Alfred De Zayas examines Western complicity in Gaza’s genocide, urging international prosecutions, sanctions and boycotts to end Israel’s continuing impunity.
Three years into the Gaza genocide, Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity are rampant in Gaza, the OPT, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran. The genocide continues and the world lets it happen. There is no end in sight.
On November 17, 2025, a fake ‘Board of Peace’ was established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 2803, essentially outsourcing peace to a ‘Board’ under the control of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. It is inconceivable why China and Russia only abstained from this resolution instead of vetoing it, because it makes a mockery of hundreds of Security Council, General Assembly, and Human Rights Council resolutions, discarding three pertinent Advisory Opinions of the International Court of Justice and ignoring the ongoing ICJ proceedings in the case South Africa v. Israel.
The Security Council has failed to stop the genocide because the United States has prevented the Council from adopting effective measures under Chapter VII of the UN Charter and has not been able to sanction Israel, not even impose an arms embargo. The General Assembly has failed to adopt a ‘Uniting for Peace’ resolution, has not assumed its responsibilities under Articles 11 -12 of the Charter, and has not even invited member States to BDS Israel and the United States for their revolt against the purposes and principles of the UN Charter.
As the genocide proceeds, Israel doubles down on its efforts to realize the Greater Israel project, a failed neo-colonialist experiment that contravenes the UN Charter, and numerous treaties including the 1949 Geneva Red Cross Conventions and its 1977 Protocols. Ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians and Lebanese cannot be considered part of a ‘war’; it constitutes genocide within the meaning of the 1948 Genocide Convention and should be investigated and punished by the ICC. Meanwhile, the President of the US, Donald Trump, has imposed illegal unilateral coercive measures, wrongly called “sanctions,” on the President of the ICC, the ICC secretariat, and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Situation in Palestine, Professor Francesca Albanese.
Far from respecting the announced peace imperatives of the ‘Board of Peace ’, Israel has aggressed its neighbors, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, and started two wars against Iran, hitherto in total impunity. It seems, however, that Netanyahu has maneuvered himself into a geopolitical and media corner, and has become an international persona non grata, Israel being more and more isolated on the world stage.
Not only have Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch called a spade a spade and documented the Gaza genocide, but numerous Israeli and Jewish scholars have also called Israel’s crimes “genocide”, among them Professors Ilan Pappé, Jeffrey Sachs, Omer Bartov and Norman Finkelstein. Non-Jewish scholars like Professor John Mearsheimer decry the genocide in numerous studies and interviews, not intimidated by bogus accusations of ‘antisemitism’. Indeed, the ‘antisemitism’ weapon seems to be losing its sting, as most people are waking up to a realization that Israel is a terrorist State, at odds with international law and civilization. People have understood that Israel is a failed state, incapable of living in peace with its neighbors.
Notwithstanding the Israeli lobby in the United States and the influence of the pro-Israel mainstream media in the West, the Global Majority in the world understands who the torturer is and who is the victim of torture. Israel has lost most of its friends — other than President Donald Trump and some incorrigible vassals in Europe, including the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
But even in the United States, the majority of the American public has understood that the Greater Israel project is a failed project, that it is contrary to the interests of the American people, and that it has become an albatross around the neck of the US economy. Only the two-state solution can settle the Israeli-Palestinian war, but this will not be possible under Netanyahu. Alas, the other contenders in the Israeli elections are also genocidal Zionists, giving us little hope for change originating in Israel. A comprehensive BDS campaign and the economic isolation of Israel become inescapable.
The moral bankruptcy of Israel, the United States, and Europe has become more evident than ever. Pursuant to Article IIIe of the genocide convention, it is obvious that any state that provides military, political, economic, diplomatic and propagandistic support to a genocidal state is complicit in the crime of genocide. The International Criminal Court has jurisdiction and can prosecute these crimes under Article 6 of the Statute of Rome.
The Western corporate media that has disseminated lies about the events of October 7, 2023 and downplayed the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are also complicit in the genocide pursuant to article IIIc of the Genocide Convention.
On May 22, 2024, the Geneva International Peace Research Institute (GIPRI) and the Collectif de Juristes pour le Respect des Engagements Internationaux de la France (CJRF) submitted a legal brief to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, requesting the opening of an investigation against Ursula von der Leyen for complicity in war crimes and genocide against Palestinian civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including the Gaza Strip. Hitherto, no action has been taken on the Article 15 ICC statute submission.
On May 15, 2025, GIPRI submitted a new legal brief to the ICC, endorsed by various human rights groups, prominent academics and experts in international criminal law, calling on the Prosecutor to initiate investigations on the basis of the information provided against Mrs. Ursula von der Leyen, Kaja Kallas and the European Union itself.
These persons are responsible for aiding and abetting crimes and violations of international humanitarian law, within the meaning of Article 25(3)(c) of the Rome Statute. Mrs von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas enjoy no functional immunity before the International Criminal Court by virtue of Article 27 of the Rome Statute. They are complicit in violations of Articles 6, 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute by their positive actions (military, political, economic, diplomatic support to Israel) and by their failure to take timely action on behalf of the European Commission to help prevent genocide as required by the 1948 Genocide Convention.
Conclusions and Recommendations
We all have a legal and moral obligation to denounce the ongoing genocide and to join the BDS campaign against both Israel and the United States.
Readers are invited to address petitions to the International Criminal Court and demand that the Prosecutor initiate investigations with a view to issuing arrest warrants not only against Netanyahu and Gallant, but also against President Donald Trump, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Ursula von der Leyen, Kaja Kallas, Mark Rutte and all accomplices in the Gaza genocide and the escalation into Lebanon, Syria and Iran.
In the meantime, States that are respectful of the UN Charter and the Genocide Convention should consider activating the inter-State complaints procedures provided for by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and by other international human rights treaties.
Moreover, States should consider exercising universal jurisdiction and motu proprio initiating investigations of the perpetrators in absentia. Should any of these persons enter their territorial jurisdiction, they should be subject to arrest and prosecution on charges of complicity in the ongoing genocide.
– Alfred-Maurice de Zayas is a Cuban-born American lawyer, historian, writer, and former United Nations official specializing in human rights and international law.