of hazardous waste that includes asbestos, industrial waste, and heavy metals, in addition to unexploded ordinance and an estimated 10,000 decaying corpses.
There is almost no clean water, electricity or sewage treatment. Israel blocks shipments of construction supplies, including cement and steel, shelter materials, water infrastructure and fuel, so nothing can be rebuilt. Compounding the humanitarian crisis, Israel has revoked the licenses of 37 international NGOs, including Doctors Without Borders.
This follows Israel’s banning of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, which provides most of the humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and the diaspora, and the cutting off off water, electricity, fuel, and communications from UNRWA facilities, as well as the passing of legislation that gives Israel the ability to expropriate UN properties in East Jerusalem, including UNRWA’s headquarters and its main vocational training center.
Joining me to discuss the continued assault on Palestinians and the failure of the international community to intervene is Professor Norman Finkelstein, author of numerous books on the Middle East, including Gaza: An Inquest into its Martyrdom, The Holocaust Industry and his forthcoming book, which will be released in March, Gaza’s Gravediggers.
So Norm, let’s begin with the Security Council vote on November 17th, 2025. 13 votes to zero, two abstentions, as I mentioned in the introduction. I was as stunned by it as you were precisely because this isn’t in any way a serious proposal. Other proposals have been ignored in terms of ceasefires, agreements, et cetera but there was just no validity to this at all.
And you really, I think correctly, excoriate the member states for supporting it. And I think you make the point that this is a watershed moment in terms of the United Nations itself, as you have pointed out, at least has traditionally attempted to uphold international law. And this is just a complete tossing away of any pretense of international law. Can you explain this moment?
Norman G Finkelstein
Well, I think here it’s good to begin with the statements by Russia and China when they abstained from the resolution. Now, Russia and China are obviously great powers, and there’s a great deal of cynicism and calculation in anything they’re going to say. On the other hand, I personally found the Russian statement in particular, though the Chinese statement was also very good, I found it believable.
Some people said the Chinese abstained because it was a quid pro quo Gaza for Ukraine. And I’m sure that calculation entered into the picture. I’m not going to… I’m not naive, but I thought the Russian statement said two things of interest to us. Well, three things really.
Number one, basically Trump said to them, or Trump’s people said to them, if you don’t sign on to this, we’re going to give Israel the green light to annihilate Gaza. That it’s either this game or ceasefire is over and Israel goes in and we’re not putting any restraints on it, any constraints on it.
Well, that was a problem. We have to be honest about the problems. I was furious at what happened. I can’t tell you, I was walking the streets cursing these people. But I have to be honest about the problem they faced, the dilemma they faced. Number two, the Russians said, all the Arab and Muslim states and then the Palestinian Authority, the state of Palestine, welcomed the resolution. What were we supposed to do?
We would come off as more pious than the Pope. We had no choice. They hated the resolution, it was clear, as the Chinese, but they said they brought out Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan, all the Gulf states, Jordan, what do you do? That was a real problem. We have to acknowledge that, they had a real problem there.
So the Russians were cornered, as were the Chinese. And then the Russians did say, however, they said that there was a lot of arm twisting. They used those words. There was a lot of arm twisting in the capitals and in the UN on the officials, the representative officials. And then they said, I was surprised by the bluntness, they said, “This is a black day in the history of the United Nations.”
And you know what their last words were? Their last words were, don’t say we didn’t warn you. I thought I was pretty telling. You know what it reminded me of? It reminded me of [Andrei] Gromyko’s speech in 1947, where, you know, Gromyko is Stalin’s henchman, not many warm spots in his heart, but he gave a very moving speech. And I think it’s…
Chris Hedges
This was on the establishment of the state of Israel, right?
Norman G Finkelstein
Yeah. Yeah. And it was a deeply moving speech. Every Jew remembers it from that era and I felt there was a certain amount… Yes, it’s a great power. Yes, it’s Russia. Yes, Putin is this and Putin is that. But still, I thought there was a degree of candor by Russia that something terrible had happened at the United Nations. A thug, a criminally deranged megalomaniac, this human wrecking ball had just destroyed the UN.
The UN is, for me at this point, I don’t want to say for me, I’m not the issue. The UN is now a rotting corpse. It’s dead. Because what that resolution did, for those who follow these things, and you know I’ve devoted a lifetime to following them at the level of hyper minutiae, it abolished 70 years of UN history. It did — the General Assembly, the Security Council, the International Court of Justice, and all sorts of other divisions, committees in the UN.
The UN record was an accumulation of debate, discussion, compromise over 70 years. That whole history vanished in this UN resolution. If you were to go put it up on your screen now, you go, for example, to the standard UN resolution called “Peaceful Settlement of the Palestine Question.”
It comes at the end of November, early December, each year, right? You know what it begins with? It begins with like a five to seven page preamble rehearsing the whole record, what this body has resolved in the course of decades. There’s no preamble in this new UN Security Council resolution.
It begins as if from a tabula rasa, that there was no history. It was abolished by this UN resolution. It vanished. So, it was a somber moment. Now, in the face of that fact and the fact that we’re dealing with, my late mother used to use the expression, “pigs with white gloves” to refer to the ruling elites. This was a pig without the white gloves. A thug. You know, no polish. No panache. A thug. What do you do?
Here, my opinion is, if you sign on because, one, you’re dealing with a thug, two, the thug is threatening if you don’t sign it, we’re not going to break your kneecaps, but we’re going to let Israel break Gaza’s kneecaps. And three, all the Arab-Muslim states, the largest states in the world, we’re talking about Indonesia. You know, Indonesia is the fourth most populous country on Earth. Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia. What do you do?
What you could have done if you had some backbone, you could have signed on, we want to save Gaza from Israel’s annihilatory assault. Okay? But then you could have told the truth. Algeria didn’t have to sing the praises of Trump. You know what Algeria said? Trump has brought peace to the world. You didn’t have to do that. No, Algeria went on to be critical of the resolution. But you really have to kiss the master’s feet? No. It was pitiful. It was pathetic. You could have pointed up the dilemma, which is what Russia did. But you didn’t have to grovel. You didn’t have to be a sycophant. That was unacceptable.
Chris Hedges
I just want to explain what you do in your piece about why this is such a devastating moment. Because up until now, the UN at least paid lip service or fealty to entrenched law that Israel is an occupying power.
That, this is you,
“‘Israel must refrain from . . . imped[ing] the Palestinian people from exercising its right to self-determination, including its inalienable right to territorial integrity over the entirety of the Occupied Palestinian Territory,’ that ‘Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is illegal. . . . Consequently, Israel has an obligation to bring an end to its presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible.’”
You’re quoting the ICJ, and this is you,
“This robust and enduring legal consensus crystallised after protracted deliberations spanning almost eight decades among multiple UN organs and was anchored in fundamental norms of international law: the prohibition on the acquisition of territory by war and the right of peoples to self-determination. The new UN resolution deposited this comprehensive legal framework into the dumpster.”
Norman G Finkelstein
That’s correct. That’s what happened. There is a view we… Listen, everybody who has even a faint knowledge of the subject knows we have acronyms like OPT, Occupied Palestinian Territories. There’s not a word about occupation in this resolution. There’s no occupation. Gaza is not in this resolution. Gaza is not occupied territory. Gaza is nothing in this resolution. There’s no connection with the West Bank.
Gaza is just suspended in midair in this resolution. Gaza is in the era of the European conquest of Africa. They used an expression, it was called res nullius, which means belonging to nobody. Africa belonged to nobody and therefore everybody was entitled to carve out a piece of it.
Chris Hedges
This was the League of Nations, right?
Norman G Finkelstein
You know, this is the Conference of Berlin at the end of the 19th century. The League of Nations comes along after World War I. And Gaza has no legal existence in this resolution. And I have to say, it was kind of breathtaking. It was kind of breathtaking. The UN resolution… Now everybody has a predilection for exaggeration, hyperbole, poetry. This is no exaggeration. It’s not hyperbole. It’s not poetry.
The UN resolution gave Gaza to Donald J. Trump. It literally did that. It declared that the presiding body in Gaza is what they call a “board of peace.” The modalities of this board of peace… Who belongs to it? How is it structured? There’s nothing there. There’s only one thing: Donald Trump is the head of the Board of Peace. Now, bear in mind, he was given personal title to Gaza. In fact, it was reiterated by the US representative after the vote was taken.
Donald Trump is in charge of the Board of Peace. The Board of Peace is not in charge, is not, I should say, Donald Trump is not responsible to anyone internally in the Board of Peace. There are no modalities of the Board of Peace. And he’s not responsible to anyone externally. The only thing that was required of Trump was that he produce every six months, they say, we request, we don’t even order, we request that he provide every six months an update on the situation. That’s it.
Gaza is now one more property in the Trump organisation’s portfolio. That is not an exaggeration. When Trump said in February 2024, he said, Gaza is going to belong to the United States and we’re going to turn it… Everyone thought this is a lunatic blowhard. Well, the lunatic blowhard turned it into a UN Security Council resolution, which is the final word.
I don’t agree with people who are saying that the UN Security Council resolutions are superseded by the body of law. I don’t think that’s correct. The Security Council resolution is the last word. Even if it wasn’t, it doesn’t make a difference. You can get into the technical argument till the end of time.
The fact of the matter is, as I tried to point out, and I pointed out over and over again over the years, there was a robust consensus on how to resolve the conflict, which means that Israel didn’t have a leg to stand on. But guess what? It now has a leg to stand on.
Chris Hedges
But you liken it to the decision to turn the Congo over to King Leopold.
Norman G Finkelstein
It was exactly the same thing. The Conference of Berlin, the great powers assembled at the Conference of Berlin, gave the Congo to one person, King Leopold. It was given to him. Technically it was given to the International Association of the Congo, but then the Belgian legislature subsequently designated him.
He was owner of the Congo. And now we have, and by the way for the viewers who are not aware, in the course of his tenure as president or presiding officer of the Congo, the estimates are between 10 and 15 million, not a small number, 10 and 15 million Congolese were killed off during the ivory and then the rubber trade. So, it’s a famous story. Unfortunately in the English language, there’s only one book, and it’s not a great book. The book, King Leopold’s…
Chris Hedges
King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild.
Norman G Finkelstein
It’s not a great book, but there’s only one book on the subject. The famous two individuals who campaigned to end the horror in the Congo were E.D. Morel and Roger Casement. In any event, it was the Congo all over again. I had some correspondence with the great international lawyer John Dugard and he said the analogy I made with Leopold, he said it hadn’t occurred to him, but it really ought to be developed, what happened.
Chris Hedges
Let’s talk about the provisions. We can begin with the call to disarm Hamas as a precondition that Israel has said. Israel, of course, will judge whether Hamas is disarmed or not. In the introduction, I quoted Netanyahu who said that if they didn’t disarm, they’d do it the hard way.
But let’s talk about that caveat and the other caveats in there that just give Israel utter and complete control with no… Everything comes down to Israel’s decision, Israel’s pronouncements about Gaza. The resolution is organised in such a way that they’re the final authority.
Norman G Finkelstein
Well, it says that the IDF and the, among the powers, there’s the so-called international security force, the IDF, Israel’s so-called defense forces, they have veto power on any withdrawal. Unless Israel agrees that Hamas has been disarmed, according to the resolution, it’s under no obligation to withdraw.
Now, first of all, Netanyahu doesn’t want Hamas to disarm. Hamas has never been the issue. From October 8th, Israel made very clear what the issue is. We’re going to ethnically cleanse Gaza, or if we’re not successful in stimulating a stampede, we’ll make Gaza unlivable. So as they said over and over again, there was no secret. This is not a state secret.
This is not like Hitler’s final solution where you’re looking for the Hitler order. Did Hitler issue an order? That’s always been a big question. Raul Hilberg, he was among those who still held out, he thought Hitler had issued an order. But it was still, if he had issued one, it would have been a secret order. But there’s no secrets here.
The Israelis from day one were saying we’re going to give the people of Gaza two choices: to stay and to starve, or to leave. That was very straightforward. So when you listen to the talk Netanyahu says, remember Amalek. Amalek is about every man, woman, and child, as well as oxen. Is that Hamas?
If you say that you’re not going to admit any food, fuel, or electricity. Is that Hamas? If you say you’re going to make Gaza unlivable, is that Hamas? It had nothing to do with Hamas. The ones who understood that from the get-go were the South Africans. They didn’t prosecute Israel on the grounds that it was violating the laws of war. No.
They didn’t call, for example, for a meeting of the signatories to the Geneva Convention. You could have called that, a meeting of the signatories of the Geneva Convention to prosecute Israel’s violations of the laws of war, what’s called international humanitarian law, IHL. That’s not what South Africa did. It prosecuted Israel for the crime of genocide.
If you read their application, the one that was submitted on December 29th, 2023, and all their other statements, Hamas is barely mentioned. Not because they are trying to aid and abet Hamas, but because they understood that given what was unfolding in Gaza from October 8th, Hamas was a sideshow. Hamas was an irrelevance. The issue was, I don’t believe — we want to be careful about formulations — I don’t believe their goal was genocide. I think their means was genocide. The objective was to ethnically cleanse Gaza.
However, they were willing to not only destroy a part of the population, they were ready to destroy the whole population to achieve that end. There was no compunction on the part of the Israelis. So I don’t believe Hamas ever had much to do with what’s been unfolding.
Now the Israelis say, you might recall at the beginning they said there were 20,000 Hamas terrorists, right? Where they got that number, just pulled out of thin air, like all their numbers, all their numbers are, they’re just fake fakery.
How many Hamas terrorists they’ve killed? They don’t have a clue how many they’ve, they don’t, how would they know? They were engaging in saturated bombing, carpet bombing of Gaza. 95% of the people they killed who “belonged to Hamas” was just because they happened to be besides somebody else, it was completely indiscriminate. They don’t know how many Hamas terrorists they killed. They don’t have a clue. But they said 20,000.
And then, you know what they said last month? Their new figures show there are still 20,000 Hamas, that’s what they said. There are 20,000. Because for them, the more the merrier. The more Hamas terrorists there are, the more they can say, we’re not withdrawing, we’re not reconstructing, we’re not admitting humanitarian aid because the Hamas terrorists are going to confiscate it. So Hamas is just, it’s just a prop in the exterminatory enterprise.
Chris Hedges
I want to ask you about humanitarian aid. You write,
“The resolution charged the BoP with coordinating both humanitarian aid and reconstruction. Neither will come to pass. A 2025 ICJ advisory opinion found that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was the only humanitarian organisation in Gaza technically competent to provide aid at scale, and that Israel must cooperate with it.”
But of course, they have banned Hamas and now, just recently, announced that they’re going to legislate the ability to confiscate their property in East Jerusalem. And you write a little later on,
“Israel won’t admit more than a ‘humanitarian minimum’ of aid, if that much and probably a lot less. The days of weaponising starvation as a method of warfare won’t be over until and unless the Gaza ‘question’ has been ‘solved.’ The reconstruction of Gaza won’t happen because it can’t happen and because Israel won’t let it happen.”
But within the Board of Peace is this provision of providing aid and there is a number, isn’t it 600 trucks a day that are supposed to come in?
Norman G Finkelstein
They were supposed to resume the level during the last ceasefire. It’s never going to happen. I have to say there was so much naivete even by people who should have known better about the resolution. Just take the question of reconstruction. Isn’t it just devoted to two years plus to turning Gaza into a parking lot?
Can anybody in his or her right mind believe that suddenly they’re going to start chanting Om, give peace a chance, singing Kumbaya, linking arms and rebuilding Gaza with those people, with the people of Gaza?
It was just so stupid how anyone could possibly believe these things. So they said Trump was going to have a meeting with Netanyahu and they’re going to discuss reconstruction. That’s what was said last week. First of all, he does that all for theater because he has to placate Saudi Arabia. Not that Saudi Arabia cares, but they need a fig leaf.
They need a fig leaf because they want to sign on to the Abraham Accords. So that was the whole purpose of the ceasefire, to enable MBS to come to the White House, because he can’t come to the White House in the middle of a genocide. That’s just a really bad photo op. So he has to put on the pretense that he’s going to talk to Netanyahu about reconstruction.
And you know exactly, first of all it’s all wink wink. It’s all wink wink. And you know exactly what Netanyahu says — we can’t begin reconstruction until Hamas has disarmed, that’s in your 20 point peace plan. And Trump says yeah. Now of course there will still be the need to placate the peace, the Saudis, with face saving gestures.
The thing is, the moment it’s no longer front page news, it’s over. Israel does what it wants. And so occasionally there’ll be some flare-up, there’ll be some remonstrants from the White House, but it’ll be business as usual until Gaza has been emptied.
Chris Hedges
Which you say, now, Israel had hoped that it would be a flood. That’s what we’re trying to orchestrate. But now it’ll just be a trickle, I think are your words.
Norman G Finkelstein
I think they were, when they set up what was called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or fund or foundation, I can’t remember now, there were four sites. One was in the center of Gaza, but the other three were right on the border with Egypt, with the Sinai. And the purpose was obvious: to force everybody to go to the humanitarian sites and then to provoke an expulsion.
It didn’t work. It didn’t work. Probably Egypt put a lot of pressure on the US So then they had to reconcile themselves to a trickle. But reconstruction, humanitarian aid, it’s never going to happen.
Chris Hedges
I want to ask about the International Stabilization Force. You write,
“The resolution authorised the establishment of a ‘temporary International Stabilisation Force (ISF),’ the charge of which was to ‘stabilise the security environment in Gaza by ensuring the process of demilitarising the Gaza Strip.’ The ISF was to operate in ‘close consultation and cooperation’ with Egypt and Israel.”
And you write,
“It must be conceded that the resolution recruited a pair of virtuosos at pacification: Egyptian strongman Abdel Fattah el-Sisi seized power in a military coup that climaxed ‘in one of the world’s largest killings of demonstrators in a single day in recent history,’ while Israel had invested the previous two years in comprehensively stabilizing Gaza by erasing it. Although emphatic that Gaza must be disarmed ‘us[ing] all necessary measures,’ the resolution was conspicuously mute as to why it must be. The reason for this silence wasn’t hard to find. If Gaza had to be demilitarised because of the 7 October massacre, then the obvious question arose: After committing a genocide that killed incomparably more innocents, didn’t Israel also need to be demilitarised?”
Norman G Finkelstein
They were at least discreet enough to leave out certain things. How can you possibly argue that Israel, excuse me, Hamas has to be demilitarised because of October 7th, 2023, whereas Israel doesn’t have to be demilitarised after October 8th onto the present, 2025?
That doesn’t really make very much logical sense. I mean, I even managed to convince Piers Morgan that if you demilitarise Gaza, then Netanyahu can’t be returned to power. I mean, he understood that basic quid pro quo, though I think it goes well beyond Mr. Netanyahu’s culpability for the genocide. Genocide was unusual because it was not a state project. That’s incorrect.
The genocide in Gaza, I won’t say it’s unprecedented, but the genocide in Gaza was a national project. It was endorsed, embraced, and executed at the grassroots, at the actual physical implementation by the country, was executed, it was a genocide that was executed by a citizen army.
Chris Hedges
Well, and we know from the poll numbers that the vast majority of Israel, half of all Israelis, if I have that right, in one poll said they should all be killed.
Norman G Finkelstein
There have been several polls, let’s just begin with the basic ones. From the beginning right after October 7th, the poll showed that roughly 95% of Jewish Israelis thought that Israel was either using sufficient force or too little force. Only 5% thought Israel was using too much force. That was consistent over the whole two years.
Number two, one poll showed that 47% of Israeli Jews said that Israel should commit genocide in Gaza. The army should commit genocide. They were asked a very specific question: When the army enters a city, should it kill everybody? And 47% of Israeli Jews said yes. Then there was another poll that asked are there any innocents in Gaza? That was across all of Israeli society, about 15, depending on if they count East Jerusalem, 15 to 20 percent of Israelis are non-Jewish. It showed 62 percent said there are no innocents in Gaza.
Bear in mind, one half of Gaza’s population are children. If you factor out non-Israeli Jews, it would come to about 70 to 75% supported that. So this is a national project. And that poses a question, which is, it’s not just about Netanyahu. It’s not even just about the leadership class. It’s about a whole society that’s been effectively Nazified by…
There’s no sane person who would say this gleefully. On the other hand, it would be extremely dishonest to avoid those facts. This was a national undertaking, the destruction of the people of Gaza.
Chris Hedges
And as you point out, a people under occupation are not legally debarred from armed resistance.
Norman G Finkelstein
That’s the consistent finding of all international lawyers. I should bear in mind they reached this conclusion on the basis of UN General Assembly resolutions. When you try to determine what the law is, UN Security Council and UN… I don’t want to get into the technicalities about UN General Assembly because it doesn’t have legislative power, yes that’s all true, but the UN can still, if there’s an overwhelming majority in the General Assembly, it does speak to the broad consensus on whether or not a certain undertaking is legal or illegal.
And there is no aspect of international law that debars people living under occupation from using armed force to free themselves. On the other hand, occupying powers are debarred from using armed force to suppress the mass uprising. They are debarred from doing that.
Chris Hedges
Let’s talk about the political roadmap. So the resolution states that the Board of Peace will cede sovereign power over Gaza only “when the Palestinian Authority has satisfactorily completed its reform program and that after the PA, the Palestinian Authority Reform Program, is faithfully carried out and Gaza redevelopment has advanced, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.” Talk about that provision.
Norman G Finkelstein
Well, first of all, I mean every step of the way, not just to laugh, but to guffaw at what’s being said there. First of all, it provides no benchmarks and how do you know whether or not the Palestinian Authority has reformed? Number two, who’s going to judge? We have to reach the august standards of Egypt or the divine standards of Jordan or the incomparable standards of Saudi Arabia? Is that the benchmark?
You just came back from Egypt. I was talking to a friend yesterday from Iran and he has an Egyptian doctor as a friend and he said, my friend, he’s afraid to go back because you get just snatched for no reason, just get snatched off the airplane and you disappear.
Chris Hedges
Yeah, and let’s be clear that the Sisi regime, like the Jordanian regime, are deeply hostile to Hamas. They hate Hamas.
Norman G Finkelstein
They hate Hamas and I don’t think they are the best judges of when the Palestinian Authority has achieved a degree of reform. So that’s number one. Then what are the benchmarks and who’s going to decide when the benchmarks have been met?
Number two, it says it may lead, if the Palestinian Authority reforms, can you just read the wording again? It may lead to a pathway. It may lead to a pathway. So even if it reforms, that doesn’t mean Palestinians will have the right to exercise self-determination. It may. And it doesn’t say it may lead to a state.
Chris Hedges
It says it may finally be in place for a credible pathway. That’s the wording.
Norman G Finkelstein
A credible pathway. And then the pathway to what? Well, to what, that has to be decided in the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. So as you can see, the entire record of the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly and the International Court Justice calling for two states and the Palestinians’ inalienable right to self-determination and statehood.
All of that has been annulled. All we have now is if the Palestinian Authority reforms it may lead to a credible pathway to, well, to what Israel decides when it negotiates with the Palestinians. It’s, you know, you can laugh. It’s just really sickening.
Chris Hedges
“In other words, were Palestinians to meet all the—nebulous—demands put on them, they still could not exercise their ‘inalienable right’ to self-determination and statehood even in the distant future until and unless Israel agreed to it.”
And then you say,
“…based on standards, milestones, and timeframes linked to demilitarisation that will be agreed between the IDF, ISF, the guarantors [?], and the United States, save for a security perimeter presence(emphasis added).”
That, in essence, Israel has, “veto power over both the exercise of Palestinian self-determination and any withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, thus ensuring that neither would ever come to pass.”
Norman G Finkelstein
Does anyone believe that the Israeli government is going, not just the government, the polls show that people overwhelmingly oppose the Palestinian state. Does anyone believe they’re going to agree to it now?
Chris Hedges
Right. So I have to ask you why the member states, I mean, Trump is making war on the UN, it’s defunding it. He is no friend of the United Nations. And yet the member states essentially knelt before the Trump administration to pass this farcical supposed peace agreement, abetted it. I just wonder if you have any idea of the motives.
Norman G Finkelstein
The motives, I think, are pretty straightforward. Gaza has no power. There was a time when Gaza had what you might call symbolic power. Namely, the cause of Palestine resonated throughout the Arab world. It somehow embodied, incarnated the aspirations and the sufferings of the people in the Arab Muslim world. But that all has pretty much disappeared.
Not least because the Arab world endured so many catastrophes in the meantime — Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan — that, in many ways, the horrors in Gaza paled beside what was endured elsewhere. And so Gaza was depleted of its symbolic power.
And without any material power and having lost its symbolic power, it’s not surprising that states would put their own “self-interest” first. And second of all, you’re dealing with a mafia thug. Now, I want to be clear that as my late mother used the expression, you’re dealing with a pig without white gloves.
But even with white gloves, you’re still a pig. Now, you might remember, I don’t know if you remember, it’s so long ago now, during what was called the First Gulf War, President George Bush Sr. and his Secretary of State, James Baker, they tried to do everything in conformity with international law. And so they were very proud that they carved together what was called an international coalition.
And they had managed to pass from the time that Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990 until when they launched the first Gulf War, I believe it was March 1991, they managed to get past eight UN Security Council resolutions condemning Saddam Hussein. And then came that last resolution.
And the resolution was, even though it didn’t literally say it, it clearly could be read to say that it empowered the US to launch the war. And they wanted a unanimous vote. Because these are sort of what you might call old school. They like the finesse of having a Security Council resolution, one country dissented. Do you remember what country that was?
Chris Hedges
I do not. It was in the Gulf. I went into Kuwait with the Marine Corps and then I was in Basrah with the Shiite rebels until I was taken prisoner by the Iraqi Republican Guard. So I wasn’t in the States. I don’t remember.
Norman G Finkelstein
It was Yemen, which, bear in mind, Yemen is the poorest country in the Middle East. And Baker went over to the Yemeni representative, and you know what he said to him? You can Google it. This is going to be the most expensive vote you have ever had in the United Nations, you ever made in the United Nations.
Why do I bring it up? That’s doing it with subtlety. You could imagine what Trump said to the other countries like Algeria, you can easily imagine him saying, we’re going to increase your tariff by 300%. We’ll bankrupt your country if you don’t vote. Because he’s a criminally deranged megalomaniac and the people around him want to please the criminally deranged megalomaniac, they gotta get no negative votes.
So you can imagine, and the Russians are very straightforward. They said there was a lot of arm twisting. Now you know there’s always arm twisting at the UN, this is the UN, but it must have been of a magnitude pretty high for the Russians to call it, because Russians arm twist also, but it must have been of a kind of really brazen magnitude that the Russians called attention to it.
So I don’t think, as I said when we began the conversation, I don’t really fault them for having signed on. But you had the option of telling the truth. You really did. And they were such cowards. Except for the two powers which have power, you know, Russia and China, they didn’t shy away from speaking in their statements, from speaking to what actually happened.
Chris Hedges
I just want to close by what this means for Gaza. In some ways it’s obvious, but I want you to address it. Israel has seized, what, 56, 58% of Gaza, which is already one of the most populated spots on the planet. It’s blocking any kind of reconstruction aid, as I mentioned in the introduction. As you write, humanitarian aid is at subsistence level at best. No clean water, no medical facilities, people are not living in dwellings. What’s going to happen?
Norman G Finkelstein
I see no grounds for optimism. I see no grounds for optimism. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean we give up. You know people, I think, draw the wrong conclusions from some of the things I say. Things are terrible. I think they’re lost, in my opinion. On the other hand, all history shows us is, however bad it is, it can always be worse.
We can be doing our best just to keep things the same. You know, not Alice in Wonderland, but what was the sequel to Alice in Wonderland? Through the Looking Glass? Was it Through the Looking Glass?
Chris Hedges
Yeah, Through the Looking Glass.
Norman G Finkelstein
Yeah. Where the Queen, I think the Queen of Hearts says, I’m running as fast as I can to stay in place. Well, we’re doing everything we can so it doesn’t get worse.
It can always be worse. Nobody should think that by giving up, you are, because you think it’s hopeless, that it’s not going to have consequences. It has consequences. It definitely has. It could be worse. Israel is a lunatic state. I’ve said that for 10 years. Israel is a lunatic state.
And if they’re left with a completely free hand, they have largely a free hand. If they’re left with a completely free hand, it could get even worse. So I’m pretty hopeless. But there are, look, I’ve always said, because I’m careful about this, I have deference to my parents’ suffering, there’s no silver lining in a genocide.
There’s no silver lining, so I’m not going to look for a silver lining. I’ll just say, in addition, we should pay attention to phenomena like the [Zohran] Mamdani phenomenon — that was a huge blow to Israel and its supporters. And we have to, in my opinion, as you remember, Che Guevara saying in the 1960s, one, two, three many Vietnams.
Well, right now we need one, two, three many Mamdani’s on the local level, strike while the iron is hot, and try to get elected into office people who are unequivocal on the question of Israel and Gaza and the West Bank, obviously. So that’s something to do. It’s something to do.
One of the things that struck me, I’ll just mention too, because this may seem far afield, but I don’t believe it’s far afield at all. I’ve been reading a lot of Charles Sumner, the great abolitionist, who was really a person of extraordinary intellect and extraordinary character. And a number of things come to mind.
I was reading one of his speeches last night where he says: Everything looked hopeless for the struggle against slavery until, he said, we finally won the battle for free speech. It was a very deep insight for me, coming from reading it in him, because he said there was a period where states had successfully illegalized abolition societies.
So you had lost the right to free speech. But he said, over a decade, we struggled, the abolitionist movement, we struggled. And he said, we won the right to free speech. And for him, this was a turning point. He said, now victory was inevitable. Why was it inevitable? Because, he said, we can match any one of their arguments when it comes to free speech.
Once they have to confront us in the battle for public opinion, we are going to win. That’s why they crushed free speech. And to me, beginning in the spring of 2024, when I met with students and I spoke and I talked to audiences, I kept saying, you have to wrest back that right to free speech.
Because if we win that right, we’re going to win. We’re going to win the battle. They have nothing to stand on anymore. So that to me is another lesson. One of the things we have to do now in addition to 1,2,3 many Mamdani’s, one of the things we have to do is we have to put at the top of the agenda to win back that right to free speech.
What did Mamdani do yesterday, his first act of office? He cancelled the IRHA definition, the International Holocaust Remembrance [Alliance] definition of anti-Semitism, which was just a writ to cancel free speech. That’s what IRHA was. First act, cancel IRHA, annul it. It’s over. You know, that was a good victory because our strongest weapon right now is free speech.
That’s why the Bill Ackmans, the whole crowd of them, the Jewish supremacist billionaires on the Upper East Side, that’s why their objective was to crush on college campuses the right to free speech. Because they know, if you have that free speech, they lose. They lose. So, I thought it was a deep insight by Sumner when he said, it looked hopeless, it looked hopeless, it looked hopeless until, he said, we had won the right to speak.
Because he said from any angle we’re going to win. They have no right to stand on. Another interesting thing to watch him is, in 1850, the US signed into law the Fugitive Slave Law. He didn’t consider it a law because it was illegal under the Constitution, he meaning Sumner. So he refers to it as the Fugitive Slave Act because he thought it was illegal under the Constitution.
In any case, it was interesting to read because he was very eloquent. He was mesmerising. You know, back in those days, people in Congress, I know you’re going to find it hard to believe, they gave three-hour speeches.
They gave three-hour speeches. You know what? Sumner never looked at notes, memorised everything. It was a very impressive standard. I was humbled. I was humbled. I did not recognise the degree of erudition, the command of language back then in the US.
In any case, Sumner was asked once in Congress by one of the southern states, I think it was Virginia, the person from Virginia, he said, will you implement the Fugitive Slave Act? And he replied, is thy servant a dog that he will carry out such an act? And that created a huge hullabaloo. Is thy servant a dog that he will carry out such an act?
Meaning Sumner was advocating he has an oath of office to uphold the Constitution. And was now Sumner saying he was not going to uphold the law? And he gave one of his most famous speeches. And he dwelled on it and dwelled on it and dwelled on it, the Fugitive Slave Act. And you know they called those who enforced the slave hunters, they call them bloodhounds.
Frederick Douglass called them biped bloodhounds. Why do I mention all this? Because in the fugitive slave law, it says states have to give up runaway slaves who have fled to their states. So somebody flees from South Carolina to Virginia and South Carolina to Massachusetts, Massachusetts has to give up the slave. And that fugitive slave law was our ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]. It’s our ICE. It’s exactly the same. Biped bloodhounds.
And they summoned the wherewithal, Sumner with grand erudition, going through the Constitution to try to explain why. But at the end of the day, with all due regard for him, a lawyer is a lawyer. They make a case. You can make the same case as he made not to enforce the fugitive slave law. I’m sure you can make the same case to not enforce ICE and not give up these people. He made basically the same arguments.
He said you have a right to a trial by jury. He said a slave has the right to a trial, well then so does an undocumented worker have the right. So there’s a lot that we could still do now. And there’s actually, in my opinion, speaking humbly, because I’m only now reading this. I’m too old to read, what I would love to have read Sumner’s collected works, which run to some 20 volumes. I would really love to have, but I’m not, right now that’s not gonna happen.
There’s a lot to learn from our own history. You know what’s the most important thing to learn? When Sumner was asked, what’s needed now? What do we need now? You know what his answer was? Backbone.
Backbone and more backbone. He said we need three things. Backbone and backbone and more backbone. And that’s the bottom line. Backbone. If we have the backbone and we have the numbers on our side, we can win. I do believe that. I don’t say these things, these are not exhortations to raise the hopes and spirits of the masses. I really believe it. I really believe it.
The biggest challenge now for Mamdani, obviously he needs competence and obviously he needs efficiency. No question, but the most, the biggest challenge is very, in my opinion, it’s the last thing he said in his speech. I wish he had emphasised it more, but it did come at the very end.
He said, this is not the end, this is the beginning. We’ve got to organise. If we organise and organise and organise, and we have backbone and more backbone and more backbones, it could happen. I don’t know how far he can get. You know, these people in power, I won’t be surprised if they blow up a subway tunnel and blame it on him, not serious, buddy, when you got that kind of money, you’re not giving it up. You’re not giving it up.
I don’t know, but if Mr. Mamdani thinks he’s going to seduce them with his smile, that’s not going to happen. And they don’t really fear him. They fear an energised population. They want hopeless, despondent people, for the poor to be hopeless and despondent. So that’s what they fear, that these people are entertaining hope that they may get a piece of the pie.
So with a combination of organise, organise, organise, and backbone, backbone, backbone, we could do things. We could do things. I’m not going to say… maybe I’ll be wrong. And maybe there are ways to undo the horror that was inflicted on Gaza. In this case, I’ll use the cliche, I’ll be glad to be proven wrong.
Chris Hedges
Great. Thanks, Norm. And I want to thank Diego [Ramos], Thomas [Hedges], Max [Jones], Sofia [Menemenlis], and Victor [Padilla], who produced the show.
