Terms of Surrender: The Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice in Palestine

 

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A look at three possible tracks for a negotiated end to the genocide in Gaza. 

By Craig Mokhiber | October 30, 2025

In the wake of two years of the globally broadcast extermination of the people of Palestine, three distinct tracks of international response have emerged. One is grounded in justice, international law, human rights, and accountability. Two others are dedicated to impunity, the continued subjugation of the victims, and the normalization of the perpetrator regime.

In the diplomatic struggle that has ensued, the justice track is under sustained attack. Left to their own devices, most states — the directly complicit and the timid alike — will undoubtedly take the easy way out, opting for impunity and normalization. But a growing people’s movement from across the globe is mobilized to demand justice.

A Textbook Genocide

The roots of the genocide in Palestine run deep, through a century of racist colonization, the Nakba of 1947-1948, eight decades of apartheid, 58 years of brutal occupation, and generations of persecution.

Now, for the past two years, the world has watched in horror as the Israeli regime planned, announced, perpetrated, and celebrated the accelerated genocide of the Palestinian people. Adding to the horror of this historic atrocity has been the ruthless complicity of so many governments, media corporations, weapons and tech companies, and Israel proxy groups planted among the populations of the West.

The unprecedented nature of this genocide has been driven home by so many terrifying “firsts.”

The first live-streamed genocide, witnessed by millions around the world. The first hi-tech genocide, perpetrated with state-of-the-art weapons systems, killer drones, autonomous weapons, surveillance technologies, and artificial intelligence. And the first globalized genocide, perpetrated with the direct and enthusiastic participation of so many governments (foremost among them the U.S., U.K., and Germany), and the active complicity so many corporations and organizations across the globe. Zionist repression has extended far beyond the shores of Palestine, with complicit Western institutions using state power to oppress and silence all who dare to speak out against the genocide and their governments’ complicity in it.

At the same time, in just two years, the Israeli regime has shattered record after bloody record for the murder of several categories of protected persons, including medical personnel, journalists, aid workers, UN staff, and children, as well as one of the highest civilian casualty rates ever recorded.

And it has achieved the dubious distinction of creating the widest global consensus on the perpetration of the crime of genocide ever recorded, with declarations of genocide issued by the UN’s Commission of Inquiry, its independent human rights rapporteurs, leading international human rights organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, leading Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations, the leading association of genocide scholars, and international lawyers across the world.

This is quintessential genocide, its genocidal intent declared out loud by Israeli leaders from the start, followed by a horrific catalogue of genocidal acts carried out with a violence as ruthless as it is systematic. Neighborhood after neighborhood, town after town, hospital after hospital, school after school, shelter after shelter, church after church, mosque after mosque, field after field, food store after food store.

Two years of siege, blocking aid, food, water, medicine, fuel, and every essential of human life. A chain of massacres, mass abductions, torture camps, sexual violence, intentionally imposed disease and starvation. Palestinian toddlers shot by snipers for sport. Palestinian captives tortured to death. Gaza reduced to a moonscape.

The Justice Track

So blatant were its crimes that within months of the launch of its genocidal onslaught, the Israeli regime was on trial for genocide in the World Court (ICJ) and its leaders were indicted for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Indeed, experts had sounded the genocide alarm already in October of 2023. And since then, human rights monitors have collected volumes of evidence.

Even as complicit states worked to buttress the impunity of the Israeli regime, the global public demand for accountability grew ever louder. It would ultimately compel the government of South Africa to brings it historic ICJ case against the regime under the United Nations Genocide Convention in December of 2023. The Court found the allegations of genocide plausible in January of 2024 and issued what would be the first of a series of provisional measures binding on the Israeli regime. Months later, the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity.

In July of 2024, the ICJ would also issue a landmark advisory opinion concluding that Israel was committing apartheid and racial segregation, that all of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza are unlawfully occupied, that Israel must remove all settlements, settlers, soldiers, and occupation infrastructure, dismantle the apartheid wall in the West Bank, provide reparations to the Palestinians, and allow all those forced out to return home. The Court said that all states have a legal obligation not to recognize or assist the occupation and are obliged to help to bring an end to Israel’s occupation and other violations. And it found that all states must end all treaty relations with Israel that relate to the Palestinian territories, cease all economic, trade, and investment relations connected to the occupied territories.

Importantly, the Court rejected arguments by the U.S. and other Western governments that sought to claim that the Court should defer to post-Oslo negotiations between the occupier and the occupied, and to the politics of the Security Council, rather than the application of international law. The Court, in rejecting these claims, declared that such negotiations and agreements do not and cannot trump the rights of the Palestinians and the obligations of Israel under international human rights and humanitarian law. The Court found first that, in any event, the parties have to exercise any powers and responsibilities under those agreements with due regard for the norms and principles of international law.

Invoking article 47 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Court then put the matter to rest for good, reminding states that, as a matter of law, “the protected population ‘shall not be deprived’ of the benefits of the Convention ‘by any agreement concluded between the authorities of the occupied territories and the Occupying Power.’”

“For this reason,” the Court continued, “the Oslo Accords cannot be understood to detract from Israel’s obligations under the pertinent rules of international law applicable in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” With the bang of a gavel, the Court had ended decades of Israeli legal exceptionalism and launched a process for the dismantling of the Western constructed Israeli wall of impunity.

In the meantime, at the United Nations, international human rights investigators were issuing their own findings of Israeli regime apartheid and genocide. The UN’s Special Rapporteur on human rights in Palestine issued a series of powerful reports documenting these crimes, followed by further reports from the UN’s thematic human rights rapporteurs, and, ultimately a UN-mandated Commission of Inquiry.

Outside the UN, international human rights organizations, as well as those in Palestine and Israel, joined the global consensus, as did prominent international lawyers and the International Association of Genocide Scholars, sealing the global consensus on genocide in Palestine.

Thereafter, the findings of the judicial and expert bodies of the international system finally broke through to the political bodies of the UN. On September 18, 2024, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a dramatic resolution effectively codifying the findings of the ICJ, declaring the occupation and apartheid unlawful, demanding an end to the entire occupation and the assault on Gaza, and setting a one-year deadline for Israeli compliance, after which the UNGA promised further measures.

For the first time in decades, the stage was set for real Israel regime accountability.

Global civil society activists, led by representatives of Palestinian civil society, seized on the unprecedented opportunity of the one-year deadline (violated entirely by the Israeli regime) to formulate an agenda for Israeli accountability and Palestinian protection. They developed a plan for adoption in the UNGA at the end of the deadline that would use the extraordinary power of the Assembly under the Uniting for Peace process to circumvent the U.S. veto in the Security Council and mandate concrete measures for accountability and protection.

This would include a UNGA call for sanctions, a military embargo, the rejection of the credentials of the Israeli regime, the establishment of a criminal tribunal, the reactivation of the UN’s anti-apartheid mechanisms, and the mandating of a UN protection force to protect civilians, ensure humanitarian aid, preserve evidence of Israeli crimes, and facilitate reconstruction. Importantly, the protection force would be mandated on the basis of Palestinian consent, with no Chapter 7 power to impose itself against the will of the indigenous people, thus obviating fears of a proxy occupation.

The initiative was subsequently embraced by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who, in his speech before the 80th Session of the UNGA, promised to introduce the proposal, as a draft resolution was prepared and diplomatic action proceeded to secure other co-sponsors.

The French-Saudi Track

But the unprecedented possibility for Israeli accountability presented by the UNGA resolution and deadline was not lost on Israel’s allies either, who worked feverishly to forestall any possibility of such accountability coming into force.

The tactics they adopted had become all too familiar during the decades of Oslo: divert attention away from accountability under international law and into a loose political process and the promise of a possible Palestinian state at some point in the future; compel Palestinians to negotiate for their rights with their oppressor; and work to normalize the Israeli regime as it consolidates its conquest of Palestine.

In sum, the true focus of these initiatives is not on saving Palestine, but rather on saving Israel and Zionism, even in the wake of a genocide.

French President Emannuel Macron made the intentions of his initiative clear in a letter to his Israeli regime counterpart in September of 2025. In it, he openly brags about his efforts in France to equate anti-Zionism with antisemitism in order to punish dissent to his pro-Israel rule, and then tells Netanyahu that his actions at the UN (including recognizing an unarmed Palestinian Bantustan) are meant “to transform the military gains Israel has achieved on regional fronts into a lasting political victory, to the benefit of its security and prosperity…to [secure] Israel’s …full regional integration in the Middle East…its normalization…[and] the end of Hamas.”

In other words, the French-Saudi proposal is not about holding the regime accountable for its genocide and aggression in the region, but rather to shore up the Zionist project in Western Asia, to consolidate its unlawful gains, and to normalize it on the international stage.

The final product of the French-Saudi proposal was the New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, endorsed by the UNGA in September of 2025, just eight days before the expiration of the deadline for Israeli compliance set by Assembly. Notably, the declaration mentions neither the genocide nor the crime of apartheid and contains no accountability measures for the Israeli regime whatsoever. It was, in effect, a last-minute defensive maneuver to preserve the wall of Israeli impunity that the West had so carefully built up over eight decades.

In essence, the declaration reads like a blueprint for the further entrenching of the unjust status quo that existed before October of 2023, but with some extra rewards for Israel, and an amorphous promise of a limited Palestinian state somewhere down the road. Indeed, it promises to advance normalization and regional cooperation for Israel on trade, infrastructure, energy, and security. Ignoring justice and accountability altogether, the declaration instead dedicates itself to “peace, security, and stability,” reduces the genocide in Gaza to an armed conflict in which both sides are at fault, and declares yet another political process toward a “two-state solution” as the only way forward. Ignoring the U.S. role as a co-perpetrator in the genocide, it explicitly supports the role of the U.S. as a mediator (alongside Egypt and Qatar).

While it demands that Hamas free all Israeli captives, it only provides for the “exchange” of some Palestinian captives. And in flagrant disregard for the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people, it purports to impose its own governance framework, with the Palestinian Authority (with “international support”) to be in charge of all Palestinian territory, and Hamas to be excluded from governance in Gaza. Eventual elections would be open only to those committed to respect the PLO (and therefore the PA) political platform.

Palestinian resistance groups defending their land and people against occupation, apartheid, and genocide are to be disarmed under the plan, while the Israeli perpetrator regime faces no such disarmament, and any eventual Palestinian state is itself envisaged by the plan to be a disarmed and defenseless entity. In other provisions, the plan would promote “deradicalization,” a dangerous concept born of the so-called “global war on terrorism,” in which populations are subjected to propaganda programmes (and often punitive measures) designed to discourage resistance to foreign domination and abusive regimes — despite the fact that such resistance is a right under international law.

The plan also proposes the deployment of troops to Palestine under a “stabilization mission” to be mandated by the UN Security Council. While the mandate of the mission would include civilian protection and security guarantees for Palestine, it would also be responsible for transferring “internal security responsibilities” to the security forces of the Palestinian Authority, disarming all other factions, providing “border security” (i.e., ensure no Palestinians escape from the Gaza cage), and for guaranteeing security for the (hyper-armed, nuclear capable, and thoroughly militarized) Israeli regime.

In other words, the mission would keep an eye on all Palestinian resistance and guarantee the impunity of the Israeli regime.

The Trump Track

Following up on his earlier King Leopold-esque promise to “own Gaza” and to build a colonized Riviera on the bones of its genocided population, Trump announced his 20-point plan at the end of September.

In the long-standing tradition of Western imperial arrogance in Palestine dating back to Sykes-Picot and the Balfour Declaration, Trump’s 20 points were not negotiated with the Palestinians before he issued them. Indeed, Palestinians were not consulted or involved in their drafting. Rather, in a blatant act of 21st Century gunboat diplomacy, they were presented as a unilateral dictate from the U.S.-Israel axis, accompanied by violent threats of total destruction if they were not accepted.

The document was the product of an international rogue’s gallery of characters — which, in addition to genocide-complicit Trump and ICC-indicted fugitive Netanyahu, included notorious figures like Iraq war criminal Tony Blair and Trump’s billionaire son-in-law (and family friend of Netanyahu) Jared Kushner. The group did consult some of its complicit Arab and Muslim allies, but they subsequently complained that the document had been changed in fundamental ways by Trump and Netanyahu after their endorsement.

Netanyahu, who was allowed to make last-minute changes to the text before issuance, then stood with Trump to say he agreed to it — but within hours, was publicly renouncing elements of the plan and pledging that there would never be a Palestinian state, and that Israeli soldiers would not leave Gaza.

To be clear, this is not a peace plan or a plan for ending the Israel Palestine conflict. It provides no promise of Palestinian liberation, no restoration of the rights of the Palestinian people, and no guarantee of Palestinian statehood and self-determination. Instead, it provides a vague and hyper-qualified reference to “conditions” that “may emerge” sometime in the future, if Gaza re-development advances, and if the PA reforms to the satisfaction of the U.S. imperial overlords. Outrageously, the plan concludes with the U.S. arrogating to itself the role of mediator between Palestine and its Israeli occupier for any future political settlement, which would guarantee many more horrific decades of Palestinian persecution as they are forced to negotiate for their rights with their oppressor and that oppressor’s chief sponsor.

Tellingly, the 20 points contain not a word about the genocide, about apartheid, or about root causes. There is to be no accountability for the perpetrators. No redress for the victims. And the plan promises not the deradicalization of the regime perpetrating genocide, but rather of the Palestinian victims of that genocide. It is directed at ensuring that the exterminated people of Gaza “pose no threat” to its neighbors, with no guarantee that the Israeli regime, the perpetrator of the genocide, the occupier of three Arab nations, and the author of serial aggression against half a dozen neighboring countries and a spate of transnational assassinations will pose no threat. Palestinian security forces will be vetted by the U.S.-led stabilization force. There will be no such vetting of Israeli forces, the ranks of which are rife with perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

The roots of this plan in Trump’s earlier threat to “own Gaza” and to exploit a “Gaza Riveria,” are revealed in the text itself. Under Trump’s new plan, Gaza will be ruled by a colonial body headed by Donald Trump himself, with another prominent place on the body held by disgraced UK politician Tony Blair. The body, in typical Trumpian style, is dubbed “The Board of Peace.”

This body would set the framework and handle the funding for the redevelopment of Gaza (through the “Trump Economic Development Plan”), positioning it to control all resources coming in from Gulf and European donors, with no oversight. The possibility of staggering levels of corruption would seem self-evident. The unchecked external control, extraction, and exploitation of Palestine’s economic resources would be inevitable. And note that there is no mention of Israel’s international legal obligations to provide compensation and reparations for the damage it has inflicted on Gaza.

While the plan usurps Palestinian agency by controlling Palestinian resources and designating Palestinian leaders, it also purports to exclude some Palestinians from the right to be involved in the governance of their own country. The role of Hamas, for example, should be a matter for Hamas and the Palestinian people to decide. Under this plan, Hamas is to be excluded not by decision of the Palestinian people, but rather by dictate from the U.S., which has decreed that Hamas (“and other factions”) will not have any role in the governance of Gaza, “directly, indirectly, or in any form.”

And in other provisions, the resistance is to be entirely disarmed, and its military infrastructure destroyed. Notably, the plan also provides for the destruction of Gaza’s tunnels, which have been essential not only for the defense of the territory, but also for the critical movement of persons and goods during the many unlawful Israeli sieges on the territory.

Reminiscent of the Eight Nation Invasion of China in 1900, the plan even proposes a multinational proxy occupation force led by the U.S. with the participation of “Arab and international partners” that will “stabilize” Gaza, impose “internal security,” secure the borders (i.e., ensure the continued caging of the Palestinians), and prevent the Palestinians from rearming, leaving them defenseless against Israeli aggression.

The plan provides no expectation of a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, only the possibility of a phased redeployment to the margins of Gaza and the maintenance of an Israeli “security perimeter” to remain indefinitely inside Gaza. And any partial withdrawal of Israeli regime forces that may occur is to be based on as yet undefined “standards, milestones, and time frames” that are linked to the disarming of Palestinians, and that will be determined by the U.S., by the stabilization force headed by the U.S., and by the Israeli forces that are armed, funded, and supported by the U.S. — yet another indicator of the proxy occupation nature of the plan.

While the plan provides for a significant increase in aid to the survivors of the genocide in Gaza, that aid is (unlawfully) conditioned on the acceptance by Hamas of Trump’s terms — and even then, aid quantities would be limited by the terms of the previous ceasefire of January 19, 2025. Similarly, opening of the Rafah crossing is to be subject to the same mechanism implemented under the January agreement, and thus will be still subject to continued restrictions. And it provides for the possible denial of humanitarian aid to certain areas of Gaza if Hamas is deemed to have delayed the process.

Where key details are scarce in the plan, there is also reason for worry, given that the document explicitly cites Trump’s 2020 peace plan (as well as the French-Saudi proposal described above) as part of the basis for subsequent stages in the process. Readers will recall that the 2020 plan included the further expansion of Israeli territory, the annexation of much of the West Bank, the renunciation of all Palestinian legal claims against Israel, the exclusion of Palestine from East Jerusalem, and the creation of an archipelago of Palestinian Bantustans surrounded by Israeli settlements, borders, and walls.

Even the more concrete elements of the plan are heavily weighted in favor of the Israeli perpetrator and against the besieged and persecuted Palestinian people.

For example, the release of all Israeli captives (of whom there are only a few dozen) is to take place within 72 hours. The release of Palestinian captives unlawfully held by Israel (of whom there are some 11,000) on the other hand, will only include a small proportion of those held at some unspecified time after all Israelis are returned. In all, less than 2,000 of the 11,000 Palestinian captives held by Israel are to be released.

Similarly, the remains of approximately 25 Israeli captives are thought to be held in Gaza, while the remains of some 2,000 deceased Palestinians are held by the Israeli regime. While the Trump plan stipulates the release of all Israeli remains, it only provides for the release of a portion of the Palestinian remains.

And some potentially positive provisions of the document are undercut by contradictory provisions elsewhere in the document.

For example, the document promises a ceasefire, amnesty, and safe passage for Hamas members; a commitment that no one will be forced to leave Gaza and that those who wish to leave will be free to do so and to return; that Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza; and that aid will flow through the UN and Red Crescent without interference.

However, while committing to the free flow of aid, it elsewhere implicitly imposes restrictions on aid. While promising no Israeli occupation, it also implies that Israeli regime forces will remain in Gaza indefinitely. And vague wording leaves unclear whether the essential role of UNRWA (which the U.S. and Israel have falsely claimed is associated with Hamas) will be allowed, and whether the genocide-complicit role of the perfidious GHF scheme (which the U.S. falsely claims is not associated with the Israeli regime) will be allowed to continue.

In parts, the Trump plan itself is unlawful. The conditioning of humanitarian aid, implicit threats of collective punishment if Hamas does not agree, the explicit denial of Palestinian self-determination, restrictions on political rights, the requirement that Palestinians negotiate for their inalienable human rights with their oppressors, and the failure to seek accountability for Israeli crimes including genocide, are all breaches of the international legal obligations of the United States.

For its part, Hamas seized on the practical and implementable elements of the first phase of the plan (ceasefire, exchange of captives, etc.) for negotiation while refusing to surrender the cause of Palestine or to submit to the remainder of the document. Hamas said that the rest of the issues in the document were to be “discussed within a comprehensive Palestinian national framework, in which Hamas will be included and will contribute with full responsibility.”

And the outright rejection of the plan by representatives of Palestinian civil society demonstrates the dignified steadfastness of Palestinian society in struggling for their freedom, even in the darkest of times.

The Struggle Continues

As this goes to press, moves are underway to effectively merge the French-Saudi plan with the Trump plan, and to have it blessed in the UN Security Council. But the colonial machinations of Trump, Macron, and others cannot obscure the fundamental reality confronting the world today: a single colonial regime planted in the heart of Western Asia is perpetrating apartheid, genocide, belligerent occupation, and serial aggression across the region and corrupting governments and institutions far beyond.

The unprecedented, Western-sponsored impunity of that regime is undercutting the very sustainability of international law, trampling on human rights, and jeopardizing peace and security across the region. Finally holding that regime accountable remains a vital, even existential imperative for the world.

In the meantime, for a people enduring genocide, any ceasefire is to be celebrated. But few are under the illusion that this ceasefire means a definitive end to the genocide, or the beginning of Palestinian freedom. No sustainable peace can be built on the weak foundation of Trump’s vanity and greed, Macron’s colonial nostalgia, or Netanyahu’s deceit and racist brutality.

Only justice can provide that foundation. And among the three tracks discussed in this article, only one travels toward justice.

Palestinian society has pointed the way, the UN human rights mechanisms, the ICJ, and the landmark UNGA resolution of September 2024 have joined the cause, and the world has risen up in solidarity. Now more than ever, that solidarity must be sustained, multiplied, and acted upon. The Israeli regime, its co-perpetrators in Washington, its proxies across the West, complicit governments, media companies that have supported the genocide, and corporations that have profited from it must all be held accountable if justice is to be done.

Normalization of the Israeli regime and its crimes must end. Genocide must be a red line. And Palestine must be free.

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Craig Mokhiber

Craig Mokhiber is an international human rights lawyer and former senior United Nations Official. He left the UN in October of 2023, penning a widely read letter that warned of genocide in Gaza, criticized the international response, and called for a new approach to Palestine and Israel based on equality, human rights, and international law.