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Defense & Security
The leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) pose for a family picture doing the signature

Sea of Cooperation: New Opportunities for the Development of China - ASEAN Relations

by Andrei Gubin

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском Sea of Cooperation: New Opportunities for the Development of China — ASEAN RelationsSoutheast Asia (SEA) is gaining increasing importance with the changing global order. The region is once again experiencing a period of competition between the “great powers”. During the Cold War some countries managed to stay out of the Soviet-American confrontation, but today, integration into economic, technological, and humanitarian exchanges forces members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to reshape their foreign policy in line with the prioritization of partnerships with various centers of power. SEA has significant economic growth potential, making cooperation beneficial and conflicts costly. Despite the tempting logic of harsh realism in contemporary geopolitical conditions, there remains space in this region for the traditions of idealism and complex interdependence as prerequisites for peaceful coexistence.When Profit Matters More than ClaimsThe ASEAN Summit-2024, held in October in Vientiane, clearly became a platform for a multidimensional dialogue between the “Great East Asian” countries, including India. Almost all participants tried to avoid raising contentious issues; in particular, the new Prime Minister of Japan, Shigeru Ishiba, emphasized Japan’s investments in Southeast Asian countries and avoided discussions about the possibility of forming an “Asian NATO”. Similar ideas about freedom from confrontations and unilateral attempts to change the balance of power were expressed by the President of South Korea, Yoon Suk Yeol. Narendra Modi focused on enhancing multilateral cooperation between Asian states in the fields of information technology, pharmaceuticals, and infrastructure modernization, which would help accelerate the recovery of production and distribution chains after the COVID-19 pandemic. Chairman of the State Council of China, Li Keqiang, firmly pointed to “external forces” as the main culprits of disrupting regional order.According to him, China is ready to work with each ASEAN country in the interest of establishing a common market and achieving sustainable development. The Prime Minister stated that China and Southeast Asian countries are opening up to each other, and this process inevitably contributes to mutual prosperity, which will have a positive impact on the entire world. Notably, in 2023, the trade turnover between China and ASEAN countries exceeded 900 billion USD for the second consecutive year, and has nearly doubled over the past 10 years. The greatest activity is observed in developing relations with Vietnam and Malaysia, which together account for 230 and 191 billion USD, respectively. This means that today, Southeast Asian countries are collectively a more important partner for Beijing (in terms of volume) than the United States or the European Union.It is not surprising that at the events within the framework of the ASEAN Summit, including numerous bilateral meetings, the focus was on mutually beneficial cooperation, including issues related to further removing barriers and optimizing transport routes. Li Keqiang's statement at the 27th China-ASEAN Summit regarding the update of the Free Trade Agreement with the Association highlights the clear dominance of the economic component of cooperation over security issues, ideological differences, and other disagreements. Of course, there are opinions that Laos, in its capacity as chair, deliberately separated political issues from economic ones, but what is wrong with that?Only Philippine President F. Marcos Jr. was left alone, accusing the Chinese Coast Guard of reckless and unjustified pressure in the «exclusive economic zone». This is despite the fact that in July, an agreement was reached allowing the Philippines to deliver supplies to the “Sierra Madre” ship, which had been intentionally grounded 10 years ago at the Ayungin Shoal as a forward post for a Marine Corps unit.Professionally and SafelyToday, the South China Sea (SCS) is home to some of the busiest maritime communication routes. At least 500,000 vessels pass through the region each year, accounting for approximately 40% of global cargo traffic, and more than a million civilian flights cross the airspace above the sea annually. This high intensity of exchanges increases the importance of ensuring the safety of transport amidst unresolved disputes over the delimitation of the exclusive economic zone, the ownership of parts of the Spratly and Paracel Islands, and the escalation of US-China geopolitical tensions in the Asia-Pacific region. Formally, the multilateral dispute over the islands and maritime areas between ASEAN member states and China remains unresolved.In September, the Beijing-based South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative published a report on the situation in the region. The authors of the document note that in recent years, the United States has pursued an offensive strategy to contain China, primarily using the “instability factor” in the South China Sea to escalate the multilateral dispute and fuel anti-China sentiments. Washington has also encouraged territorial claims by ASEAN countries against China, based on its own interpretation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the concept of a “rules-based order”. So far, these flare-ups of claims against Beijing, which are sometimes accompanied by incidents between coast guard vessels, have not resulted in significant disruptions to freedom of navigation and air traffic. Moreover, China notes that the majority of the contacts have been “professional and safe”. Undoubtedly, in the event of increased tensions—such as more active actions by the air force, navy, and coast guards of various countries toward Chinese aircraft and vessels—logistical routes would need to be reorganized, which could lead to significant losses not only for China but for the entire regional economy. However, despite attempts by the US and its allies to assign special geopolitical significance to the situation in Southeast Asia, the situation remains manageable. As a result, Beijing still believes that peaceful resolution is possible.China Daily cites the opinion of specialists from the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), who believe that, in terms of ensuring the stability of international trade flows, freedom of navigation in the South China Sea is not under threat. However, in the military dimension, instability is growing, primarily due to excessive US interference.[1] The Institute argues that American activities, which involve sending military ships and aircraft to demonstrate power, only provoke disputes over sovereignty and borders. Such actions create a dangerous misconception among the leadership of several countries that Washington will intervene if necessary to contain China's expansion, thus assisting in resolving the dispute through pressure. The demonization and constant condemnation of China have already negatively affected bilateral relations with the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, which requires significant diplomatic efforts from the Chinese leadership to normalize relations.Military activity is noticeably increasing in Southeast Asia, involving both regional and non-regional states. In addition to the United States, countries such as Japan, Australia, and European NATO members — Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands — are also becoming involved. In total, the US Navy conducts over 1,600 ship hours annually in the region, with at least 3,000 additional ship hours contributed by auxiliary forces. In the airspace above the South China Sea, approximately 30,000 sorties by combat aircraft and helicopters were recorded in 2023, a third of which involved non-regional states, with no fewer than 7,800 sorties conducted by the US Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps.At CIIS, it is believed that through military actions, Washington is “inflating” its own importance in ensuring freedom of navigation, despite the fact that the US has no merit in this — China itself does not hinder shipping and views patrol and training missions from other countries with understanding. However, joint coast guard exercises between the two most outspoken opponents of China's activities in the South China Sea (the Philippines and Vietnam), as well as “ASEAN-wide” naval maneuvers, initiated by Indonesia, have attracted the attention of the PLA command. The main troublemaker in the region, according to Beijing, is the United States, which effectively ignores the “rules” it established for the safe passage of ships, vessels, and aircraft, constantly maintaining a military presence in the region where the greatest threat actually comes from US military forces. These actions are seen as an attempt to maintain hegemony in the face of “strategic retreat” and to push regional countries away from expanding cooperation with China by artificially creating an unsettled atmosphere and undermining multilateral confidence-building measures.The Chinese leadership's course of separating trade, economic, and investment cooperation from territorial disputes is generally understood by Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, and Singapore, which claim parts of the Spratly Islands. However, it has also become a target for criticism from radical circles in these countries, clearly incited by Washington. As negotiations have shown, China and Southeast Asian countries are capable of independently developing mutually acceptable rules of action in the South China Sea, based on international law principles and taking into account each other's interests and concerns. The main idea is to establish direct dialogue in any disputed situation, maintain a constant consultation mechanism, preserve constructive negotiations, and adhere to the principle of peaceful resolution.ASEAN countries clearly do not want confrontation with Beijing, but they are in urgent need of a reliable system for peacefully managing any activities in the waters and on the continental shelf, which still needs to be developed together, ensuring guarantees of unhindered access for exploitation. Peace and cooperation in the South China Sea are inseparable, and collective responsibility for security will invariably contribute to the development of multidimensional ties, further increase trade volume, and lead to the emergence of the Sea of Cooperation on the world map.Reference1. Jiang, Chenglong. South China Sea disputes still ‘manageable’. China Daily. September 28-29, 2024. P. 2.

Energy & Economics
Middle East Conflict. Conceptual photo

How might a wider Middle East conflict affect the global economy?

by Ahmet Kaya

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском The world economy is underperforming as a result of tight monetary policies, weaker global trade, a slowing Chinese economy and uncertainty around the US election. An escalation of conflict in the Middle East could increase uncertainties, harming inflation reduction efforts and hurting growth. It has been over a year since the Hamas-led attack on Israel. Israel’s response in Gaza has resulted in widespread destruction and significant loss of life. The conflict has since expanded beyond Gaza, involving the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iranian strikes targeting Israel. In addition to the awful humanitarian cost of the conflicts, the war and the possibility of its further expansion pose significant repercussions for the global economy. This article discusses three potential ways in which the current conflict and a wider conflict in the Middle East could affect the global economy. Increased geopolitical uncertainties First and foremost, an escalation of the Middle East conflict could lead to greater geopolitical uncertainties. Figure 1 shows the evolution of the geopolitical risk (GPR) and geopolitical acts (GPRA) indices (Caldara and Iacoviello, 2022) – these are text-based measures of heightened uncertainties due to adverse geopolitical events such as wars, terrorism and international tensions. (See this article for more discussion about these measures.) Following the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023, both the overall GPR index and its ‘war and terror acts’ component spiked strongly, to a level higher than that seen during the ISIS attack in Paris in November 2015. Both indices eased significantly in the months following October 2023 despite the continuation of the conflict. But they jumped again following Israel’s attack on southern Lebanon in September 2024. As of mid-October 2024, the GPR and GPRA remain, respectively, 21% and 35% higher than their historical averages.   What might be the consequences of such elevated levels of risk? Research tells us that higher geopolitical risk raises oil prices (Mignon and Saadaoui, 2024). It also reduces global investment and increases inflation (Caldara et al, 2022). Greater geopolitical risk has a significantly negative impact on business and consumer confidence in several advanced economies (de Wet, 2023). This is because consumers typically cut non-essential spending and businesses postpone investment decisions during turbulent times. This reduces firm-level investment, particularly for businesses with higher initial investment costs and greater market power (Wang et al, 2023). Higher geopolitical risks also reduce global trade and financial flows, causing greater volatility in capital flows in emerging markets (Kaya and Erden, 2023). Oil production cuts and higher energy prices The second way in which the Middle East conflict could affect the global economy is its impact on energy prices, both directly through production cuts and indirectly through greater uncertainties. In response to Israel’s actions against its neighbours, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) could reduce oil production to penalise countries supporting Israel. A similar action in the 1970s led to a significant jump in oil prices, which contributed to years of stagflation, with higher global inflation and recessions in major economies. Before Israel's attack on Lebanon at the end of September, oil prices had been declining due to falling demand, particularly from China. On the supply side, oil production had increased in Canada and the United States, countering the production cuts by OPEC, and Saudi Arabia was expected to increase oil production from December. But the situation quickly reversed following Israel’s attack on Lebanon. Oil prices jumped by nearly $10 per barrel within a week, before easing by around $5 per barrel. While the immediate oil price impact of Israel’s attack has mostly faded, the potential for higher oil (and other energy) prices still poses a risk to global inflation and economic activity (Liadze et al, 2022). To provide further context for the potential scale of this impact, we can show what would happen if oil and gas prices were to remain $10 higher for two years than the baseline levels projected in the Summer Global Economic Outlook from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), using NIESR’s Global Macroeconometric Model (NiGEM). The results demonstrate that the $10 rise in oil and gas prices increases inflation by around 0.7 percentage points in major economies in the first year (see Figure 2). The impact is higher in China, where the economy relies relatively more on oil imports for its strong manufacturing industries. The inflationary pressures persist for two years despite central banks’ efforts to curb inflation by increasing interest rates.   The effect of higher oil and gas prices on real GDP is shown in Figure 3. In the scenario described above, GDP would fall by 0.1-0.2% in major economies immediately. Partly due to higher interest rates, real GDP would continue to weaken for three years following the shock. After this, economic activity would start to return to base levels as oil and gas prices revert to their levels in the baseline forecast.   Increased shipping costs and supply chain disruptions A wider conflict in the Middle East could also affect the economy through higher shipping costs and supply chain disruptions. Houthi attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea in late 2023 showed that such disruptions can have a huge impact on global trade through shipping, which comprises 80% of world trade volume. Following the rocket attacks by the Houthi rebels, some commercial shipping re-routed from the Red Sea to the Cape of Good Hope, leading to significant delays in travel times and increased freight costs. As a result, the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index – a measure of sea freight rates – rose by around 260% in the second quarter of 2024 with additional disruptions to supply chains. Our analysis shows that an increase of 10 percentage points in shipping cost inflation can lead to import prices rising by up to around 1% and consumer inflation increasing by around 0.5% in OECD countries. As Figure 4 shows, the impact of shipping costs on inflation shows its full effects over six quarters. This means that inflationary concerns could be with us for the next year and a half as a result of higher shipping costs that may emerge from any possible escalation of the Middle East conflict.   Wider economic implications and policy responses While rising geopolitical risk and increased oil and shipping costs can each individually exert upward pressure on inflation and may slow down economic activity in the global economy, the combined impacts are likely to be greater. Countries with stronger trade and financial ties to the Middle East and those that rely heavily on oil imports as an input for domestic production would be most affected. On the monetary policy front, central banks may have to take a more hawkish stance in response to rising inflationary pressures from the Middle East conflict. This could lead to higher interest rates, which would further dampen economic activity, particularly in an environment where there are already recessionary concerns in some major economies. Beyond its immediate economic implications, an escalation of the Middle East conflict could trigger large-scale displacement of people, which would increase economic and social pressures on neighbouring countries. Many countries may also have to increase their military spending in response to growing regional tensions. Given that public debt levels are already elevated in many countries due to successive shocks to the global economy over the past decade, any additional defence spending could come at the expense of public infrastructure investments that would otherwise boost productivity growth. Overall, the global economy is already underperforming as a result of the lagged effects of tight monetary policies, weaker global trade, a slowing Chinese economy and uncertainties surrounding the upcoming US election and possible changes to US trade policy. A potential escalation of conflict in the Middle East could exacerbate the situation by increasing uncertainties, harming efforts to bring down inflation and reducing global GDP growth. Over the medium and long term, it could further damage the global economy, with the possibility of refugee crises as well as increased defence spending, making the effects more complex and longer lasting. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Diplomacy
Istanbul, Turkey - 10 October 2023: Turkish people wave Turkish and Palestinian flags during a march in support of Palestine and Gaza. Protest against Israel.

Political Insights (14): Determinants of the Turkish Policy on Operation al-Aqsa Flood

by Dr. Sa‘id al-Haj

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском Operation al-Aqsa Flood occurred amid Türkiye’s normalization of relations with Israel and its intent to further develop economic cooperation, particularly in the energy sector, which initially influenced Türkiye’s position in the early days. However, as Israeli massacres unfolded, Ankara’s stance on the war on Gaza Strip (GS) evolved both in statements and actions, placing Türkiye in ongoing political conflict with Israel, and particularly with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. First: Determinants of the Turkish Position The Turkish stance on Operation al-Aqsa Flood was shaped by several key factors, foremost among them: • It came as part of Türkiye’s broader efforts to de-escalate and normalize relations with several regional powers in recent years, aiming to resolve foreign policy crises and avoid regional conflicts that could threaten stability.• It came in the context of restoring diplomatic relations with Israel, reinstating ambassadors, and expressing a desire to cooperate primarily in the field of energy in the Eastern Mediterranean. There was also a clear intention to separate the Palestine issue from the course of bilateral relations, aiming to keep Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians distinct from its relations with Türkiye, as stated by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.• The traditional view that relations with Israel are one of the key factors in Türkiye’s ties with the US, remains significant. At this stage, Ankara seeks calmer and more positive relations with the US, especially as it awaits the conclusion of the F-16 fighter jet deal.• Türkiye’s advanced relations with both sides of the Palestinian spectrum are evident. On the official side, represented by the PA and President Mahmud ‘Abbas, Türkiye has been a key supporter of Palestinian diplomatic efforts, particularly at the UN. At the same time, Türkiye maintains close ties with the resistance, specifically Hamas.• Türkiye’s aspiration to play a leading role in the region and the Muslim world stems from its belief that achieving this requires taking a prominent stance on the Palestine issue, consistent with Türkiye’s moral and historical position on the matter.• Seeking to align with the popular stance on the Palestine issue, particularly regarding the war on GS, Türkiye has responded to the widespread and intense public anger. The public has demanded actions that correspond to the scale of the genocide and massacres occurring in GS.• The political consensus in Türkiye across various parties, almost without exception, has led to increased pressure on the presidency and the government from opposition parties to adopt stronger positions. This pressure is especially notable from Islamic and conservative parties, which are seen as rivals to the AKP within the conservative segment of society. Second: Aspects of Turkish Position Regarding Operation al-Aqsa Flood The following aspects of Türkiye’s official stance toward Operation al-Aqsa Flood can be observed: • Ankara’s position in the first few days following Operation al-Aqsa Flood was characterized by restraint, taking a balanced approach by speaking of “targeting civilians,” calling on “all parties” to de-escalate, and urging the “release of hostages.”• With the onset of the ground war and the growing popular and partisan opposition within Türkiye against Israeli actions in GS, Ankara fully embraced the Palestinian narrative, condemning Israeli massacres as “genocide,” labeling Israel as a “terrorist state,” and declaring that it had “turned the page” on dealing with Netanyahu, now referring to him as a “war criminal.”• Türkiye rejects the classification of Hamas as a terrorist organization, affirming it as a resistance movement against occupation, viewing it as the first line of defense for Türkiye and the Muslim world. Türkiye has maintained ongoing communication and meetings with Hamas at various levels, including those involving President Erdoğan, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, and the head of the National Intelligence Agency (MIT) İbrahim Kalın.• Willingness to play a mediation role has been evident, as the Palestinian resistance released some foreigners in response to President Erdoğan’s mediation efforts.• Hosting dozens of wounded Palestinians in Türkiye’s hospitals for treatment and sending several aid convoys to Egypt to enter GS. Türkiye is the largest sender of aid, according to official data.• Proposing the deployment of Turkish troops in Palestinian territories as part of the concept of “guarantor states,” positioning Türkiye as one of the guarantor states for the Palestinian side—an idea that was rejected by Israel.• Participating in the joint ministerial committee established by the joint extraordinary summit between the League of Arab States and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to monitor the situation and developments in GS.• As the massacres continued, Türkiye’s position has escalated through the imposition of gradual economic sanctions that could lead to a complete halt of all commercial dealings with Israel, despite reports suggesting alternative routes and third countries for delivering Turkish goods.• Türkiye’s announcement to join South Africa’s genocide case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).• Türkiye announced the dismantling of Israeli Mossad networks operating within its borders during the war months.• Verbal exchanges with Israeli officials, particularly Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz, who threatened Erdoğan with the fate of the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.• Türkiye has consistently criticized the US and European positions for being biased toward Israel, viewing them as partners in crime.• Hosting a speech by Palestinian President Mahmud ‘Abbas before the Türkiye Parliament was a response to Netanyahu’s speech in Congress.• Türkiye has declared solidarity with and support for Lebanon in the face of Israeli threats and warned that Netanyahu’s policies may lead to a regional war that will harm everyone in the region.• On the other hand, the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi— AKP) and its ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi—MHP), rejected several proposals from opposition parties in parliament aimed at investigating the continued flow of Turkish goods to Israel, revoking the citizenship of Turkish nationals who are members in the Israeli army, and other related proposals. Third: Projections In light of the stalemate in field and political developments related to GS in particular and the Palestinian territories in general, it is expected that Türkiye’s official position will remain consistent. This means maintaining a state of political and media engagement with Israel, fully adopting the Palestinian narrative—including the resistance narrative—and condemning the ongoing genocidal war. It is expected that Türkiye’s efforts in the political and legal arenas to criminalize and hold Netanyahu and other Israeli officials involved in the genocide accountable will continue, especially following the killing of Turkish-American activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi in the West Bank, who was shot by Israeli soldiers. Ankara is unlikely to escalate further in the economic sphere, particularly regarding the ongoing transfer of Azerbaijani oil to Israel through its ports. In addition to the developments in the field and political situation related to GS and the resistance, there are two possible factors that may lead to a change or modification of Türkiye’s position in the future. The first is the upcoming US elections and the potential return of Donald Trump to the Oval Office. The second possibility is a regional war involving several parties significant to Türkiye, which could be affected directly or indirectly, primarily Iran, Syria, Greece and Cyprus. This scenario makes it unlikely that Türkiye will remain an observer, especially given its suspicions and concerns about US and Western military buildups in Greece and Cyprus.

Diplomacy
Donald Trump win in US president elections 2024. Washington DC, United Sates Of America - 2024 November 6

What Trump’s victory means for Ukraine, the Middle East, China and the rest of the world

by Stefan Wolff

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025, combined with a Republican-led US Senate, was widely feared among international allies and will be cheered by some of America’s foes. While the former put on a brave face, the latter are finding it hard to hide their glee.  On the war in Ukraine, Trump is likely to try to force Kyiv and Moscow into at least a ceasefire along the current front lines. This could possibly involve a permanent settlement that would acknowledge Russia’s territorial gains, including the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the territories occupied since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.  It is also likely that Trump would accept demands by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to prevent a future Ukrainian Nato membership. Given Trump’s well-known animosity to Nato, this would also be an important pressure on Kyiv’s European allies. Trump could, once again, threaten to abandon the alliance in order to get Europeans to sign up to a deal with Putin over Ukraine.  When it comes to the Middle East, Trump has been a staunch supporter of Israel and Saudi Arabia in the past. He is likely to double down on this, including by taking an even tougher line on Iran. This aligns well with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current priorities.  Netanyahu seems determined to destroy Iran’s proxies Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen and severely degrade Iranian capabilities. By dismissing his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, a critic of his conduct of the offensive in Gaza, Netanyahu has laid the ground for a continuation of the conflict there.  It also prepares for a widening of the offensive in Lebanon and a potentially devastating strike against Iran in response to any further Iranian attack on Israel.  Trump’s election will embolden Netanyahu to act. And this in turn would also strengthen Trump’s position towards Putin, who has come to depend on Iranian support for his war in Ukraine. Trump could offer to restrain Netanyahu in the future as a bargaining chip with Putin in his gamble to secure a deal on Ukraine.  Pivot to China  While Ukraine and the Middle East are two areas in which change looms, relations with China will most likely be characterised more by continuity than by change. With Chinese relations being perhaps the key strategic foreign policy challenge for the US, the Biden administration continued many of the policies Trump adopted in his first term – and Trump is likely to double down on them in a second term.  A Trump White House is likely to increase import tariffs, and he has talked a great deal about using them to target China. But Trump is also just as likely to be open to pragmatic, transactional deals with Chinese president Xi Jinping. Just like in relations with his European allies in Nato, a serious question mark hangs over Trump’s commitment to the defence of Taiwan and other treaty allies in Asia, including the Philippines, South Korea, and potentially Japan. Trump is at best lukewarm on US security guarantees.  But as his on-and-off relationship with North Korea in his first term demonstrated, Trump is, at times, willing to push the envelope dangerously close to war. This happened in 2017 in response to a North Korean test of intercontinental ballistic missiles.  The unpredictability of the regime in Pyongyang makes another close brush of this kind as likely as Trump’s unpredictability makes it conceivable that he would accept a nuclear-armed North Korea as part of a broader deal with Russia, which has developed increasingly close relations with Kim Jong-un’s regime.  Doing so would give Trump additional leverage over China, which has been worried over growing ties between Russia and North Korea.  Preparing for a Trump White House  Friends and foes alike are going to use the remaining months before Trump returns to the White House to try to improve their positions and get things done that would be more difficult to do once he is in office.  An expectation of a Trump push for an end to the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East is likely to lead to an intensification of the fighting there to create what the different parties think might be a more acceptable status quo for them. This does not bode well for the humanitarian crises already brewing in both regions.  Increasing tensions in and around the Korean peninsula are also conceivable. Pyongyang is likely to want to boost its credentials with yet more missile – and potentially nuclear – tests.  A ratcheting-up of the fighting in Europe and the Middle East and of tensions in Asia is also likely to strain relations between the US and its allies in all three regions. In Europe, the fear is that Trump may make deals with Russia over the head of its EU and Nato allies and threaten them with abandonment.  This would undermine the longevity of any Ukrainian (or broader European) deal with Moscow. The relatively dismal state of European defence capabilities and the diminishing credibility of the US nuclear umbrella would not but help to encourage Putin to push his imperial ambitions further once he has secured a deal with Trump.  In the Middle East, Netanyahu would be completely unrestrained. And yet while some Arab regimes might cheer Israel striking Iran and Iranian proxies, they will worry about backlash over the plight of Palestinians. Without resolving this perennial issue, stability in the region, let alone peace, will be all but impossible.  In Asia, the challenges are different. Here the problem is less US withdrawal and more an unpredictable and potentially unmanageable escalation. Under Trump, it is much more likely that the US and China will find it hard to escape the so-called Thucydides trap – the inevitability of war between a dominant but declining power and its rising challenger.  This then raises the question of whether US alliances in the region are safe in the long term or whether some of its partners, like Indonesia or India, will consider realigning themselves with China.  At best, all of this spells greater uncertainty and instability – not only after Trump’s inauguration but also in the months until then.  At worst, it will prove the undoing of Trump’s self-proclaimed infallibility. But by the time he and his team come to realise that geopolitics is a more complicated affair than real estate, they may have ushered in the very chaos that they have accused Biden and Harris of. 

Defense & Security
The flags of the allied resistance groups with Iran, the flags of Hamas, Hezbollah, Yemen, Iraq, Fatimids, the popular uprising and the Islamic Republic of Iran together. Iran Tehran, Jan 7, 2020.

The Limits of Deterrence: Iran's Proxy Power Wanes as Geopolitical Stakes Rise

by Pierre Pahlavi

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском Geopolitical tensions have intensified across the Middle East, amplifying the Iran-Israel standoff and reshaping regional power dynamics. Israel, deeply impacted by recent events, has adopted a more aggressive security stance, intensifying efforts to neutralise perceived threats from Iran’s regional network of proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and various Shiite militias. Far from being minor, these dramatic developments reshape the strategic balance between Iran and Israel while considerably limiting Tehran’s options moving forward.  Strengths and Constraints of Iran’s Asymmetric Strategy  Hezbollah remains the cornerstone of Iran’s strategy in the Middle East, meticulously armed and funded for nearly 40 years to indirectly challenge Israel and the US. With around 150,000 missiles and 80,000 fighters, this Lebanese Shiite militia serves as one of Iran’s main spearheads against Israel, providing a strategic foothold in southern Lebanon, and exerting pressure on Israel’s northern border. However, the destruction of nearly half of Hezbollah’s military capabilities over the past year, as reported by Israeli sources, along with the loss of key military and political leaders, is severely altering the balance between Israel and Iran. While Hezbollah has historically been a strategic shield for Iran, it is now fully reliant on the actions—or inactions—of the Iranian leadership.  The dismantling of Hezbollah’s operational capabilities and the disruption of its decision-making apparatus come alongside the crippling of Hamas—another long-time ally of Tehran in its struggle against Israel. After nearly a year of conflict with the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), Hamas is facing existential challenges, and its leaders, including figures like Yahya Sinwar, have had their ability to act severely weakened.   It would be premature to consider an end to Hamas and Hezbollah. Both groups remain key players in the conflict with Israel despite heavy airstrikes on their command-and-control centers. Despite recent setbacks, they continue receiving support from Iran and other allies, while their actions in Gaza and the Galilee persist. But, although these two organisations remain active, and their ability to recover shouldn’t be underestimated, their operational strength and impact on the balance of power with Israel have been significantly weakened. This, in turn, reduces the short-term influence of their Iranian sponsor in the Levant.   The limits of ballistic deterrence and the nuclear temptation  The neutralisation of Hezbollah and Hamas has significantly reduced the Islamic Republic of Iran’s room for maneuver, and its leaders are faced with choices that, as many analysts observe, all carry major disadvantages.  The ballistic confrontation between Iran and Israel has clearly highlighted the limitations of conventional military capabilities for Tehran. On 13-14 April, Iran launched 170 drones and fired 120 ballistic missiles at Israel in retaliation for the destruction of an annex of its embassy in Damascus. On 1 October, Tehran launched a new salvo of missiles in what it called Operation True Promise Two, in response to the elimination of key Iranian-backed leaders like Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah.   In both cases, the Iranian attacks were aimed at conveying resolve to Israel, reestablishing deterrence, and reassuring the various components of the “Axis of Resistance,” increasingly concerned about Iran’s relative idleness. Each time, however, Israel’s air defence system, supported by its American ally, intercepted the vast majority of Iranian projectiles. During the April exchange of fire, the IDF responded by targeting an airbase in Isfahan tasked with safeguarding the Natanz nuclear facility, highlighting Iran’s vulnerabilities and limitations in its ballistic missile defences.  Given the limitations of its ballistic shield and the diminished potential of its proxy network, Iranian political and military leaders are increasingly aware that these resources are not enough for protecting the Islamic regime. Confronted with Israel’s strategy to contain Iran by dismantling its asymmetric warfare capabilities, they recognise a significant decline in terms of strategic depth. Acknowledging this mounting pressure, they are prompted to seek alternative solutions to compensate for these losses. Consequently, they are rationally driven to fortify the security of their Iranian stronghold by enhancing their nuclear deterrent capabilities.  Since 7 October 2023, the Islamic regime has significantly accelerated its nuclear activities, enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels. By the end of 2023, Iran was producing about nine kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent monthly, raising concerns due to its rapid potential for further enrichment. Despite earlier pauses in production, the rate has surged in response to heightened geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the US, and allies have criticised this acceleration. This summer, Kamal Kharrazi, a close aide to Iran’s Supreme Leader, raised international concerns by mentioning a potential “change in Iran’s nuclear doctrine.”  The Eastern Pivot and Its Drawbacks  However, with no indication that Iran will be able to acquire an effective nuclear umbrella in the short term, the mullahs and the Guardians are compelled to consider alternative solutions. On the diplomatic front, Iranian leaders are faced with two equally unsatisfactory options due to their negative implications for Iranian sovereignty. The first possibility would be to seek a reconciliation with the West. Tasked with embodying this scenario, President Massoud Pezechkian recently expressed Tehran’s desire to renew ties with liberal democracies and reopen negotiations over their nuclear dispute. However, significant mistrust and numerous obstacles still hinder the warming of relations, especially if a new Republican administration takes office in Washington.  The alternative path, already widely explored by Tehran, is to move forward with the so-called “Look East” doctrine. In fact, Tehran has continuously sought to strengthen its ties with Beijing and Moscow in recent years. In March 2021, Iran and China signed a comprehensive economic and security agreement, marking a significant step towards deeper cooperation. In September 2021, Iran began its accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional bloc led by Russia and China. Since February 2022, Iran has refrained from condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has even provided logistical and military support to Moscow.   At the September 2022 SCO summit, Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping welcomed the Islamic Republic, highlighting the regime’s growing ties within a bloc opposing Western influence. In January 2023, Iran became a full BRICS member, and, recently, Tehran and Moscow have enhanced their military collaboration, raising concerns about potential nuclear cooperation. Nonetheless, this pivot toward the Eastern bloc could threaten Iranian sovereignty by tying the regime’s future more closely to that of Russia and China, undermining Iranian nationalism and the aspiration to preserve independence.  The Islamic regime teetering on the brink of profound transformation  Faced with a drastic reduction in its international geopolitical room for maneuver, the Islamic Republic is also going through a serious economic crisis while facing a growing questioning of its internal political legitimacy. In all respects, the regime is at a crossroads; a decisive turning point that could go so far as to destabilise its political foundations.   In the past, showing extraordinary resilience, Tehran has always managed to get out of trouble by maintaining the course of its multifaceted policy conducted on all fronts and by all available means. Placed in a position of military and economic inferiority, the Iranian outsider has adopted an asymmetrical approach with considerable success by striving to avoid frontal combat and by striking blows where it was not expected. In this, the Iran of the mullahs and the guardians has managed, to borrow Henry Kissinger’s words, to “win by not losing.”  The capacity of Islamist leaders to navigate significant challenges and uphold their once unchallenged grip on the country now seems to be wavering. Increasing threats, coupled with a narrowing of strategic options, have placed the regime in a precarious position. The tactics and remedies that previously aided in maintaining the system’s stability no longer appear adequate to ensure the longevity of the political and ideological regime established in 1979.

Defense & Security
TEL AVIV, IL - May 05, 2022: Three fighter jets flying in formation in front of a stunning beach in Tel Aviv, Israel

Israel’s latest strike against Iran may actually de-escalate regional tensions – for now, at least

by Javed Ali

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском Israel’s airstrikes of Oct. 26, 2024 – which hit around 20 military targets in Iran, Iraq and Syria – had been anticipated for weeks. Indeed, the operation followed a promise from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to retaliate for an earlier ballistic missile attack by Tehran in early October. The move also follows a pattern that has seen Iran and Israel take turns to up the ante in what was for a long time a “shadow war,” but which has has now developed into direct confrontation. These tit-for-tat attacks prompted widespread fears that the whole region was poised to enter a more escalatory phase. But, counterintuitive though it may seem, I believe that the latest Israeli strikes may actually have defused tensions. To understand why, it is worth analyzing the nature and scale of the Israeli operation, as well as the likely stance of decision-makers in Israel, Iran and the United States in the aftermath of the attack. A calibrated attack by Israel The October air assault by Iran was itself retaliation for a series of Israeli operations against Iran’s proxy group Hezbollah. These included the assassination of a high-ranking Hamas official in Tehran on the eve of the inauguration of Iran’s new president in July and the killing of Hezbollah’s leader in late September. Similarly, an earlier air assault on Israeli targets in April by Tehran was in response to Israeli provocations this spring – including a strike against the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, on April 1 that killed two senior military officers. Many observers anticipated, or feared, an Israeli response to Iran’s October missile and drone attack to be heavy, and punishing – Israel certainly has the military capability to do so. But rather than target vital infrastructure in Iran or the country’s nuclear facilities, Israel instead opted for “precise and targeted” strikes on the Islamic Republic’s air defense and missile capabilities. The somewhat limited scope of the Israeli operations suggests that the strike was designed to send a strong message to Iran’s supreme leader and Iranian military commanders. In essence, Israel was signaling that it has the capability to strike at the heart of Iran, while holding back from a full-throttled attack that would have had further damaged Iran’s fragile economy. While it will take time for a full assessment of the effectiveness of Israel’s strikes to emerge, early indications suggest that they succeeded in revealing weaknesses in Iran’s overall security. These weaknesses that could be further exploited against other more important targets, such as oil and gas production facilities or even nuclear power sites, should Iran or its partners in the so-called “axis of resistance” choose to retaliate. A cautious response in Iran Despite the apparent success of Israel’s attacks against a wide range of targets, statements from Iranian leaders suggest the operational impact was limited. An Iranian Foreign Ministry statement condemned the attack, noting that Iran “had a right to self defense.” But at the same it added that Iran would “uphold its commitments for regional peace and stability.” Reading into those words, it suggests to me that Iran is not immediately seeking to retaliate and escalate tensions further. Of course, that could change. Further messages by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khameini or Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani may give a clearer indication whether Iran will seek to retaliate, and how. But with Iran well-aware of the impact that escalation – and the potential for more U.S.-led sanctions and heightened support for Israel – would have on its ailing economy, it may well calculate that a return to the pre-escalation status quo with Israel is in its interests. In Washington, a wary White House A return to the shadow war between Israel and Iran – as opposed to open warfare – would no doubt be welcomed in Washington. Since the horrific Hamas attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the Biden administration has been caught between competing obligations and concerns. This has included supporting longstanding ally Israel, while not alienating friendly Arab governments and trying to avoid conflict creep into all out war in the region. Meanwhile, in an election year, the Democratic ticket in particular is trying to balance its support for a largely pro-Israel Jewish voting block with a need not to offend potentially important Muslim votes in key states, nor a more pro-Palestinian youth vote. Escalation of conflict in the region does nothing to help the White House in these respects. Yet President Joe Biden’s decades-long relationship with Netanyahu has not led to outcomes that the administration has sought. Washington has not succeeded in pushing its ally toward a ceasefire in Gaza, nor a cessation of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel in southern Lebanon. And with the U.S. election looming on Nov. 5, elevated tensions in the Middle East on various fronts could impact how voters perceive Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump — especially in the battleground state of Michigan, where the Democratic ticket may lose votes among Arab and Muslim Americans angered over the Biden administration’s perceived pro-Israel stance. Threading the needle? Predicting what will happen next in the Middle East has escaped the most seasoned analysts. It may take days, weeks or even months to assess whether this latest airstrike by Israel will lead to a further escalation of tensions between Iran and Israel – or whether a more de-escalatory dynamic settles over the region. But there are good reasons to believe that decision-makers in Iran, Israel and the U.S. know that more escalation is in no one’s interests. And the latest salvo may have just done enough to satisfy Israel, while providing cover for Tehran to say that there is no need to return fire in kind.

Diplomacy
London, England, UK - May 13, 2023: Protestors participate in the National Demonstration for Palestine: NAKBA 75. Credit: Loredana Sangiuliano

How Israeli Occupation of Palestine is Aided by Double Standards

by Syed Munir Khasru

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском There must be a reconciliation between the human rights agenda and current humanitarian realities. In Gaza, the daily struggle is frightening, and there appears no end or peace plan in sight.  As the Gaza conflict enters its second year, the situation in the Middle East is taking an alarming turn. Having already escalated tensions by carrying out a series of high-profile assassinations, including Hassan Nasrallah, head of Hezbollah, and its top leadership, as well as Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in Tehran on 31 July during his visit for President Masaoud Pezeshkian’s inauguration, Israel has now launched a ground incursion into Lebanon, further intensifying its conflict with Iran. As of 30 September, 42,337 Palestinians have lost the lives. This is compared to just 1,540 Israelis. Put differently, that number is 27 Palestinian killed for each Israeli since 7 October 2023. Although Israelis claim that a portion of Palestinians killed are Hamas fighters. On 18 September 2024, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a resolution (124 nations in favour, 14 against, and 43 abstentions) demanding Israel end its illegal occupation of Palestinian territories within 12 months. This resolution builds upon the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) advisory opinion outlining the illegality of Israel’s ongoing settlements in the Westbank, and called on all nations to refrain from acknowledging legitimacy of this protracted occupation. The UNGA’s call underscores the international community’s growing impatience with the ongoing conflict. Yet, as diplomatic pressures mount, the human cost of this prolonged strife remains devastatingly high. Glaring double standards and changing dynamics of global diplomacy  In the one year since the 7 October massacre, the conflict has taken a devastating toll on Palestinian civilians including nearly 16,765 children fatalities. Every hour, 15 people are killed, six of whom are children, while 35 are injured. This staggering figure contrasts sharply with the Ukraine War, which has seen far fewer civilian casualties with 1,551 children killed in more than two years. In addition to civilians, 210 aid workers have been killed, surpassing the annual toll of aid worker fatalities in any other past conflict in last 20 years, including the Ukraine-Russia conflict where 50 aid workers have died. More than 125 journalists have been killed in Gaza, compared to only 11 journalists who have died reporting the Ukraine war. This stark disparity underscores the disproportionality of rights violations in the Gaza conflict. While the US and its allies have been strongly critical of Russia, their criticism of Israel has been minimal in spite of the much larger scale of civilian casualties. While thousands of Palestinians continue to die in Gaza, and now with a ground war raging in Lebanon, the West has imposed limited sanctions against only a few Israeli settlers. For instance, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, while strongly condemning Russia for waging a “ruthless war,” remained mostly muted on Israel’s atrocities, leading EU staffers to criticize her “uncontrolled” support for Israel.  These double standards have led to protests from San Francisco to Sydney, speaking out against atrocities committed in the name of “self-defence.” The Gaza war has been changing the dynamics of international diplomacy as a growing number of countries have taken steps to recognize Palestine as a sovereign state. As of June 2024, 146 of 193 UN member states have made this step, including several European nations like Norway, Poland, Iceland, and Romania. Spanish and Irish governments are leading voices in Europe, pushing for a joint recognition of Palestine, signalling a strengthening of support for a Palestinian state in the diplomatic landscape surrounding the conflict What lies ahead The path towards a just resolution remains elusive, and the questions raised demand a re-examination of the moral and ethical foundations that underpin global order. The fate of thousands of Palestinians hangs in the balance and the conflict shows no signs of abating. The escalation of tensions with Hezbollah and Iran complicates the situation, threatening to engulf the entire region in a wider conflict. The international community must act now, and decisively, to prevent further loss of lives and work towards a lasting peace in the region. Correcting the gross injustice to innocent civilians in Palestine and addressing the Israel-Gaza conflict starts with recognising humanity in equal measures as well as rights of both Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security side by side. It involves implementation of international law, upholding human rights, and a concerted effort to address root causes of the conflict, such as the displacement of Palestinians from their abode more than seven decades ago. While killing of any innocent civilians, including Israelis by Hamas, is not acceptable, what is also equally true is that when generations of Palestinians are born and grow up without a state and a sense of national identity, there is always a risk that frustration growing over decades can get out of control. The 18 September UNGA resolution demands that Israel return land in the West Bank and other “immovable property,” as well as all assets seized since the occupation began in 1967, and all cultural property and assets taken from Palestinians. It calls for Israel to allow all Palestinians displaced during the occupation to return to their place of origin and make reparation for the damage caused by its occupation. It urges UN member states to refrain from recognising Israel’s presence in East Jerusalem and the West Bank as lawful, preventing engagement in activities that support the occupation, ceasing imports of products from Israeli settlements, and implementing sanctions against entities involved in maintaining Israel’s unlawful presence. Unless some of the major players in the West, which includes countries like US, UK, Germany, and France, apply principles of rights and justice consistently, any effort will continue to remain infructuous. Advocating human rights and equality while turning a blind eye to atrocities does not work in the age of social media and digital platforms where the truth is more readily accessible and more difficult to suppress. The Gaza conflict is a wake-up call for the world, which has been for far too long oblivious to humanitarian crises. The fact that the state of Israel emerged from ruins of the untold sufferings caused to by the Nazis is a testament that justice prevailed. Today the Jewish peoples have a modern, prosperous, and democratic state in Israel. Hence, it is rather an irony that one of the educated and cultured populations of Middle East, the Palestinians, today are on the receiving end of human rights violation by a nation whose people went through one of the worst atrocities committed in the last century.

Defense & Security
Buenos Aires, Argentina, Feb 16, 2024: People protesting in front of the obelisk, downtown, with posters in the colors of the Palestinian flag forming the text Free Palestine.

Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and Operation al-Aqsa Flood

by Prof. Dr. Walid ‘Abd al-Hay, Yarmouk Universi

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском Introduction In 2010, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) was established and ratified in 2011, with membership expanding to 33 countries. According to the organization’s statements, its aims include “deepening the integration of Latin American countries, promoting international peace, and respecting human rights.” Additionally, there is an implicit ambition among several members to reduce the political and economic influence of the US in the region, as suggested by the context of some of the organization’s statements.[2] With a total population of about 635 million people, covering an area of about 22 million km², and accounting for 17% of the United Nations (UN) voting power, their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on a Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) basis for 2023 is approximately $12.8 trillion, equivalent to 7.8% of the world’s GDP. However, four of the 33 countries contribute more than $9.6 trillion, or about 75% of the GDP. These four countries also comprise 68% of the total population of the regional group, as shown in the following table:[3]   CELAC’s Position on Operation al-Aqsa Flood The Latin American and Caribbean region has the highest percentage of leftist political regimes in the world. Among the 19 most significant countries in the region, 12 are now run by left-wing governments, accounting for 63% of the total. These leftist-led countries represent 92% of the region’s people and 90% of its GDP.[4] This demographic and economic dominance is clearly reflected in CELAC’s stance on two interconnected issues: the position on Operation al-Aqsa Flood, marked by varying degrees of rejection of Israeli policy, and a relative independence from US influence in the region. First: CELAC’s Stance as a Political Bloc on Operation al-Aqsa Flood[5] At the eighth CELAC summit, held in March 2024 in Kingstown, the capital of St.Vincent and the Grenadines, a lack of consensus emerged among the members regarding Operation al-Aqsa Flood. Despite the compromise language in the conference statement, 27 countries endorsed it while 6 countries opposed it.[6] The resolution included the following points:[7] a. Condemning the killing of civilians on both the Palestinian and Israeli sides and emphasizing the need to protect civilians in accordance with international law.b. Supporting the UN General Assembly call for a ceasefire.c. Demanding the immediate and unconditional release of hostages.d. Urging the delivery of humanitarian aid to the affected areas in the Gaza Strip (GS).e. Calling for a peaceful solution based on the two-state solution. Second: Stances of the Central States within CELAC[8] Countries with left-leaning governments are often the most vocal in supporting the Palestine issue, as reflected in their leaders’ statements. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro slammed “the international position regarding the ongoing genocide in Gaza,” and pointed out that “international justice exists only to protect the interests of American, European, and Western imperialism, in order to conceal the massacres committed against Palestinian families.” Brazilian President Lula da Silva aligned with this view, calling on “the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to set aside their differences and put an end to the genocide in Gaza.” He reiterated his call for an immediate ceasefire, as outlined in the CELAC statement from the 8th Congress. Additionally, he noted Brazil’s efforts to support UN Security Council resolutions aimed at halting the fighting in GS, which were vetoed by the US. Colombian President Gustavo Petro criticized both the United States and Europe for supporting “Israel in committing genocide against the Palestinians,” with similar sentiments expressed by Nicaragua. Generally, the positions of CELAC countries, particularly the major powers, can be categorized into three distinct stances, as illustrated in the table below:[9]   1. Countries closest to the Israeli position: This group varies in their level of support for Israel, as illustrated by the following indicators: a. The Salvadoran stance is notably one of the most vehement against the Palestinians, despite President Nayib Bukele being a Christian of Palestinian descent who calls for the “demise of the Palestinian resistance.” This position aligns closely with that of Paraguay, one of the few countries to label the Palestinian resistance as “terrorism” and announce plans to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Paraguay’s stance on Israeli settlements in the occupied territories is marked by a consistent lack of condemnation at the UN and frequent abstentions from voting on resolutions that support Palestinian rights. b. The Jewish minority in Argentina plays a significant role in influencing the government. With a population of between 300–400 thousand, Argentina has the largest Jewish community in Latin America and the fifth largest in the world. The attacks on Jewish institutions in Argentina during 1992–1994, which were linked to Iran—a key supporter of Palestinian resistance—also influenced the government’s stance, despite opposition from the pro-Palestinian Worker’s Left Front – Unity party. c. Guatemala, with a population of about 18 million, was the first Latin American country to move its embassy to Jerusalem. It is also one of the centers of gravity for Anglican Christianity, which tends to be more sympathetic to Zionism. 2. Countries that have adopted a middle ground, attempting to balance support for and opposition to both sides of the conflict: a. Both Mexico and Brazil criticized the attack on Israel on 7/10/2023, but strongly condemned the Israeli response. b. In the diplomacy of Brazil and Mexico, a role reversal was observed. The presidencies of both countries adopted more articulate positions than their foreign ministries, where traditional diplomatic language prevailed. c. Mexico has not severed ties with Israel; however, its representatives at the UN have sharply criticized the Israeli government. d. Ecuador can be included in this group due to its effort to mediate peace between the Palestinian resistance and Israel by sending Ecuadorian Vice President Verónica Abad in October 2023. Additionally, Ecuador has backed Palestine’s bid for full membership in both the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly, though it has explicitly condemned the resistance attack that occurred in October 2023. 3. Countries that support Palestinian rights are typically left-leaning and their policies often exhibit the following characteristics: a. Nicaragua unequivocally supported the Palestinian position and even received some Palestinian leaders after the war. b. Colombia has taken a definitive stance in strong support of Palestine. It is one of the most vocal critics of Israeli policies, culminating in its decision to sever diplomatic ties with Israel. Colombian President Gustavo Petro has sharply condemned Israeli actions in Gaza, labeling them as “genocide.” It is important to note that Colombia’s position is significant given its historical and strategic ties with Israel. Although Colombia relies on Israeli military equipment for combating armed opposition and drug trafficking groups, and there has been a free trade agreement between the two countries since 2020, as well as various agreements since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1957, trade data shows a 53% decline in trade between Israel and Colombia following the recent conflict, compared to 2022. c. The Cuban and Venezuelan position was a continuation of their traditional support for the Palestinian right, and Cuba justified the Palestinian attack on 7/10/2023 as a reaction to 75 years of oppression of the Palestinians. d. Bolivia did not condemn the Palestinian attack in October, instead focusing its statements on de-escalating the conflict between the two sides. However, the lack of Israeli response to its calls led Bolivia to sever diplomatic relations with Israel. Additionally, Bolivia supported South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and endorsed a case before the International Criminal Court (ICC). Colombia and Belize have also cut ties with Israel. Notably, during the last week of June 2024, Bolivia experienced a failed coup attempt, raising suspicions that the US and Israel may have been involved as retaliation for Bolivia’s clear stance on the Gaza war.[10] e. The significant presence of the Palestinian community in Chile, the largest in Latin America with nearly half a million having Palestinian roots, has notably influenced Chilean politics. This influence is reflected in the Chilean Senate’s Human Rights Commission decision to ban companies from importing goods produced in Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. A US State Department official characterized this decision as one that unfairly singles out Israel.[11] f. Honduras has exhibited a decrease in its support for Israel following Israeli attacks on civilians, leading the government to summon the Israeli ambassador to protest these actions. In 2021, Honduras was one of the first countries to relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, joining Guatemala and Paraguay, which had made similar moves in 2018. However, Guatemala reversed its decision and returned its embassy to Tel Aviv shortly thereafter. The shift in Honduras’ stance can be attributed to the change in leadership from a right-wing to a left-wing administration after Xiomara Castro assumed the presidency in 2022. g. Since the beginning of the war, Latin American countries’ positions in support of Palestine have evolved at the diplomatic level in particular, and have begun cutting ties and recalling ambassadors from Israel, which was initiated by Chile, Colombia, and Honduras, while Bolivia and Belize cut diplomatic ties with Israel completely. Bolivia was one of the five countries that referred the situation in GS to the ICC for investigation in November 2023. In the referral, Bolivia cites evidence of crimes against Palestinians including murder, torture, inhumane treatment, persecution, apartheid, forced displacement, and the destruction of Palestinian cultural heritage. Mexico and Chile did the same in January 2024, whereas Brazil’s and Colombia’s foreign ministries issued statements supporting South Africa’s legal action against Israel before the ICJ. The Brazilian position has been the leading one, which has strained relations between Brazil and Israel despite efforts by the Brazilian Israelite Confederation (CONIB) to mend fences. However, the Brazilian president’s remarks that “what is happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people hasn’t happened at any other moment in history” except one: “When Hitler decided to kill the Jews,”[12] combined with the Brazilian Foreign Ministry’s endorsement of European countries’ recognition of Palestine as a state and support for a two-state solution, have solidified Brazil’s stance against Israeli policies. CELAC’s Vote at the UN A review of General Assembly and Security Council resolutions reveals that the countries most resistant to supporting resolutions favoring Palestinian demands are Guatemala, Paraguay and Argentina, followed by Haiti, Uruguay, Panama and El Salvador. These countries often either oppose or abstain from voting. Argentina, with a population of nearly 46 million, is the most significant ally of Israeli policy. This is followed by Guatemala with about 18 million people, Paraguay with around 7 million, Panama with 4.5 million and Uruguay, with approximately 3.5 million people. Argentina ranks third among CELAC countries in terms of GDP and fourth in terms of population. Argentina’s stance on Palestinian rights reflects the political shift introduced by President Javier Milei, who aims to align Argentina more closely with the Western capitalist bloc through his foreign policy.[13] Argentina did not support the General Assembly resolution calling for a ceasefire in December 2023 and opposed the resolution to grant Palestine full membership in the UN. The Argentine position can be attributed to the following reasons:[14] a. President Javier Milei’s religious inclination towards Judaism was evident in his prayers at the Western Wall in Jerusalem in 2021, accompanied by Rabbi Shimon Axel Wahnish, who was later appointed as Argentine ambassador to Israel. Although the Argentine president is a Catholic Christian, some sources suggest he is considering converting to Judaism. However, other sources claim that President Milei’s display of Jewish faith is a way to express repentance and counter accusations that he concealed his support for a Nazi sympathizer. b. The Argentine president’s intention to strengthen ties with the Jewish minority in Argentina, as previously mentioned, faced opposition from nearly four thousand Argentine Jewish intellectuals, who voiced concern over Milei’s “political use of Judaism.” This concern was highlighted when he became one of the first world leaders to visit Israel after the war erupted, offering high praise for Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies and pledging to move Argentina’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Interestingly, the Argentine president demonstrated a clear bias towards Israel when he cut his state visit to Denmark short, following the Iranian attack on Israel in April 2024, which was in response to the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus. President Meli then convened a crisis committee alongside the Israeli ambassador to Argentina and his security minister, who began criticizing the positions of other Latin American countries, such as Bolivia and Chile, describing them as “Islamic hotbeds” and accusing them of hosting Hezbollah elements. He also criticized the defense agreement Iran concluded with Bolivia in July 2023. c. Milei, a university economics professor, bases his economic ideology on far-right principles and anti-leftist Peronism in Argentina, making him the most eager to strengthen the relationship with the US and, consequently, with Israel. d. It is noted that trade relations between Israel and Argentina are escalating significantly. Israeli exports to Argentina increased annually by 15.2% from 2017 to the end of 2022, reaching $156 million in 2022. Similarly, Argentine exports to Israel increased annually by 25.2%, reaching $200 million in 2022. Third: Trends in Public Opinion in CELAC Countries Quantitative studies on access to information and data from various sources show that Latin American countries lead the world in relying on social media for obtaining and sharing information. This trend has influenced Israel’s public image in the region.[15] Public opinion polls in Latin America reveal that approval of the way US President Joe Biden’s is dealing with the GS war is modest. A survey of six major Latin American countries showed the following results:[16]   The approval rate with Biden’s GS war policy in six countries is notably low, at around 26%. In contrast, the same survey indicates that the disapproval in these countries is more than double the approval rate, reaching approximately 57%. Meanwhile, the people of CELAC countries expressed their solidarity with Palestine after Operation al-Aqsa Flood. This solidarity was evident in demonstrations involving former presidents, civil society organizations, popular sectors, football associations, artists and universities, particularly in Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Mexico, Uruguay, Peru and Argentina, etc. Conclusion The “instability” in political orientations towards international issues is a key feature of Latin American countries’ policies, largely due to the frequent shifts in political regimes and the consequent changes. In analyzing the positions of Latin American countries on the Arab-Israeli conflict, four factors seem to be the most significant in shaping this relationship:[17] 1. The political shifts between leftist and rightist regimes, whether due to coups or presidential elections, often characterize these countries as “unstable.” This is particularly evident in major countries within this group, such as Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Colombia. This instability is reflected in their stances on the Arab-Israeli conflict: leftist regimes typically support Palestine, while rightist ones back Israel. 2. The positions of these countries on Israel are notably influenced by US policies. Some countries align with the US stance to avoid potential pressure, a pattern observable since the Monroe Doctrine in 1823. 3. A growing trend among Catholic Christians toward Anglicanism, which shares a closer religious alignment with the Israeli position. 4. Israeli presence in the technological sector of the Latin American economy is significant. In major Latin American countries like Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Colombia, more than 450 Israeli companies are active in this industry. The data we have discussed highlight the need for resistance forces to recognize the significance of this region in the following ways: 1. Despite a noticeable division among Latin American countries in their responses to Operation al-Aqsa Flood and its aftermath, the balance of support leans considerably toward the resistance. This is due to the increasing leftist inclination in the region, particularly in its major countries. Demonstrations in support of Palestine have occurred in Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela, Cuba, Peru and Chile. 2. Cutting ties with Israel, recalling ambassadors, or participating in cases against it in the ICJ and the ICC by Latin American countries is perhaps the most significant in terms of political impact. This development requires follow-up, including providing these countries with relevant information and support to reinforce this trend. 3. Despite their Anglican background, public opinion trends in these countries reveal a strong sympathy for Palestinian suffering, which is more than twice as significant as the sympathy for Israel. This is evident from the approval rates toward President Biden’s pro-Israel policies. These findings suggest the need for engaging with leftist forces in the region based on shared libertarian values. 4. Comparing the trade between Latin American and Israel, which was $6 billion in 2022, to the trade with Arab countries, the trade volume with the Gulf countries alone is more than three times greater than that with Israel. However, the political influence of these trade relations with the Arab world remains relatively modest.[18] 5. Arab and Palestinian diplomacy should focus on four Latin American countries-Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Colombia—due to their significant political, economic and demographic influence in the international arena. References [1] An expert in futures studies, a former professor in the Department of Political Science at Yarmouk University in Jordan and a holder of Ph.D. in Political Science from Cairo University. He is also a former member of the Board of Trustees of Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan, Irbid National University, the National Center for Human Rights, the Board of Grievances and the Supreme Council of Media. He has authored 37 books, most of which are focused on future studies in both theoretical and practical terms, and published 120 research papers in peer-reviewed academic journals. [2] CELAC/ Zone of Peace: “A key step to countering the globalization of militarism” – UN Expert, site of The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 3/2/2014, https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2014/02/celac-zone-peace-key-step-countering-globalization-militarism-un-expert [3] World Economic Outlook Database: October 2023, site of International Monetary Fund, https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2023/October/weo-report?c=311,213,314,313,316,339,218,223,228,233,238,321,243,248,253,328,258,336,2; GDP, PPP (current international $) – Latin America & Caribbean, site of World Bank Group, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD?locations=ZJ; and List of Latin American and Caribbean countries by GDP (PPP), site of Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_American_and_Caribbean_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)#cite_note-1 [4] Latin America’s left-wing experiment is a warning to the world, site of The Economist newspaper, 18/5/2023, https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2023/05/18/latin-americas-left-wing-experiment-is-a-warning-to-the-world [5] For a historical overview of Israel’s relations with Latin America, see Walid ‘Abd al-Hay, Academic Paper: Israeli Relations with Latin America, site of al-Zaytouna Centre for Studies and Consultations, 5/4/2021, https://eng.alzaytouna.net/2021/04/05/academic-paper-israeli-relations-with-latin-america/ [6] Estimates vary, but the number of signatories is likely to be 27, see CELAC member states divided over Israel-Gaza war stance, site of SEARCHLIGHT, 5/3/2024, https://www.searchlight.vc/front-page/2024/03/05/celac-member-states-divided-israel-gaza-war-stance; and Brazil, 23 other Celac countries call for immediate ceasefire in Gaza, site of Agencia Brasil, 4/3/2024, https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/en/internacional/noticia/2024-03/brazil-23-other-celac-countries-call-immediate-ceasefire-gaza [7] CELAC summit fails to take unanimous position on Gaza, site of iWitness News, 2/3/2024, https://www.iwnsvg.com/2024/03/02/celac-summit-fails-to-take-unanimous-position-on-gaza [8] Latin American peace, anti-imperialism, and Gaza at the heart of CELAC, site of Al Mayadeen English, 1/3/2024, https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/latin-american-peace–anti-imperialism–and-gaza-at-the-hear; Oliver Stuenkel, The Israel-Hamas War Is Inflaming Polarization in Latin America, site of Americas Quarterly (AQ), 16/11/2023, https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/the-israel-hamas-war-is-inflaming-polarization-in-latin-america; Ecuador VP says she will go to Israel amid spat with president, Reuters News Agency, 28/11/2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/ecuador-vp-says-she-will-go-israel-amid-spat-with-president-2023-11-28; and At CELAC, Lula extols the potential of Latin Americans and Caribbeans as an integrated bloc, site of Planalto, 5/3/2024, https://www.gov.br/planalto/en/latest-news/2024/03/at-celac-lula-extols-the-potential-of-latin-americans-and-caribbeans-as-an-integrated-bloc [9] For detailed information on the positions of CELAC countries, either individually or as a bloc, please refer to the following references, see Rogelio Núñez Castellano and Carlos Malamud, Latin America and the Gaza crisis, site of The Elcano Royal Institute, 24/11/2023, https://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/en/analyses/latin-america-and-the-gaza-crisis; Enrique Reina (@EnriqueReinaHN), site of X (Twitter), 3/11/2023, 10:01, https://x.com/EnriqueReinaHN/status/1720531624289575107; Brazil’s president withdraws his country’s ambassador to Israel after criticizing the war in Gaza, site of Associated Press (AP), 29/5/2024, https://apnews.com/article/brazil-lula-israel-ambassador-withdrawn-af9d295d989a86c4fcd8ca4531350f42; Colombia breaks diplomatic ties with Israel but its military relies on key Israeli-built equipment, AP, 3/5/2024, https://apnews.com/article/colombia-israel-diplomatic-ties-military-equipment-0c04009ccfc6110e20ee358403509500; President Milei’s surprising devotion to Judaism and Israel provokes tension in Argentina and beyond, AP, 3/6/2024, https://apnews.com/article/milei-judaism-hezbollah-israel-hamas-war-netanyahu-d8831369a6bc8a96205d4080d2b2045b; Argentina demands that Bolivia explain its new defense agreement with Iran, AP, 25/7/2023, https://apnews.com/article/argentina-bolivia-iran-defense-mou-2cb8c5917fdb6d3e01af4c67af969797; Israel/ Argentina, site of Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-country/isr/partner/arg; Latin America divided and nuanced on Israel-Hamas conflict, site of Buenos Aires Times, 1/11/2023, https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/latin-america/latin-america-divided-and-nuanced-on-the-israel-hamas-conflict.phtml; Marta Tawil Kuri, Perspectives from the Global South: Latin America’s Fragmented Approach to Palestine, site of Arab reform initiative (ARI), 15/12/2023, https://www.arab-reform.net/publication/perspectives-from-the-global-south-latin-americas-fragmented-approach-to-palestine; IntelBrief: Leaders in Latin America Speak Loudly on Gaza, site of The Soufan Center (TSC), 1/3/2024, https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2024-march-1; Honduran president in Israel for opening of Jerusalem embassy, site of i24NEWS, 24/6/2021, https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/diplomacy-defense/1624517565-honduran-president-in-israel-for-opening-of-jerusalem-embassy; Angeline Montoya, In Honduras, the mixed track record of President Xiomara Castro, site of Le Monde, 10/2/2023, https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/02/10/in-honduras-the-mixed-track-record-of-president-xiomara-castro_6015218_4.html; Latin America countries hold rallies in support of Palestine, site of Anadolu Agency (AA), 4/3/2024, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/latin-america-countries-hold-rallies-in-support-of-palestine/3154305; Latin America: Demonstrations expressing support for Palestinians scheduled in several regional cities Oct. 20-22, site of Crisis24, 20/10/2023, https://crisis24.garda.com/alerts/2023/10/latin-america-demonstrations-expressing-support-for-palestinians-scheduled-in-several-regional-cities-oct-20-22; Gaza solidarity sweeps across Latin America, site of Middle East Monitor (MEMO), 23/10/2023, https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231023-gaza-solidarity-sweeps-across-latin-america; Alejandro Santos Cid, University Gaza solidarity protests extend to Mexico: ‘We are urgently calling for an end to genocide’, site of EL PAÍS, 4/5/2024, https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-05-04/university-gaza-solidarity-protests-extend-to-mexico-we-are-urgently-calling-for-an-end-to-genocide.html; site of PRIMICIAS, 7/10/2023, https://www.primicias.ec/noticias/politica/ecuador-condena-ataque-hamas-israel (in Spanish) [10] See Lithium, severing ties with Israel, or rapprochement with Russia? What is the secret to the failed Bolivian coup?, site of RT, 28/6/2024, https://arabic.rt.com/world/1578053- الليثيوم-غزة-أم-موسكو-أيهم-كلمة-السر-في-الانقلاب-البوليفي-الفاشل/; and Türkiye and Bolivia: Experiences of Resisting Coups in a Changing World, site of Turk Press, 29/6//2024, https://www.turkpress.co/node/102003 [11] Patricia Garip, What Does Latin America Think About the Israel-Hamas War?, site of Foreign Policy, 29/1/2024, https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/01/29/israel-hamas-gaza-war-latin-america-chile-argentina-colombia-mexico-genocide/ [12] Lazar Berman, Israel livid as Brazil’s Lula says Israel like ‘Hitler,’ committing genocide in Gaza, site of Times of Israel, 18/2/2024, https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-livid-as-brazils-lula-says-israel-like-hitler-committing-genocide-in-gaza/ [13] Argentina shifts historic position on Palestine as UN member state, Buenos Aires Times, 10/5/2024, https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/world/argentina-shifts-historic-position-on-palestine-asun-member-state.phtml [14] AP and TOI STAFF, Argentinian president’s surprising devotion to Judaism and Israel provokes tension, Times of Israel, 3/6/2024, https://www.timesofisrael.com/argentinian-presidents-surprising-devotion-to-judaism-and-israel-provokes-tension/; Argentina/ Israel, site of Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-country/arg/partner/isr; and Israel/ Argentina, OEC, https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-country/isr/partner/arg [15] 4 Trends Among Latin American Internet Users That Will Impact the Market in 2022, site of Americas Market Intelligence (AMI), 9/1/2022, https://americasmi.com/insights/trends-latin-american-internet-users-marketing/#:~:text=In%20Latin%20America%2C%2083%25%20to,websites%2C%20broken%20down%20by%20country; and Annie Pforzheimer, Latin American Views on the Gaza War Are in Flux, site of The Jerusalem Strategic Tribune journal, November 2023, https://jstribune.com/pforzheimer-latin-american-views-on-the-gaza-war-are-in-flux [16] Survey conducted in Spring 2024, see Majorities disapprove of the way Biden is dealing with the Israel-Hamas war, site of Pew Research Center, 10/6/2024, https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/06/11/how-well-is-biden-handling-international-issues/gap_2024-06-11_us-image-2024_5_06 [17]Gian Luca Gardini (ed.), External Powers in Latin America: Geopolitics between Neo-extractivism and South-South Cooperation (Routledge, 2021), pp. 153-163; and Political stability – Country rankings, site of TheGlobalEconomy.com, https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/wb_political_stability/Latin-Am [18]Chase Harrison, Explainer: Latin America’s Relationship with Israel and Palestine, site of Americas Society (AS), Council of the Americas (COA), 16/11/2023, https://www.as-coa.org/articles/explainer-latin-americas-relationship-israel-and-palestine; and “Cultivating Ties: Deepening trade and investment between Latin America and the GCC,” site of Economist Impact, The Economist Group, 2022, https://impact.economist.com/perspectives/sites/default/files/economist_impact__dcci_latam_report_10th_march_2022_english_web.pdf

Diplomacy
Gaza at war city destroyed by idf attacks, aerial rare view Drone view over North Gaza in the war with Israel. Gaza-March,20,2024

Israel’s Punitive War on Palestinians in Gaza- Academic Article

by Camilla Boisen, New York University Abu Dhabi

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском In this article, I consider how Israel’s justifications for war and rationalization of its conduct align with historical justifications for punitive war and unlicenced warfare. Approaches to forcible punishment in early modern writings in the Western Just War Theory tradition (JWT) relate both to defensive and offensive war. In the early modern period, the use of force for self-defence is a type of inter-state punishment justified by the aim of deterrence and the goal of preserving the state. Offensive war, by contrast, is deemed justified to deter aggressors, pre-emptively, or violators of the natural law, even warranting a rejection of a principle of discrimination between perpetrator and innocents.1 Most of the early modern jurists insisted that a right to inflict punishment was integral to claims of just war. For Hugo Grotius (1583–1645), wars were only justified to vindicate rights, which included wars to defend the common good,2 or interventions by a third party when crimes have been committed against another state. Before him, Francisco de Vitoria (1483–1546) warned of the danger associated with resort to the principle of punishment because it allowed space for acts of revenge or vengeance masquerading under the pretext of humanitarian protection – a guise that remains a common feature of contemporary international politics.3 Since the Spanish conquest of the Americas in the sixteenth century, settlers have justified their retaliatory actions against indigenous resistance as necessary for their own “self-preservation.” Furthermore, the “doctrine of double effect” provided moral justification, allowing them to consider the killing of innocents acceptable as an effect of achieving a moral objective such as preservation by means of self-defence.4 In exceptional circumstances where the levels of depravity were deemed abhorrent, the punishment of whole communities for violating the laws of nature was justified.5 The right to punish is no longer a regulative principle of international law. It was gradually replaced by principles of collective security, humanitarian intervention, and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine. With its focus on preventative war, modern international law has reduced just causes for war (threat or use of force) to essentially two: first, self-defence under United Nations (UN) Charter Chapter VII: Article 51, and second, when authorized by the UN Security Council to maintain international peace and security (Article 39).6 Even though older theories by jurists in the law of nations have been superseded, international law and the JWT are not discordant doctrines. JWT provides the intellectual framework to international humanitarian law (IHL); minimally, for a war to be considered morally just, it must first and foremost be lawful.7 The Western JWT tradition provides two distinct judgments on war premised on the assumption that war can be justified in certain cases (jus ad bellum), while also establishing ethical limits on how war should be conducted (jus in bello).8 It is no wonder that the philosopher Immanuel Kant would describe its theorizers as “sorry comforters” in that they legitimized (and moralized) the intersection between the demands of morality and the pragmatism of foreign policy.  The permissive interpretation of IHL we are witnessing in Gaza since October 2023, as Jessica Whyte aptly describes, by a deliberate starvation policy to depopulate Gaza that also seeks to disavow any intent to do so, reveals Israel (and its allies) as Kant’s “unsorry comforters.”9 The use of starvation as an instrument of war, the imposition of military strategies akin to a scorched earth policy,10 and widespread violence against civilians suggest that Israel is using collective punishment against Palestinians in Gazan.11 This conduct has now led International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Karim Khan to seek indictments against Israeli (and Hamas) leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity.  Despite the excessive civilian death toll that has stemmed from Israel’s proclaimed self-defensive and genocide-preventive measures, Israeli authorities have remained steadfast in their military goal of irrevocably destroying Hamas’s military capacity rather than eradicating Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Since the 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel by Hamas-led forces, Israel has claimed that its military operations in Gaza are justified in two interrelated ways. First, it is executing its right to self-defence in retaliation for the attack on Israeli citizens, including civilians, by a terrorist organization whose avowed aim is to destroy Israel.12 Secondly, in exercising its right to self-defence, it is engaging in “genocide-prevention” – by destroying the capacity of Hamas and Palestine to perpetrate a “second Holocaust.” At the Hague, Tal Becker, legal advisor to the Israeli Defense Forces, insisted “Israel is in a war of defence against Hamas, not against the Palestinianpeople.”13 In international law, deliberate targeting of citizens is not permissible or condoned. Collateral damage is.14 The extent of the death toll and destruction of civilian infrastructure – hospitals, schools, and mosques, in addition to residential neighbourhoods – suggests, however, that these distinctions have largely been ignored.15 Israel’s deployment of advanced Ai systems has allowed its forces to reshape the acceptance of the technology’s margin of error, including the risks of collateral damage and civilian casualties. This is just one of the ways Israel’s actions distort or pervert JWT criteria, prompting new moral (and legal) questions for advanced warfare, including where to draw the boundaries of existing ethical constraints.16 If we reference those boundaries to modern international law, Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza is punitive because it violates the principle of proportionality. What further confines us to this limited international law framework is the current focus on whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Since 7 October, the devastating civilian casualties caused by Israel, along with destructive rhetoric from Israeli leaders, quickly led to accusations of genocide and counter-accusations that Hamas committed genocide on7 October.17 The question is being considered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) thanks to a case brought by the Republic of South Africa. In large measure, the acrimonious global debate about genocide in Gaza is mired in legal technicalities due to the stringent requirements of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide (UNGC). Because the question admits only of a yes/no answer, other aspects of the conflict are missed: maybe we are witnessing an attack on civilians that amounts to “more than genocide”?18 Viewed historically, mass state violence against civilians is not an anomaly or exception in the international system as genocide implies: it is intrinsic to the very idea of statehood, and the kind of natural right of self-defence that Israel is invoking is central to the identity of many western states, whose formation is closely tied to imperial and colonial expansion.19 Early modern just war theorists often discussed wars in colonial contexts. Their theories accepted forms of punishment as well as unlicensed warfare in its normative schema, such as retribution, deterrence, restraint, and reform. They constitute a paradigm of punitive warfare.  Whether they realize it or not, commentators today are drawing on this paradigm in relation to Gaza. Edward Luttwak, for instance, arguably endorsed Samuel von Pufendorf’s (1632-1694) call for unrestricted warfare to achieve peace in his controversial 1999 article “Give War a Chance” (despite it being unclear if he has actually read the Saxonian jurist).20 Today he lauds Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza as a military success, while bemoaning the severity of the constraints “that has been placed on Israel’s combat operations” as “a major impediment to its fight.”21 That any action taken against an enemy other is justified finds support among many Israelis, who have no faith in diplomacy and view Israeli security solely in terms of pre-emption, intimidation, and deterrence. They believe in always supporting the military against a relentless and cruel enemy.22 Israel’s war in Gaza is punitive in the sense meant by some of the early modern international jurists. Here I demonstrate how Israel is reviving archaic forms and justifications of state practice that are deeply rooted in the Western tradition of just war and the justification of punitive wars. By revisiting these ideas, my aim is not to furnish Israel with justifications for its war in Gaza from the archive of the law of nature and of nations, but rather to place it within the intellectual history of punitive war. This contextualization is anything but a consolation, for as I conclude, the genocide concept is an outgrowth of this history.  Historicizing the Right to Punitive War  The early modern just war theory discourse of punishment opens up at least two ways to think about Israel’s war as punitive. First, for security reasons, that is for reasons of self-preservation, which also include measures of preventative and non-proportional warfare (defensive punitive wars). Secondly, by constructing Palestinians as “barbarians” (see below), as the quintessential host is humani generis, enemy of humankind, thereby legitimating violence in the name of the state and the jus gentium, that affords them a right to punish “crimes against natural law” (offensive punitive wars). For the Europeans, this particular right opened a way to punishment without injury to the state, and thus cemented amoral pathway for colonial ventures and exploitation. Portraying Hamas as Nazis – the archetypical genocidaires – functions to criminalize Palestinians and allows the Israeli leadership to present them as a persistent genocidal threat.23 Defensive Punitive Wars  Punitive wars were a common feature in JWT during the medieval period. Pope Innocent IV (1195–1254), for instance, used his universal jurisdiction to include the spiritual care of the souls of infidels, which at this time meant principally Muslims, and retained a right to intervene with impunity in their domestic affairs.24 The medieval concept of punitive war emerged from the rejection of the Roman Law principle of self-defence in early Christian theology. Augustine of Hippo (354–430), for instance, contended that killing in self-defence could not align with God’s law because it stemmed from humans’ attachment to their earthly life. Augustine linked punishment with sin and heresy, advocating for persecution and punishment driven by the desire to do good and eradicate evil, thus framing the punishment of heretics as an act of charity. Gregory the Great (540–604) championed this idea, threatening divine retribution against rulers who did not support the clergy’s efforts to suppress and punish barbarians and heretics. By the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Church had expanded its authority to punish its enemies, ultimately merging just war theory with the concept of holy war.25 The gradual shift from a punitive to a defensive conception of war is expressed in the thought of sixteenth-century theologians, where the two paradigms coexist. Writing in the context of the Spanish conquest of the Americas, for the Salamanca theologian Vitoria every punitive war has a defensive character, and no defensive war is effective without a punitive element.26 Punishment was not grounded in vengeance, or vendetta; it had to fit the crime, which promoted a principle of proportionality.27 Although we have obligations based on our universal common rights, these do not justify waging war on the Indians, whether to punish them for violating natural law or to convert them to Christianity by force for their eternal salvation. The natural rights of the Indians are inviolable, and it would be unjust for the Spaniards to violate these rights with impunity.28 Yet, Vitoria contemplates the possibility of saving innocents by prohibiting and punishing offenders “from practicing any nefarious custom or rite.”29 Vitoria, nevertheless, imposes strict conditions on such humanitarian endeavours, insisting that they must bedriven by “right intention.” Punishing to save innocents from cannibalism is a noble intention, but using it as a pretext for war is unjustifiable. Slaughtering of innocents is not permissible, however, Vitoria does introduce exceptions to this rule in extenuating circumstances that relate to a prince’s necessity to obtain peace and security.30 Unlike Vitoria, the Italian jurist Alberico Gentili (1552–1608) recognized a state’s right to punish as an instrument of self-preservation.31 Sovereigns are justified in using preemptive force to deter threats, prioritizing state preservation even before these threats fully develop. The kind of state’s right to what Dirk Moses has termed “permanent security” is theorized with a remarkable clarity in Gentili’s writing.32 This also implies that general deterrence can be invoked as a justification for punishment that exceeds the balance between the wrongdoer and the enforcer. While Gentili maintains that war(and post-war punishment) should address a broadly defined injury, the concept of deterrence as a proactive measure can be applied even before any act directly impacts the state.33 Both Vitoria and Gentili acknowledged the reformative and retributive aspects of punishment, as well as punishing an offender to prevent future misconduct by the offender or by others,34 implicitly conflating punishment with deterrence. For Gentili, self-defence falls under the “category of expediency,” which is considered an autonomous source of justice and, as such, is less restrictive about the requirements of predicate injury. Grotius, as we will see, insisted on an even more permissive right to punitive war against those who offend against nature. This implies that a sovereign can justifiably wage war against another state for any violations without needing to prove harm or have that harm be “proportionate.” That is, the anticipation of injury, along with the harm already endured, provides a legitimate justification for war.35 Generally, cruelty in war is forbidden, but harsher warfare against uncivilized peoples is permitted, because “with respect to barbarians violence is more potent than kindness.”36 The reasoning that certain wartime circumstances, like self-defence or genocide, justify exceptions to norms of restraint for war and in war (jus ad bellum and jus in bello) extends to the discussion of Israel’s war in and on Gaza. This JWT archetype has been invoked in the Gaza context by the prominent political theorist Michael Walzer.37 His views are significant because his book, Just and Unjust Wars (1977), revived the JWT in academic and public discourse, and he has applied the doctrine to Israel’s past attacks on Gaza, urging the principle of distinction while defending Israel’s right to retaliate against Hamas’s missiles.38 Because of academic reputation and occasional criticisms of Israeli military retaliation with statements (Israel today does not have cause “for revenge against the people ofGaza”39), he is regarded as a prestigious commentator with moral standing. He has now written about the conflict in Gaza since 7 October 2023. Walzer’s scrupulous regard for civilian protection would seem to distance him from the likes of Gentili. However, he allows for extensive civilian destruction in two circumstances.  First, his advocacy for “emergency ethics” (morally) justifying the targeting of civilians during war indicates a continuation of early modern arguments about punitive warfare. Walzer argues that military leaders may dispense with the ordinary moral constraints, including the prohibition against killing non-combatants, when the political community is existentially threatened, which he calls the “supreme emergency.”40 Supreme emergency requires that two conditions be met, namely, first, that the threat be imminent, and second, that it be a kind of radical threat to human lives and values that is beyond ordinary military defeat.41 Supreme emergency pertains to jus in bello because it considers revisions to the rules that guide conduct in war. The historical context for conceptualizing this doctrine is the Allied carpet bombing of German cities in World War II. Nazism represented an existential threat to British national existence, and the Allies were entitled to bomb German civilians until that immediate security threat passed.42  Second, Walzer goes further and argues in terms of permanent security, reflecting the colonial logic of thinkers like Gentili. He now argues even Hamas does not constitute an immediate threat (“supreme emergency”), massive Palestinian civilian casualties can still be justified in terms of Israel’s longer-term security.43 The justification of a military campaign with a shocking civilian casualty count through reasoning in terms of self-preservation is reminiscent of early modern thinkers:  Israel is fighting a war of existential importance, but there was no concrete threat of genocide against the Israeli civilian population. This war is existential in that if Israel does not succeed in securing its borders and deterring future attackers, many citizens would probably leave the country. But at this moment, it is not a supreme emergency. Therefore, the country is bound to the same standards that it adhered to in previous conflicts.44 As of this moment, and according to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024, Israel is illegally occupying Gaza, and only has the right to enforce immediate security, not permanent security. It can respond to immediate threats but not wage an endless campaign to achieve “absolute victory” to ensure that Gaza “never again” poses a threat. However, Walzer justifies, as Gentili had, an ongoing military campaign that produces a massive civilian casualty count in terms of anticipatory self-preservation (permanent security).45 By arguing for an existential threat exists that satisfies the principles of jus ad bellum, while simultaneously arguing the Israeli state must still satisfy the principles of jus in bello because there is no supreme emergency, Walzer has found a way to justify a war conducted in a manner that results in a massive civilian casualty count.  Walzer’s emphasis on self-preservation as a rationale for jus ad bellum is comparable then to Gentili’s “category of exception,” where the harm suffered does not need to be “proportionate,” also a condition for jus ad bellum, to justify and commit warfare.46 So while Walzer insists that Israel’s response is neither genocidal nor punitive, he clearly believes it to be proportionate: “if there were almost 10,000 Hamas fighters among the30,000 Palestinians killed, it’s not a bad ratio for such a war on urban terrain.”47 In order to maintain his view that the war is being conducted ethically, Walzer appears willing to give the Israeli state the benefit of the doubt. He denies, for example, reports that Israel is bombing Hamas targets after they enter their homes, thereby guaranteeing largescale civilian casualties, especially on women and children.48 Gentili’s JWT exposes Walzer’s appetite for offensive war against Hamas, because of the ambiguity between defensive and offensive war when justified for reasons of permanent security. However, permanent security concerns were not the only grounds for offensive war, including those of a punitive kind.  Offensive Punitive Wars  The issue of whether Europeans had the right to wage war as a means of punishing non-Europeans is a central topic in early modern just war theory discussions. Gentili was adamant that the Spaniards were justified in waging war against the Indians due to their practices of “abominable lewdness even with beasts” and cannibalism. This justification was based on the idea that the Indians, through such actions, had violated the natural and divine laws that form the bonds of union between all people,49 and “it is ordained by nature herself that all sinners should be punished.”50 The issues of European expansion, indigenous rights, moral questions of dignity, safety, self-preservation and humanitarian intervention were manifest in one of the most famous debates of the sixteenth century between the humanist Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (1494–1573), and the Dominican Bartholomé de Las Casas (1484–1566), at Valladolid in 1550. Here, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V commanded that all wars of conquest be suspended until a panel of intellectuals convened in the imperial Spanish capital of Valladolid deliberated on the question by what right Spaniards subdue the Amerindians, and subject them topunishment.51  One of the many issues to be resolved was whether the Spanish were justified in punishing the American Indians for their violations of natural law. The contours of Sepúlveda’s argument can be simply stated: Native Americans were barbarians by both habits (e.g. by engaging in human sacrifice) and nature, tainted by their barbarous vices, and by right of nature, people in this state must obey the more civilized and prudent, or be punished for resisting the universal moral order. Designating this supposed natural defect in the capacity for rational thought to the American Indians cemented a strict God sanctioning order of classification. Resistance of this natural order of dominion gave their Spanish overlords grounds for waging just war against them. The American Indians, Sepúlveda insisted, had to be saved from themselves and subjected to their European masters in order to bring them into the fold of Christianity, and to save their souls. His stipulation for just war maintained first, that the American Indians killed innocents among themselves, hailing their salvation as a just enterprise and something to be encouraged. “If anyone doubts,” Sepúlveda contended, “no one who is a real Christian doubts that all men who wander outside the Christian religion die an eternal death.”52 To protect “innocent persons from such injurious acts” would give the Spanish “the right, already granted by God and nature, to wage war against these barbarians to submit them to Spanishrule.”53 And second, that these depraved acts of indecency were sanctioned and systematized by their own public customs and political institutions – a point, which caused Sepúlveda greater concern than individual acts of depravation.54 This institutionalization of evil required nothing less than a regime change and total victory through war and forcible subjection, a method that “is the most expeditious and best suited for accomplishing these ends and securing the salvation of souls.”55 The Spanish duties to humanity were irrefutable, as far as Sepúlveda was concerned, and they were morally obligated to civilize and Christianize the American Indians. It seemed obvious to Sepúlveda that the Indians lacked sufficient reason to be entrusted with their own affairs. The common bond of humanity, established by divinity and the natural law, considers all people as our neighbours, Sepúlveda asserted, “provided we can do so without harm to ourselves.”56 God has given human beings commandments concerning his or her neighbour, and we have a duty to obey such divine laws. If we do not, then we commit heresy.  Sepúlveda grounded this enlargement of just war theory beyond a principle of self-defence. Even if the Indians possessed natural rights (afforded to all humankind by the Natural Law) – to for instance self-defence, property and political autonomy, they had so blatantly misused them that they are now forfeited as a result of their ungodly practices.57 Wars were a necessary mean to combat their resistance in obeying the Natural Law. These crimes were a direct affront to God, and it was incumbent upon the Spanish to avenge, punish and restrain such crimes. Punitive wars such as these were salutary, but nothing to be celebrated.58 Sepúlveda was not concerned, as Las Casas had been, about the collateral damage of punitive wars, exactly because Natural Law permits collective punishment of those who violate its tenets. In fact, there is a slippage between what we might term collateral damage (unfortunate, but legitimate violence) and collective punishment (moral imperative to reform or deter) because the category of “innocent” is suspended. Sepúlveda is expounding the latter:  And the point he [Las Casas] makes about being obliged to refrain from waging a war aimed at punishing the few guilty parties if it cannot be accomplished without a much larger number of innocent people coming to grief is irrelevant. For in a city or community where human sacrifice was performed by public authority, all are guilty, since all approve of the practice.59, As evidenced further below, Israel’s claim that there are no “uninvolved civilians,” and that any casualties among “human shields” are morally the responsibility of Gazans, aligns with Sepúlveda’s reasoning. In a recent Israel Affairs article, the philosopher Per Bauhn adjudicates on the question of moral responsibility for non-combatants’ death in Gaza. He exonerates Israel and attributes all culpability to Hamas. By posing an “unjust danger to the state of Israel”, Bauhn says, “Hamas has created a situation in which Israel is morally justified in waging a war of self-defence that puts Palestinian non-combatants at risk of being accidentally killed.”60 This claim is not only deeply rooted in permanent security reasoning, it also presupposes that moral responsibility is a zero-sum concept. Yet, the Israeli leadership and the IDF are not exempt from moral scrutiny by the culpability attributed to Hamas for the conflict in Gaza, which the two morally distinct judgements of just war theory also implies.  What we have seen so far is that the idea of placing belligerents outside of the moral realm is a central framework for that of extreme emergency exceptions but also for offensive punitive wars. One of the fundamental presuppositions of theorizing about war is the belief that civilization consists in the gradual elimination of force from our relations with others. Thus, to uphold civilization means finding a way of regulating and humanizing armed conflict. However, there are those who do not fight under the auspice of a state; those who fall outside or are deemed to be outside of the civilized world. Laws of war do not apply to them to the same degree as actors within the society of civilized states, and these can be punished. Pirates, barbarians, and non-Europeans all fell within this exclusionary category among many classic international jurists.  Sonja Schilling describes how this narrative logic of deviance is closely associated with punitive war.61 Civilized humanity stands against a brutal, barbaric invader. The loser faces annihilation, and if civilization is defeated, humanity will revert to a dreadful state of constant warfare. The hostis humani generis idea assumes a consistent and unquestioned conflict between civilization and the Other, situated in a marginal area between the empire and a non-white wilderness. Evidenced below, Israeli officials frequently invoke the term wilderness, as an imposing “nature,” meaning it is a space where, due to its inherent characteristics, the state of nature exists.62 The act of claiming ownership achieves something important as it brings land into the legal or civilized domain for the first time.63 From the 1980s onwards, Palestinian violence against Israel was increasingly depicted not as a negotiable territorial dispute, but as a fundamental conflict between civilization and its inherent Other.64 As Schilling remarks “[t]he civil societies of both the United States and Israel are constructed as conceivable institutional enablers of civilization because these countries adhere to the universal and international principles of human rights.”65 Grotius prominently asserted the limitations of recognizing belligerency with whom we cannot hope to build moral relations, maintaining a strict distinction between lawful and unlawful enemies.66 For him “unlawful” enemies ultimately demarcated the boundary of international society, and the lingering problem remained whether they can be transformed into legal combatants recognized and protected by the law of nations. Grotius would – reluctantly – insist that promises and good faith should be kept even with pirates and brigands. Given that both Hamas, as an unlawful enemy (violent non-state actor), and Israel (recognized sovereign state) continue to be impervious to the ethical and legal standards of war, the importance of Grotius’s distinction seems less relevant. Wars against unlawful enemies cannot retain recognition that confers legal validation. Pirates are a particular kind of enemy. Pirates violate the commercial rights of humankind. In defending these commercial rights no declaration of war, for instance, is needed, since these violators have already declared war against all.67 In fact, Grotius writes that determining the “manner” of a war is best done on account of the enemy you are fighting: “they are Enemies, who publicly denounce War against us, or we against them; the rest are but Pirates, or Robbers.”68 Pirates and atheists are outside the moral community. War between “lawful” enemies implies that there is a thin aspect of respect that requires explanation when they are acting coercively against one another (one does not need to like one’s neighbour to have a binding social relationship). We can imagine that if a lawful enemy commits heinous crimes against humanity that warrant punitive action, it would need to be declared and follow the rules of the laws of war as a recognition of that relationship.  The right of punishment was fundamental for Grotius to determine how to enforce rights and duties to regulate relationships between states.69 The right to inflict punishment follows from the right to defend oneself, the right to recover property and the right to exact debt. Grotius specified four just causes of war, self-defence, recovery of property, obtaining what is owed, and the exacting of punishment.70 The first, afforded by natural law, arising “directly and immediately from the Care of our own Preservation.”71The latter was in effect punitive wars to address uncorrected wrongs – a state right he positioned as central to upholding international order and peace. States have permissive rights to punish human beings or peoples who grievously transgress or sin against natural law by engaging in acts of cannibalism, unnecessary killings, inhumanity toward parents, piracy, as well as religious impiety in public.72 Given that Grotius allows a permissive right to punish violations of the natural law, what exactly is the purpose of the punishment? There are a number of possibilities, of course. It could be retribution for committing a moral wrong, or a deterrent to prevent future violations, or indeed, it could be to reform the character of peoples, to force them to see the error of their ways. Grotius’s underlying assertion is that punishment has to have a deterrent effect; and this is where punishment may be considered a moral power. To deter someone from consorting with animals, for example, would be to prevent them from committing amortal sin, and to prevent an indelible stain on their soul.73 Punishment, then, is not exacted for retaliation or vengeance, but rather as precaution.  With his doctrine of a natural right to punish, Grotius recognized that there are some violations of the law of nature which affect us all, and for the sake of humankind should not go unpunished.74 Barbarians, who are more “beasts than men” are to all the world “a Foe,” and “such abominable Crimes do they allow of in their public Decrees, that if any City upon Earth should enjoin, or had enjoined, the like, it ought to have been, by the general Voice of Mankind, lain in ruin.”75 Gentili had pressed this permissibility even further. Not only were wars undertaken for the common interest of humankind and on behalf of others more honourable, upholding fundamental standards of justice for humanity, violators who commit the kind of crimes that legitimises such wars, must be defeated through a form of violence aimed at total destruction.76 The kinds of enemies that warrant this kind of punitive measures, as we have seen, are unjust or unlawful enemies. However, in “solemn wars,” those that are fought against a lawful enemy, Grotius generally cautions moderation in situations of war against women and children:“[W]e must not attempt any Thing which may prove the Destruction of Innocents,” Grotius says, “unless for some extraordinary Reasons, and for the Safety of many.”77 Retaliation, or collective punishment, against a whole people is forbidden, and to pretend that “Enemies are but one entire Body engaged against us” is absurd,78 because disproportionate punitive actions exceeded the need to maintain the peace.Recovering the Pufendorian Perspective on Licence for War  Unlike Grotius, Pufendorf denies that, in times of war, there are any moral jus in bello rules. The end of war is peace, and peace is most effectively achieved by unconstrained vengeance. There is a rich history to consider concerning the relationship between jus ad bellum and jus in bello – and, as David Boucher shows, we can see how this relationship fluctuates. Since 9/11, the growing emphasis had been on jus ad bellum, and less emphasis on the principles of jus in bello.79 The disastrous consequences of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and now Israel, the balance seems to have swung the other way towards jus in bello. It is Israel’s conduct of the war that has come under severe scrutiny, not its right to go to war on the basis of a just cause (self-defence).80 For Pufendorf, such jus in bello scrutiny was unnecessary, as he allowed for unrestricted use of force in wars of self-defence.  Wars for Pufendorf could never really be properly punitive. Pufendorf is famous for denying the reality of independent international law, because ultimately law needs an author and an enforcer, and for Pufendorf it is God. International Law is for him the law of nature as applied to states.81 It is the law of nature that regulates the relations among states, and states are regulated by the moral constraints of the natural law. Pufendorf is much more preoccupied by the morality of war, and not its legality. As such, pace the arguments of Sepúlveda and Grotius, there could be no justifiable grounds for reforming the practices of the American Indians.82 Because the force of inflicting “punishment” in the international context does not emanate from a (temporal) authoritative superior, states cannot have the right to punish, but they may, of course, have just cause for war. If a belligerent puts itself outside the protection of the natural law, by for instance being an aggressor –and thereby violating the fundamental law of nature it has placed itself outside of its protection. This opens up a sort of licence for unrestricted war of self-defence. It is, in essence, defence against “unjust” violence. Pufendorf is very clear on the fact that “a state of hostility of itself grants one the license to do another injury without limit.”83  The very violation of the duty of peace against another provokes the licence of any force necessary to bring the war to an end and achieve peace; without this licence, Pufendorf argues, the end of war could never be feasible. Pufendorf conceptualizes states the same way as individuals in the state of nature. To protect one’s own security, Pufendorf prescribes any means necessary that “will best prevail against such a person, who, by the injury done to me, has made it impossible for me to do him an injury, however Imay treat him, until we have come to a new agreement to refrain from injuries in thefuture.”84 According to Pufendorf, the violation of the law of nature releases the victims from the obligation to observe it in relation to the violator. Excess in war is justifiable, and without this permission to go to extremes, the war will never have an end in sight. The aim of force is not to reform the offender by punishing them, but to protect our security, property, and rights. Pufendorf does, however, caution those states who engage in gratuitous violence against the enemy. On prudential grounds restraint should be exercised. One never knows when the table might turn, and the enemy becomes dominant and acts gratuitously towards you. As such, behaving in a manner that is considered inappropriate by other civilized nations can be counterproductive as one’s own reprehensible or cruel acts may be emulated and then used against them. Other reasons to observe the customs of warfare are that they can add to the prestige and honour of a ruler and ultimately it is in the interest of countries to be cooperative and not to cause unnecessary damage to states they may find themselves in alliance with again once the conflict is over, despite the fact that, in a state of war, they have a legal right to do as they please.85 Information: Here is a part called “Israel’s Justification for War against Gazans” – To read the full Article please visit the Original Source under: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623528.2024.2406098?scroll=top&needAccess=true  Conclusion  Andrew Fitzmaurice has convincingly demonstrated how Raphael Lemkin developed the concept of genocide out of a critique of colonialism, thus inverting the Genocide Studies and Settler Colonial Studies preoccupation with the deployment of the genocide concept to explain 500 years of colonialism. This reframing allows Fitzmaurice to ask important questions about how colonialism has impacted the concept of genocide itself.133 “It is a moot point,” Fitzmaurice remarks “whether the word ‘genocide’ can be meaningfully used to describe the horrors of colonization in centuries that preceded the context in which Lemkin coined the term.”134 To comprehend the dispossession and destruction experienced by occupied peoples in the colonies, Lemkin aligns with the tradition of anti-imperial thought, wherein the framework of universal human rights and therefore also genocide emerged in response to issues concerning the status of colonized population. In these concluding remarks, I draw kinship with Fitzmaurice’s thought in positing the notion of genocide as a product of the history of the critique of colonialism that began with Las Casas, one of Lemkin’s heroes. However, I diverge from his emphasis on genocide as a concept emerging from the anti-imperial tradition, instead viewing genocide (as a practice), as an extension of what Benton calls “projects of peace making.” Colonial wars were invariably punitive wars, and genocide is a product of the punitive war theory tradition.  Israel’s arguments for the war in Gaza rely on an indiscriminate use between both defensive and offensive moral justifications for war. Previously, just war was seen as a punishment for an injustice committed by an adversary, with a jurisdictional enlargement of the right to punish that also included violations of natural law without being limited to direct injury. Now our focus on the right to self-defence, which categorizes wars as either “defensive” or “aggressive” to justify them, shows a noticeable absence of the normative application of the right to punish in modern international law.135 However, rather than absence between the older conception of punishment and modern international law and practice, Israel’s military actions in Gaza expose its continuity. The formal disappearance of the principle of the right to punish as an articulated objective of modern international law has not, therefore, meant the disappearance of punitive wars. Instead, punitive measures are often undertaken under a different guise as modern international law continues to implement measures addressing behaviour that violates its norms. Since7 October 2023, we have seen Israel reasserting this right in justification and conduct by measures of collective punitive actions, deterrence, and punishment of the unlawful genocidal enemy other. We have seen a justification for actions that place the responsibility for the immoral act of violating the laws of wars onto the victims, that is Palestinians, of that immoral act. The genocide concept has had a central role to play for this kind of political deceit, not least because of the way that “genocide prevention” that Israel purports its war to be is unavoidably punitive. The problem of caging in punitive action in the language of justification is that it places the argument into a sacrosanct place that causes hesitation in obligatory and legal frameworks meant to prevent it. Calling something justified does not make it so even when something bares the character but not the spirit of an idea. Just war theories have nuance and contingency not simply to be flexible to permissibility, but also the opposite, to redraw what is impermissible. In practice, however, the intent to punish and deter, which is integral to JWT tradition, is hard to distinguish from the intent to destroy, as the punishing and deterring we are witnessing in Gaza, often involves causing significant destruction to many people.  Acknowledgements I am grateful to A. Dirk Moses, David Boucher, Andrew Fitzmaurice, and Matthew C. Murray for making invaluable comments and suggestions on earlier drafts. Also, to Katia Yesiyeva and Salaam Farhan for their research support. Lastly, to the Fall 23 Saving Strangers FYWS students, whose critical engagement with Walzer and Luttwak in the context of Gaza war prompted me to write this article. It goes without saying that any infelicities are mine alone.  Disclosure Statement  No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).  Notes on Contributor  Camilla Boisen is a senior lecturer in the Writing Program at New York University, Abu Dhabi. She is a historian of political thought, and has published widely on the intellectual history of empire and humanitarian intervention. She is also the co-author of Justice, Merit, and the Political Theory of Academic Knowledge Production (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024). Notes 1 The organising terms “defensive” and “offensive” punitive war is loosely derived from Alexis Blane and Benedict Kingsbury, “Punishment and the ius post bellum,” in The Roman Foundations of the Law of Nations, ed. Benedict Kingsbury and Benjamin Straumann (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 241–65. For example, “[p]urely defensive uses of force are permissible to both individuals and states alike; each has the right to forceful self-defence when not the aggressor. However, once the immediate threat abates, only the state has the right to use force for a punitive end, to revenge a wrong that it suffers. […] The right to offensive uses of force belongs solely to the state and can be employed beyond its own borders in defence both of the interests of its citizens and of its own interests as a collectivity” (249).2 Hugo Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace, ed. Richard Tuck, trans. John Morrice et al. (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005), ii, xx, II, viii.3 Rajan Menon, The Conceit of Humanitarian Intervention (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).4 A. Dirk Moses, The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 2. For discussion on the doctrine of double effect, see Alison McIntyre, “Doing Away with Double Effect,” Ethics 111, no. 2 (2001): 219–55.5 Natural law was a (perceived) shared framework that yielded ever-revealing truths of natural design to create rules and establish the just and right conduct of individuals and governments. Its content and prescriptions changed, but it was always presented as a set of transfixed immutable laws sanctioned by God.6 Essentially, starting a war without UN Security Council approval is illegal, so states must demonstrate either that they acted in self-defence or had the host government’s consent. In recent decades some states have opted for another permissible justification, claiming that their use of force was implicitly authorized by the Security Council, as seen with some NATO members in Kosovo and the US, UK, and Australia in Iraq or that it was done for humanitarian purposes. See also Alex Bellamy, “The Responsibilities of Victory: ‘Jus Post Bellum’ and the Just War,” Review of International Studies 34, no. 4 (2008): 601–25; Kevin Jon Heller, “The Illegality of ‘Genuine’ Unilateral Humanitarian Intervention,” Journal of International Law 32, no. 2 (2021): 613–47; Jennifer M. Welsh, ed., Humanitarian Intervention and International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); Philip Cunliffe, “The Doctrine of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ as a Practice of Political Exceptionalism,” European Journal of International Relations 23, no. 2 (2017): 466–86.7 Mary E. O’Connell, “The Just War Tradition and International Law against War: The Myth of Discordant Doctrines,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 35, no. 2 (2015): 33–51.8 In the classical just war theory, the principles of proportionality and necessity are applied twice: first, in the criteria for deciding to go to war (jus ad bellum), and second, in the rules for how war is conducted (jus in bello). This means the theory demands that both the war as a whole and each specific action within it must be proportionate and necessary. See Jeff McMahan, “Proportionality and Necessity in Jus in Bello,” in The Oxford Handbook of Ethics of War, ed. Seth Lazar and Helen Frowe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 418–39.9 Jessica Whyte, “A ‘Tragic Humanitarian Crisis’: Israel’s Weaponization of Starvation and the Question of Intent,” Journal of Genocide Research (17 April 2024), https://doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2024.2339637. On the “foundational myth” of the Geneva Conventions see Boyd van Dijk’s excellent work, Preparing for War: The Making of the Geneva Conventions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022).10 Eiland quoted in ibid., 14.11 Collective punishment refers to any non-individual punitive measure or sanction imposed on all members of a group for actions they did not commit. Article 33(1) of the Fourth Geneva Convention declares a war crime: “Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.”12 Commentators have consistently challenged the legality of Israel’s excessive use of force in Gaza. See, for example, Ralph Wilde, “Israel’s War in Gaza is Not a Valid Act of Self-defence in International Law,” Opinio Juris, (9 November 2023), http://opiniojuris.org/2023/11/09/israels-war-in-gaza-is-not-a-valid-act-of-self-defence-in-international-law/. The second ruling of 24 May 2024 by the ICJ that Israel should with immediate effect cease the military offensive in Rafah points now to the danger of excessive force amounting to genocide, and therefore military action should cease. One judge, however, underlined that the court could not ban Israel from taking legitimate action in self-defence.13 “War against Hamas in Gaza is act of self-defence, Israel tells world court,” UN News, 12 January 2024, https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/01/1145452.14 The principle of collateral damage forms part of the necessary criteria that has to be met to establish wars legitimacy. According to IHL, civilians cannot be directly targeted, but they may be lawfully killed as collateral damage. Although numbers are classified, militaries used a specific value of the collateral damage estimation (CDE), which gauges the accepted number of civilian casualties for any military action. From an ethical standpoint of how much collateral can be accepted in order to obtain the purpose of a war or military humanitarian intervention is the question. Charles P. IV Trumbull, “Proportionality, Double Effects, and the Innocent Bystander Problem in War,” Stanford Journal of International Law 59, no. 1 (2023): 35–74. Regardless, the principle of collateral damage continues to be morally troubling. See also F. M. Kamm, “Terror and Collateral Damage: Are They Permissible?,” Journal of Ethics 9, nos. 3–4 (2005): 381–401.15 Israeli President Isaac Herzog remarked on 13 October that the entire people of Gaza are responsible for the 7 October attacks as part of a wider phenomenon of modern war where the targeting of civilians is increasingly prevalent. Elyse Semerdjian, “Gazification and Genocide by Attrition in Artsakh/Nagorno Karabakh and the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” Journal of Genocide Research (17 July 2024): 1–22, https://doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2024.2377871.16 Bethan McKernan and Harry Davies, “‘The Machine Did it Coldly’: Israel used AI to Identify 37,000 Hamas Targets,” The Guardian, 4 April 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/israel-gaza-ai-database-hamas-airstrikes.17 Raz Segal, for example, is vocal in labelling Israel’s war in Gaza a genocide. See Raz Segal, “A Textbook Case of Genocide,” Jewish Currents Magazine, 13 October 2023, https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide.18 A. Dirk Moses, “More than Genocide,” Boston Review, 14 November 2023. https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/more-than-genocide/.19 See Moses, The Problems of Genocide.20 Edward N. Luttwak, “Give War a Chance,” Foreign Affairs, no. 78 (1999): 36–44.21 Edward N. Luttwak, “Why Israel is Winning in Gaza,” Tablet, 9 February 2024, https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/israel-winning-gaza.22 Comments by American-Israeli analyst and cited in Steven Erlanger, “Netanyahu, Defiant, Appears to Have Gone Rogue, Risking a Regional War,” New York Times, 2 August 2024.23 Zoé Samudzi, “‘We are Fighting Nazis’: Genocidal Fashionings of Gaza(ns) After 7 October,” Journal of Genocide Research (18 January 2024): https://doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2024.2305524.24 F. E. Peters, The Monotheists: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Conflict and Competition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), 146; James Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers, and Infidels (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1979), chaps. 1–2. I have laid out aspects of the early modern theories of punishment in JWT before. See Camilla Boisen and David Boucher, “The medieval and early modern legacy of rights: The rights to punish and to property,” in Medieval Foundations of International Law, ed. William Bain (New York: Routledge, 2017), 148–65.25 Frederick H. Russell, The Just War in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 24–25.26 Pärtel Piirimäe, “Alberico Gentili’s Doctrine of Defensive War and its Impact on Seventeenth-Century Normative Views” in The Roman Foundations of the Law of Nations: Alberico Gentili and the Justice of Empire, ed. Benedict Kingsbury and Benjamin Straumann (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 187–209, 189–93.27 See Stephen C. Neff, War and the Law of Nations: A General History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 68; Blane and Kingsbury, “Punishment and the ius post bellum,” 248.28 Francisco Vitoria, Political Writings, ed. Anthony Pagden and Jeremy Lawrence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 219.29 Vitoria, Political Writings, 288. Emphasis in original. The connection between the right of property and Vitoria’s argument concerning saving the innocent is explored in William Bain, “Saving the Innocent, Then and Now: Vitoria, Dominion, and World Order,” History of Political Thought 34 (2013): 588–613.30 A. Dirk Moses, “Empire, Resistance, and Security: International Law and the Transformative Occupation of Palestine,” Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism and Development 8, no. 2 (2017): 384. See also Vitoria, Political Writings, 324.31 Blane and Kingsbury, “Punishment and the ius post bellum,” 250.32 Moses, The Problems of Genocide.33 Ibid., 251; Alberico Gentili, Three Books on the Law of War, trans. John C. Rolfe (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933), i, chapter xiv, 62.34 It is worthwhile to consider the underlying metaphysical differences between Vitoria and his protestant successors. As a Thomist, Vitoria was deeply invested in the idea of human sociability, rooted in mutual affection within society, including between different peoples. Consequently, wars of retribution and reprisal conflicted with these core beliefs. In contrast, Grotius, along with other seventeenth-century natural law theorists, adhered to what Kant described as a theory of "unsociable sociability," which underpinned the social contract – a concept unnecessary for Vitoria, who, following Aristotle, believed societies naturally predate the individual. Contrarily, for someone like Grotius, the notion of unsociable sociability was based on the assumption that self-preservation is humanity's primary goal, and this was considered the first law of nature. It should, therefore, come as no surprise that these seventeenth-century natural law writers would allow for a more aggressive pursuit of self-interest than Vitoria, for instance, had endorsed. I thank Andrew Fitzmaurice for bringing this important difference to my attention.35 Blane and Kingsbury, “Punishment and the ius post bellum,” 251–2. See also fn.8 above.36 Gentili, On the Law of War, iii, chap ii, 293.37 Recently also by Per Bauhn, “Just War, Human Shields, and the 2023–24 Gaza War,” Israel Affairs (21 August 2024): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13537121.2024.2394289?src = .38 Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (Boston: Basic Books, 2015); Avishai Margalit and Michael Walzer, “Israel: Civilians & Combatants,” New York Review of Books, 14 May 2009; Michael Walzer, “Israel Must Defeat Hamas, But Also Must Do More to Limit Civilian Deaths,” New Republic, 30 July 2014.39 Michael Walzer, “Justice Demands the Defeat of Hamas, Not Revenge against the Palestinians,” K. Jews, Europe, XXIst Century, 19 October 2023, https://k-larevue.com/en/michael-walzer-justice-demands-the-defeat-of-hamas-not-revenge-against-the-palestinians/.40 Walzer’s doctrine of supreme emergency has met with understandable criticism over the years. Especially Walzer’s moral exercise of it. See for example Alex J. Bellamy, “Supreme Emergencies and the Protection of Non-Combatants in War,” International Affairs 80, no. 5 (2004): 829–50; Robin May Schott, “Just War Theory and the Problem of Evil,” Hypatia 23, no. 2 (2008): 122–40.41 Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 251–5.42 Ibid., 253.43 Michael Walzer, “Gaza and the Asymmetry Trap,” Quillette, 1 December 2023, https://quillette.com/2023/12/01/gaza-and-the-asymmetry-trap/.44 Michael Walzer, “What is a Just War,” Zeit Magazine, 17 April 2024, https://www.zeit.de/zeit-magazin/leben/2024-04/michael-walzer-just-war-israel-gaza-english.45 International Criminal Court, “Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem,” 9 July 2024, https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/186/186-20240719-adv-01-00-en.pdf.46 Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 305.47 Walzer, “What is a Just War.”48 Yuval Abrhaham, “‘A Mass Assassination Factory’: Inside Israel’s Calculated Bombing of Gaza,” 972 Magazine, 30 November 2023, https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/; Yuval Abhraham, “‘Lavender’: The AI Machine Directing Israel’s Bombing Spree in Gaza,” 972 Magazine, 3 April 2024, https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/49 Gentili, On the Law of War, i, chap. xxv, 122–123.50 Ibid., iii, chap. xi, 330.51 Diarmaid MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490–1700 (London: Penguin Books, 2004), 69.52 Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, “The Defence of the Book, On the Just Reasons for War (Apologia pro libro de iustiis belli causis)” in Sepúlveda on the Spanish Invasion of the Americas: Defending Empire, Debating Las Casas, ed. and trans. Luke Glanville, David Lupher, and Maya Feile Tomes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023), 191–224, 207.53 Lewis Hanke, All Mankind is One: A Study of the Disputation Between Bartolomé de Las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda in 1550 on the Intellectual and Religious Capacity of the American Indian (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1994), 86.54 Sepúlveda, “The Defence,” 204–7.55 Ibid., 213.56 Ibid., 210.57 David Boucher, The Limits of Ethics in International Relations: Natural Law, Natural Rights and Human Rights in Transition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 172; Lewis Hanke, Aristotle and the American Indians: A Study in Race Prejudice in the Modern World (Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1959), 35–42.58 Sepúlveda, “Contained Herein is a Debate or Disputation (Aquí se contiene una disputa o controversia),” Sepúlveda on the Spanish Invasion of the Americas, 225–350, 281.59 Ibid., 283.60 Bauhn, “Just War, Human Shields, and the 23–24 Gaza War,” 3.61 Sonja Schilling, Enemies of All Humankind: Fictions of Legitimate Violence (Hannover, NH: Dartmouth College Press, 2016), 91.62 Ibid.63 Ibid., 100.64 Ibid., 208.65 Ibid., 200.66 I have laid out some of these ideas before in “Hugo Grotius, Declaration of War, and the International Moral Order,” Grotiana 41 (2020): 282–303. It must be said that Grotius is somewhat ambivalent about punishment of violent non-state actors. He advocates for the eradication of pirates and other actors against humanity, but he is, of course, also famous for his tract defending Jacob van Heemskerck, commander of a fleet of eight vessels belonging to the United Amsterdam Company (and Grotius’ cousin), whose actions in attacking the Portuguese in 1603 were performed without authorization from the Dutch state. Grotius would go on to argue that the seizure of the Portuguese ship Santa Catarina and its cargo were good prize in a just war. See also Randall Lesaffer, “Grotius on Reprisals,” Grotiana 41 (2020): 330–48.67 Hans W. Blom and Mark Somos, “Public-Private Concord through Divided Sovereignty: Reframing Societas for International Law,” Journal of the History of International Law 22 (2020): 565–88.68 Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace, iii.ii.i, 1246.69 Piirimäe, “Gentili’s Doctrine of Defensive War,” 202.70 Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace, ii, xx.71 Ibid., ii, i, 397.72 Ibid., ii, xx, 1021–24;1027–31;1051–52.73 Ibid.74 Straumann, Roman Law in the State of Nature, 215. See also Camilla Boisen, “The Law of Nations and The Common Law of Europe: the Case of Edmund Burke,” in International Law in the Long Nineteenth Century 1776—1914 – From the Public Law of Europe to Global International Law?, ed. Randall Lesaffer and Inge Van Hulle (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 20–44. The idea that wars waged for the purpose of self-preservation, including pre-emptive ones and wars undertaken by third parties against those who disrupted the sociability of the international order was commonplace among early modern thinkers. Specifically, Grotius believed this principle was why the society of nations functioned as a society rather than existing in a state of nature, as Hobbes suggested. Grotius contended that what elevated the law of nations to the status of a legal order, rather than a mere convention, was the readiness of its members to sanction those who posed a threat to others.75 Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace, ii, xx, 1024.76 Claire Vergerio, War, States, and International Order: Alberico Gentili and the Foundational Myth of the Laws of War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), 116.77 Ibid., iii, xi, viii, 1439.78 Ibid., xvi, 1452–53.79 David Boucher, “The Just War Tradition and its Modern Legacy: Jus ad bellum and jus in bello,” European Journal of Political Theory 11, no. 2 (2011): 92–111.80 That being said, the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024 has many implications for Israel’s claims of a right to self-defense (jus ad bellum). The occupation is per se illegal, and not simply the way it is conducted (jus in bello). Israel cannot claim self-defense when it is committing an ongoing act of aggression through the illegal occupation; moreover, Palestinians have, under international law, a right to resist alien occupation, colonial domination, and racist regimes. See: UNGA resolution 3314 (1974), UNGA resolution 37/43 (1982), and Article 1(4) of API to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. I am grateful to Jinan Bastaki for pointing this out.81 Samuel von Pufendorf, Of the Law of Nature and Nations, Eight Books (1672), trans. C. H. Oldfather and W. A. Oldfather (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934), i.ii.6; ii, iii, 23.82 Ibid., viii, iii, 4–7.83 Ibid., viii, vii, 2.84 Ibid., vi, 7.85 Francesca Iurlaro, The Invention of Custom Natural Law and the Law of Nations, ca. 1550–1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), 142. It is important not to downplay the significance of natural law by over-focusing on interest and self-preservation as states’ main motivation for agreeing to follow customs. In opposition to Iurlaro, Peter Schröder rightly points to the error in giving too much consideration to interest as a basis for Pufendorf ’s international political thought. Pufendorf thinks that states’ behaviour can be regulated by natural law, the primary concept of which is socialitas. See Peter Schröder, “Sovereignty and Interstate Relations,” in Pufendorf's International Political and Legal Thought, ed. Peter Schröder (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024), 155–74. In same volume, see also Boisen, “Pufendorf ’s Enduring Legacy for International Law,” 251–69.133 Andrew Fitzmaurice, “Anticolonialism in Western Political Thought: The Colonial Origins of the Concept of Genocide,” in Moses, Empire, Colony, Genocide, 55–80.134 Ibid., 74.135 Piirimäe, “Alberico Gentili’s Doctrine of Defensive War,” 189. The modern focus on self-defence, and its implications, is explored in detail in James Turner Johnson, “Then and Now: The Medieval Conception of Just War Versus Recent Portrayals of the Just War Idea,” in Medieval Foundations of International Relations, 117–31.

Defense & Security
Iron Dome Rocket Interceptions of Hamas Rockets- Southern Israel- Night Attack On Ashdod City

Iran’s leaders have everything to lose in a direct war with Israel. Why take such a massive risk?

by Shahram Akbarzadeh, Middle East Studies Forum

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском With Iran’s firing of some 180 ballistic missiles at Israel overnight, the Middle East is again on the brink of what would be a costly, ruinous regional war. Israel and its ally, the United States, shot down most of the missiles. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately vowed to retaliate for the attack. He called it a “big mistake” that Iran will “pay for”. The strike marked a dramatic shift in Iran’s calculations following weeks of escalating Israeli attacks on the leaders of its proxy groups, Hamas and Hezbollah, and their forces in both Gaza and Lebanon. Iran has traditionally outsourced its fighting to Hezbollah and Hamas. It has been very much concerned about getting dragged into direct confrontation with Israel because of the ramifications for the ruling regime – namely the possible internal dissent and chaos that any war with Israel might generate. When Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran in late July, Iran’s leaders said they would respond appropriately. They basically left it to Hezbollah to do that. And as Israel intensified its military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon in recent weeks, another Iranian proxy group, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, claimed to have retaliated by launching missiles and drones at Israeli cities and US destroyers in the Red Sea. Israel responded with airstrikes on Yemen. In this context, from the Iranian point of view, it looked like Iran was just sitting on the fence and not performing its leadership role in challenging Israel. So, to a large extent, Iran had to exert its role as the leader of the so-called “axis of resistance” and get into the fight. Fighting Israel is very much a pillar of state identity in Iran. The Iranian political establishment is set up on the principle of challenging the United States and freeing Palestinian lands occupied by Israel. Those things are ingrained in the Iranian state identity. So, if Iran doesn’t act on this principle, there’s a serious risk of undermining its own identity. A delicate balancing act Yet there are clearly serious risks to this type of direct attack by Iran. Domestically, the Iranian political regime is suffering from a serious crisis of legitimacy. There have been numerous popular uprisings in Iran in recent years. These include the massive “Women, Life, Freedom” movement that erupted following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody for allegedly not properly wearing her hijab. There is also a major dissenting view in Iran that challenges the regime’s anti-US and anti-Israel state identity and its commitment to perpetual conflict with both countries. So, the authorities in Iran have been concerned that direct confrontation with Israel and the US would unleash these internal dissenting voices and seriously threaten the regime’s survival. It’s this existential threat that has stopped Iran from acting on its principles. In addition, Iran has a new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, who belongs to the reformist camp and has an agenda of improving Iran’s relations with the West. He has been talking about reviving the Iran nuclear deal with the international community, sending signals that Iran is prepared to talk with the Americans. But the problem is the regional dynamics have completely changed since that deal was negotiated with the Obama administration in 2015. Iran has been a pariah state in recent years – and even more so since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began a year ago. Since then, no Western country would deem it appropriate or politically expedient to engage in nuclear talks with Iran, with the aim of alleviating international sanctions on the regime. Not at a time when Iran is openly calling for the destruction of Israel, supporting Hezbollah and Hamas in their attacks on Israel, and now engaging in confrontations with Israel itself. So the timing is awful for Pezeshkian’s agenda of repairing the damage to Iran’s global standing. Ultimately, though, it’s not the president who calls the shots in Iran – it is Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Supreme National Security Council who consider matters of war and peace and decide on the course of action. The supreme leader is also the head of state and appoints the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The IRGC generals have been advocating for more serious and resolute action against Israel ever since the war in Gaza started. And it looks like the supreme leader has finally listened to this advice. So, the regime has been maintaining a delicate balance of these factors:preserving Iran’s state identity and what it stands for in the region, and the need to manage internal dissent and ensure its survival. In normal circumstances, it was easy for Iran to maintain this balance. It could manage its internal opponents through brutal force or appeasement and advocate an aggressive foreign policy in the region. Now, the scales have tipped. From the Iranian perspective, Israel has been so brazen in its actions against its proxies, it just didn’t look right for Iran to continue sitting on the fence, not taking action. As such, it has become more important for Iran to emphasise its anti-American, anti-Israel state identity and perhaps deal with an acceptable level of risk coming from a rise in internal dissent. Where things go from here With its attack on Israel, Iran is also prepared for another risk – direct retaliation from Israel and all-out war breaking out. The conflict in the region is really going according to Netanyahu’s playbook. He has been advocating for hitting Iran and for the United States to target Iran. Now, Israel has the justification to retaliate against Iran and also drag the United States into the conflict. Unfortunately, Iran is also now prepared to see the entire Persian Gulf get embroiled in the conflict because any retaliation by Israel and perhaps the United States would make US assets in the Persian Gulf, such as navy ships and commercial vessels, vulnerable to attacks by Iran or its allies. And that could have major implications for trade and security in the region. This is the way things are heading. Iran would know that hitting Israel would invite Israeli retaliation and that this retaliation would likely happen with US backing. It seems Iran is prepared to bear the costs of this.