International Politics

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In 2023, Craig Mokhiber resigned from position as a UN director in New York, accusing the international body of failing to prevent what he termed a 'textbook genocide' being committed by Israel in Gaza.

This idea, this talking point that comes out of the West that uh these are Iranian proxies that are somehow, you
know, causing havoc on behalf of Iran is absolute nonsense. What you're talking about is countries that have been subjected to external aggression, foreign occupation, colonial domination, racist regimes, systematic murder that have therefore, as is always the case in history, developed resistance groups that fight back as a deterrent, which is their right under international law. Of course, those carrying out that resistance has to also respect international law by distinguishing between civilian and military targets and so on, the principles of of distinction and precaution and proportionality, all of that. But they have a right. And what has happened in the west in countries like the UK and the United States is in defense of the aggressor and in Western Asia, we're talking principally about the Israeli regime. It has declared that anyone who resists that aggressor are terrorists and they think that using the term terrorist is a magic word under international law. It is not. Terrorism is not even defined in international law. International law uses international humanitarian law, international human rights law, the law and the use of force to define what is and is not legitimate action. And you don't get to just declare that your enemies are terrorists and therefore suspend all of international law and say, "One, these folks have no right to fight back and two, we have a right to kill them." That's not how international law works. Hezbollah in Lebanon is a Lebanese group born, bred, raised, and fighting for Lebanon that did not exist before the aggression and occupation of Lebanon by the Israeli regime. Hamas is an indigenous Palestinian group, resistance group that did not exist before the 1980s and the atrocities, the serial atrocities perpetrated by the Israeli regime through occupation and colonization and systematic torture and extrajudicial executions and mass detention and dungeons uh all all around the territory. But the idea that you can simply say they are proxies of another government. You know, their alliance with Iran does not make them proxies.