Pope Leo on the Fallacy of Collective Justice: The Case of Israel in Gaza

One of the many pitfalls in the doctrine of absolute sovereignty, whereby government officials acting as government can literally get away with murder domestically given the lack of credible de jure and de facto enforcement of international “law,” is the ability to inflict collective punishment based on group-identity, including the ideologies that hinge on identity politics. Going the actual culprits of a crime or even a revolt, collective punishment inflicts harm and even mass murder on an entire group, including individuals thereof who are not at all culpable. Unlike “collateral damage,” the ideology of collective justice includes intentionally harming such individuals. It is an ideology because it is based on beliefs about a group rather than an ethic that would justify normatively the infliction of pain and suffering on the innocent. Furthermore, collective justice is an ideology because it includes the artificial elevation of a group (i.e., the collective) over the individual even though members of a group are arguably foremost individuals, who typically belong to more than one group or organization. To put the collective abstraction first ontologically is thus tenuous at best. A person may be a Texan, a Democrat, a Catholic, and a member of a football team, for example, so the claim that that person is essentially any one of these would be dogmatic in the sense of being arbitrary. In privileging a part over a whole, thus being partisan, an ideology is in a sense arbitrary, even in claiming that a state of affairs that is favored or desired is the present state of affairs, as if the statement were a fact of reason rather than a counter-factual statement.

It is one thing for intellectuals to debate and discuss ontological and ethical matters, and quite another when a leader on the world stage makes an explicit normative statement condemning collective punishment. The reason why such a public pronouncement by a person chosen to head a government or a global religious organization is important is that the Israeli government quickly discovered in 2023 that having its president state publicly that every resident of Gaza would be punished for being culpable in an atrocity committed by criminals in October of that year in Israel was not going over well in the media around the world. Because the collective-justice motive was from then on—for at least 21 months (and counting)—on stealth mode in the Israeli government even though the fingerprints were obvious in Gaza, to have a leader recognized globally state publicly that collective “justice” was being pursued by the Israeli government even though prohibited by international law. For some reason, facts on the ground, even when obvious, are not enough for human beings to think, Hmm, the Israelis really are pursuing collective justice on their subjugated people within Israel’s borders. Even with such a recognition and acknowledgement, the prerogative of absolute sovereignty can go on, unimpeded internationally.

Nevertheless, it is significant that Pope Leo of the Roman Catholic Church, whose billion-plus membership spans the globe, “said at the end of his Sunday Angelus prayer” on July 20, 2025, “I once again call for an immediate end to the barbarity of this war and for a peaceful resolution of the conflict.”[1] Typically, leaders on the global stage are satisfied to leave it at that; they condemn this or that without stating what actions in particular, or what ideologies behind those actions, are being castigated. In addition to bringing up the Israeli attack on the only Catholic church in Gaza just days earlier, the pontiff said, “I appeal to the international community to observe humanitarian law and respect the obligation to protect civilians as well as the prohibition of collective punishment, the indiscriminate use of force, and the forced displacement of populations.”[2] Together with the barbarity of that war, the collective punishment, which presumes the validity of collective justice unless punishment is inflicted without cause, such as randomly, can be said to be extreme in its severity, and not just in its scale. If in fact the Vatican had turned a blind eye to the Nazi Holocaust, the Church was not making the same mistake on the Israeli Holocaust in Gaza. Pope Leo was essentially telling the Israeli government officials:

We know what you’re trying to do; you’re trying to extinguish the Palestinian people who now live in the uninhabitable area that you created so to decimate the Gazans, whom you view not only as culpable collectively, but also sub-human—as “animals,” as it were. This is not the first time in human history that a government has considered a people in its territory to be subhuman. It is ironic, is it not? The Torah makes clear that being Yahweh’s chosen people does not spare you from God’s wrath. You are not divine, so it is not your place to fete out collective justice that God can do by virtue of being omniscient as well as omnipotent.

Whereas the Pope would have to acknowledge the validity of divine collective justice in the Old Testament, Nietzsche argues that the conception of the deity wherein it is both omnibenevolent and vengeful, for “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,” is discredited by whomever added that line, knowing that God must be perfect goodness. Perhaps collective justice is not vengeance, and a deity who knows all would only inflict collective punishment in cases in which everyone is in fact guilty of some injustice. Nietzsche was not an atheist; in fact, he may have been criticizing a flawed concept so that a new, healthier concept could be built.  An atheist would likely go further, arguing that collective justice is inherently unjust so positing it of a deity is wrongheaded, and in fact could do additional damage as Israeli officials could try to justify their heinous crimes against humanity by saying that Yahweh engages in collective justice in punishing Israel, such as by keeping the Hebrews in the wilderness for forty years and later by allowing them to be conquered for violating the covenant. Trying to exterminate a people who believe in the same deity—unlike the people in Jericho in the Bible story—is arguably such a violation. It would be ironic were Yahweh to apply collective justice on the Israelis by punishing Israel for having inflicted collective punishment on the Gazans as if every resident in Gaza in October, 2023 were a culprit. Whether collective justice rightfully applies to an omniscient deity or contradicts the very notion of divinity, the assumption that we mere mortals enjoy God’s prerogative is impious self-idolatry.  

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1. The Associated Press, “Pope Repeats Call for Gaza Ceasefire as Israel Widens Evacuation Orders,” Euronews.com, July 20, 2025.
2. Ibid., italics added for emphasis.

The Israeli Military Kills Starving Gazans Seeking Food as Police in Massachusetts Intimidate Human-Rights Protesters

Even as the Israeli military was shooting innocent, starving people waiting for food in Gaza, Massachusetts police were overreacting to a pro-Gaza, pro-human rights protest in Cambridge, where Harvard University has most of its campus. Whereas the Israeli military (intentionally?) did not engage in crowd control around a designated food-distribution site, Cambridge and Harvard police employees overreacted and in so doing, falsely presented the visuals of an emergency and intimidated peaceful protesters. Both the Israeli military and a local and a private police department in Massachusetts can thus be criticized, and the choices of all three were to the advantage of Israel in spite of its ongoing war crime and crime against humanity in regard to the Gaza Holocaust, and to the advantage of the American defense contractors profiting from the U.S. Government sending weapons to Israel.  

On July 19, 2025, “Israeli troops opened fire” on “crowds of Palestinians seeking food at a distribution point run by an Israeli-backed US company in southern Gaza, killing at least 32 Palestinians.”[1] As if killing starving people on their way to an Israeli-approved food-distribution point being managed by an American company, in “a separate incident, at least 18 more Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strikes (sic) on Gaza City . . . near hubs operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF).”[2] Of course, the “Israeli military did not immediately react to reports of the two incidents.”[3] Especially concerning the first, even an attempted justification that the crowd was unruly would only beg the question of why the Israeli military had so badly mismanaged crowd-control, as it could certainly be anticipated, given the extent of famine in Gaza, that a crowd of starving, desperate Gazans would manifest to get food. To fail to manage an easily anticipated crowd and then shoot on the crowd reflects badly on the Israeli government rather than the starving people.

On the very same day, presumably many hours later, a “Free Palestine” small protest took place in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Whereas the Israeli military lapsed in managing a crowd, the Cambridge police surrounded the small group of protests on both sides. Even a city block away, Harvard’s private police employees had infiltrated Smith Hall, which is just across a street from Harvard Yard. Even though no university administration office was open on that Saturday in Smith Hall, which doubles as a student hang-out space, at least eight police employees interspersed themselves out in front, and left four or five of their cars double-parked on the street. To say that both the local and university police overreacted, given the small size of the protest and where it was taking place, is an understatement. The extent of police-presence around the small group of protesters can even be interpreted as an attempt to deny Americans their right of political protest and free speech by visible intimidation. When Black Lives Matter protests were going on several years earlier in Phoenix, Arizona, such intimidation was at the extreme of police surrounding protesters with machine guns even though the protests were all non-violent. The presumptuous “right” of police to deter by intimidation deserves to be contested in a U.S. district court, for the convenient (in terms of power-aggrandizement by police) assumption that peaceful protest will turn violent and thus should be treated as such is fallacious.

In short, there is simply too much show of military/police force evinced in these two cases—one in Gaza and the other in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The instinctual urge to bully ought to be checked by local governments, and even private universities that operate as de facto non-democratic local governments, against military and police employees, including their respective directors. Starving people being shot on the way to an approved food-distribution site and pro-human rights protestors being intimidated by an excessive show of presence by police up close and even a city-block away from the protest itself can both be taken as “red-flags.” Absolute power corrupts absolutely. No Harvard administrator would say to that university’s police unit that its presence was excessive in front of Smith Hall, and no government official in Netanyahu’s government in Israel would chastise the military for letting the crowd of starving people get out of hand, if in fact that crowd became unruly as opposed to being “sitting ducks” for Israeli troops hateful of Palestinians.

The Pro-Palestine Protest in Cambridge on July 19, 2025

Meanwhile, over at Harvard, an invasion of human-rights advocates was expected . . . 

And, just for added fun, photos of the Massachusetts Army intimidating Americans at Boston's Fireworks on July 4th

With the celebration of liberty obscured by the smoke of intimidation, I left in utter disgust as the booms of the "bombs" in the sky began. As I walked away quite determined, the first few powerful thuds I could feel through my body made the show of force on the ground seem somehow more real. A celebration of raw force by means of weapanry, or liberty from autocratic intimidation? It is no wonder that the U.S. was being so helpful to Israel. My visit to Boston was eventful and enlightening. I hear that Geneva is wonderful. 

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1. Malek Fouda, “Israeli Troops Open Fire on Palestianians en Route to Food Distribution Site, killing 32,” Euronews.com, July 19, 2025, italics added for emphasis.
2. Ibid. The grammar error aside, there were more than one strike, as the report also mentions them as “attacks.”
3. Ibid.

Negotiating from Weakness: The Plight of the European Union

To go to much effort to construct an economy on the scale of an empire only to refer instead to the economies within such a union, whether the E.U. or U.S. is to pay excessive homage to an ideology that can be termed Euroskeptic and anti-federalist, respectively. To refer to economies in one union and the economy in the other is just one means by which an ideology can distort a person’s reasoning and perception without the person being conscious of the underlying logical inconsistency. Such an inconsistency is incurred not only in “having it both ways” in the E.U. being a common market even as the states are referred to as economies even though many share a currency and thus a central bank, but also in referring to the federal system as if it were a mere “bloc,” or “network.”  In all of these cases of ideological word-games, the E.U. itself is minimized and thus implicitly marginalized from within. With Russia invading Ukraine and Israel eviscerating the Muslim residents of Gaza, self-marginalization for ideological purposes is indeed costly. Even referring to the federal official who is in charge of foreign policy as a “high representative” is implicitly denigrating and thus counter-productive to the E.U. being able to stand up to Putin and even Netanyahu in 2025.

As Russia’s Putin was ordering an unprecedented sustained bombing of Kiev, Euronews ran a story asking, “Which European economy stands to suffer the most from US tariffs?” In the article, Euronews wrote, “Germany and Ireland are standing out as the two most exposed EU economies threatened by higher US tariffs, as Brussels works towards a trade deal with Washington . . .”[1] That Brussels, meaning the European Commission, was negotiating with Washington was itself being undercut by the message that the E.U. doesn’t even have its own economy. Furthermore, the governors of Germany and Ireland could feel free to undercut the Commission by negotiating directly with the U.S. in the interest of those two states at the expense of the other E.U. states and even the E.U. as a whole. It is never good for a whole when a part can easily exploit a vulnerability in order to put the part’s own interests above the whole. Is the E.U. even a whole?  If not, as is implied in the article, why is Brussels even negotiating with the Washington? To expect the Commission to negotiate while portraying the E.U. states as having the real economies is like a person unilaterally deciding to fight with one arm tied up! Is it really so important to the political elite in Europe to cement the Euroskeptic ideology as the basic paradigm by implicitly denying that an economy exists that stretches across the E.U., even as a large federalized economy across the ocean is raising tariffs?

“In 2024, the United States was the largest partner for EU exports of goods, making up 20.6% of all EU goods exports outside the bloc.”[2] Even denigrating the European Union to a “bloc” subtly undermines the ability of the Commission to protect the exports to the U.S. from being suffocated by higher tariffs, for how is the U.S. supposed to regard negotiating with a mere “bloc”? To contend that new American tariffs could really hurt the E.U.’s export market and in the very same sentence to refer to the E.U. as a mere “bloc” is logically abhorrent to any rational mind, and yet even in advocating for the E.U.’s exports, the undermining ideology cannot keep silent!  C’est absolument incroyable—vraiment. Das ist seltsam. Superbia malum est.

The same self-destructiveness can be seen in yet another Euronews article on the very same day: “The ministers of Israel and Palestine will be in the same room in Brussels a day before the bloc discusses options in response to Israel’s breach of its partnership agreement” with the European Union.[3] The talks were indeed high-stakes, given Israel’s continued daily killing of Palestinian civilians even as they waited in line for food, and yet how is the Israeli delegation to approach negotiations being held by a mere “bloc” of countries?  The temptation to go to a governor of a favorably inclined E.U. state to undermine a unfavorable position by the Commission in the negotiations. That the partnership agreement is with the E.U. itself rather than with any of its state governments and yet the E.U. is only a “bloc” shows just how weakening the self-belittling choice of the word, bloc, is. For it is neither Israel nor the Palestinians where came up with that term to describe what the E.U. is; rather, the Europeans did that themselves. Encore, incroyable.  

1. Doloresz Katanich, “Which European Economy Stands to Suffer the Most from US Tariffs?” Euronews.com, July 11, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Shona Murray, Maia de La Baume, and Jorge Liboreiro, “Exclusive: Israel and Palestine to Join High Level Brussels Meeting Despite Tense EU Relations,” Euronews.com, July 11, 2025.

Russia Benefits from Flawed E.U. Federalism

In the E.U., the 27 state governments are able to wield a veto on most important policy proposals in the European Council. Expecting unanimity where not even consensus is enough is so utterly unrealistic at 27 that it may be time to reconsider whether the E.U. can afford such an easy (and tempting) means by which state governors can exploit the E.U. by essentially holding it hostage. To be sure, like the filibuster in the U.S. Senate, the veto in the European Council represents the residual sovereignty that states in both unions enjoy, but extortion for financial gain by means of threatening or exercising a veto in the European Council (and the committees of the Council of the E.U.) suggests that the continued use of a veto by state governments is too problematic to be continued. Residual sovereignty can find adequate representation by qualified majority voting, which is closer the threshold needed to maintain a filibuster in the U.S. Senate. That the E.U. state of Slovakia maintained its veto on a proposed number of federal sanctions against Russia on July 9, 2025 when the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia had violated international law in invading Ukraine is a good indication that the veto had outlived its usefulness and was being used by governors for sordid purposes by using the E.U. rather than strengthening it in foreign affairs.

The full essay is at "Russia Benefits from Flawed E.U. Federalism." 

On the Role of Federalism in Foreign Policy on Israel and Iran

As U.S. President Trump was drawing a line in the proverbial sand by stating repeatedly that Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons, E.U. foreign commissioner (i.e., minister) Kallas warned the world that military involvement by the U.S. in the military spat going on between Israel and Iran would “definitely drag” the entire Middle East into the conflict.[1] Accordingly, she “made clear the European Union would not back America’s armed intervention.”[2] By the way she came to that public statement, the U.S. could take a lesson in how to optimally utilize federalism such that all of its parts shine, rather than just those at the federal level.

The E.U.’s foreign minister made her public statement after having hosted a video conference with state officials—one from each state government—who could represent their respective states in affairs beyond the E.U. She had also called her U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State Rubio, who “emphasized that it’s also not in their interest to be drawn into this conflict.”[3] Any daylight between Rubio’s position, that of the U.S. National Security Director, and President Trump is not relevant here; rather, that Kallas reached out not only to her counterpart in the U.S., but also to state officials in the E.U. can illustrate how federalism can be utilized in the formulation of a foreign policy in a federal system of public governance. Instead of being left out entirely, the E.U. state governments played a role without eclipsing Kallas’ role in the E.U. speaking with one voice. Even if some state officials in the meeting objected to the federal foreign minister’s statement, discerning a consensus would be sufficient for Kallas in her role. As a result, the E.U. could enjoy the benefits abroad from speaking with one voice.

In cases in which consensus on an issue does not exist, and some state officials are at loggerheads, Kallas could simply have abstained from commenting because the E.U. would not speak with one voice. Qualifying this quietism, however, is the condition in which the E.U. has an important strategic geopolitical or economic interest in an issue in foreign affairs and the interest of the E.U. should outweigh the lack of consensus at the state level, for the union is more than the aggregate of the political units (i.e., states) within the union. This judgment too should rest with Kallas in her capacity as a federal official.

A risk in involving officials from each of the 27 states regards any one of them exceeding one’s role as a state official by speaking unilaterally for the union publicly. Kallas should thus have the authority to restrict such pronouncements for the good of the union. A benefit of holding a meeting with the state officials is that after a consensus has been discerned, Kallas could ask them for some analysis of the international problem. Once benefit of federalism is that a federal official can draw on the expertise of relevant state officials, both in the politics and in geopolitical analysis as foreign-policy experts.

For example, Kallas stated that no one would benefit from a widening of the conflict in the Middle East. This point may not be true. The plight of the Gaza residents under the thumb of the Israeli army at the time could benefit from Arab countries entering the fray because their armies could possibly assume control of Gaza to feed and protect its residents. Put another way, the genocide was so one-sided (it could hardly be called a war) that were the U.S. to engage militarily against Iran, other Muslim countries could also become engaged and, as a byproduct, provide some balance in favor of the Palestinians in Gaza. That the E.U. was arguably more pro-Gaza than the U.S. was at the time may have meant that Kallas had a political incentive to suggest to the Arab governments in the Middle East that they could possibly take advantage of U.S. involvement against Iran to step in themselves on behalf of Gaza. If the U.S. Government had been paying brides to Arab countries (or to key officials therein) to keep them from intervening militarily in Gaza, the military involvement of the U.S. against Iran could be a game-changer, in effect forcing the hands of the Arab states to take action even if it means less U.S. money. State officials meeting with Kallas could perhaps have supplied her and each other with such analysis that in turn could have improved the substance of her public statement in terms of any impact on the players and spectators in the Middle East.

Kallas’ consultations both abroad and with relevant state officials can be viewed as a strategic competitive advantage of the E.U. over the U.S. because American federal appointees have not been in the practice of consulting with state officials who may have expertise in foreign policy and could relay and reflect foreign-affairs positions of their respective states. As commander-in-chief of an army, the head of state of a U.S. state should include foreign affairs in campaigning for office, as well as in serving in office. The chief executive and head of state of Texas, for example, is the regular commander-in-chief of the Texas National Guard. Lest such an army be relegated as insignificant, California’s Newsom raised hell when the federal president of the union, Donald Trump, officially borrowed California’s army to engage against protesters in Los Angeles in June, 2025.

In short, Kallas’ utilization of the E.U. federal system may be more optimal than Rubio’s utilization of only federal officials in the U.S. on foreign policy, such that the latter could take a lesson from the former on how to optimize federalism in foreign policy by more fully engaging more of the parts of the system. To be sure, the involvement of state officials risks state governments diverging publicly from a federal policy and thus undercutting it. But such a tension is part of federalism. Being able to speak with one united voice yet while accommodating the differences that naturally exist within an empire-scale union is not cost- or risk-free, but I submit that federalism is the best system for such unions, which in scale and qualities are distinct from (early modern) kingdom-level states that have their own federal systems. The heterogeneity of culture and ideology within an empire-scale federal union dwarfs such differences that exist within a state thereof. Federalism is thus more of a benefit to the former than the latter.

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “US Action Against Iran Would Fuel ‘Broader Conflict” in the Middle East, Kallas Warns,” Euronews.com, June 17, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

The E.U. as a Bystander on the Global Stage: A Self-Inflicted Wound

Why has the E.U. been sidelined amid the military tensions in the Middle East? The answer lies with the E.U.’s federal system, rather than the size of its economy or of its population. The E.U. certainly could have more geopolitical sway abroad were it not for a vulnerability being exploited within its own federal system. The vulnerability stems from a refusal by some state officials to recognize and respect the qualitative and quantitative differences between the federal and the state levels of the E.U. Specifically, when the governor (i.e., chief executive and/or head of state) of a state operates as if a federal-level official, especially that of a federal president, the authority of the actual federal president is undercut, hence weakening that person’s ability to convince the heads of foreign governments to include the E.U. president or foreign minister in multilateral negotiations centered on the Middle East, for example. Even unconsciously, foreign leaders may say to themselves, why should we respect the president of the E.U. if she is so easily upstaged by the leader of an E.U. state who is acting as if he were president of the European Commission?  To speak with one voice, and to be able to speak for the E.U. rather than just one state thereof, an E.U. official must be the speaker. Macron of the E.U. state of France cannot speak for the E.U., but Von der Leyen could, provided her space is respected by the governors of the states. This is not to say that this is the only reason why the E.U. has been sidelined from negotiations on Middle East warfare; rather, my contention is that this reason is typically overlooked due to the Euroskeptic ideological delusion that the E.U. does not have a federal system of government even though since 1993, governmental sovereignty has indeed been split between the states and the Union. Perhaps the underlying question here is whether continuing to clutch at the anti-federalist ideology is worth the E.U. continuing to be weakened unnecessarily from within, and thus sidelined from international negotiations that do not center on Europe. Making such blind-spots transparent is indeed a valuable occupation, even if it can be infuriating to people whose interests and ideology are served best if societies look the other way.

The full essay is at "The E.U. as a Bystander on the Global Stage." 

Israel Kidnapping at Sea: On Absolutist National Sovereignty

In the dark of night on June 9, 2025, Israeli military forces intercepted The Madleen, a yacht operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), a political-activist group oriented to getting food and medicine to the residents of Gaza in Israel. Activists from the E.U., Brazil, and Turkey were on the boat until they were forced onto an Israeli boat and taken to Tel Aviv’s airport, where they were pressured to sign a document that they had entered Israel illegally and agreed to be deported. Once back in the E.U., its activist Greta Thunberg told reporters that Israel had committed “an illegal act by kidnapping us on international waters and against our will, bringing us to Israel, keeping us in the bottom of the boat, not letting us getting out and so on.”[1] She had agreed to give her written consent to be deported (even if that meant being permanently banned from Israel, she likely would have welcomed the stipulation), but she refused to admit that she had entered Israel illegally. She had, after all, been kidnapped in international waters. Being forced to enter a country by its government, whose officials reason nonetheless that the entrance is illegal, merits the spotlight on enquiry, as this actual mindset can be said to be pathological in nature. I submit that pathology with governmental sovereignty is never a good mix.

Of her kidnapping in international waters north of Egypt, over 100 miles from Israel, Thunberg humbly relativized her own plight by adding, “But that is not the real story here, the real story is that there is a genocide going on in Gaza, and a systematic starvation following the siege and blockade now, which is leading to food, medicine, water—that are desperately needed to get into Gaza—is prevented from doing so.”[2] Her priority in directing attention to the condition of the residents of Gaza is eminently valid; even so, I contend that it should not totally eclipse the glimpse afforded to us by the public response of the Israeli foreign ministry to Israel’s interception of the boat and abduction of its occupants.

As if Israel’s blockade off the coast of Gaza extended into international waters, the ministry “insisted the blockade,” and thus the interception of the boat, “was ‘consistent with international law.’”[3] Stating furthermore that “unauthorized attempts to breach” the blockade “were ‘dangerous, unlawful, and undermine ongoing humanitarian efforts,’” as if one small humanitarian effort would undermine others as if “collective justice” would mean that all aid would then be blocked, the foreign ministry was stating, in effect, that motive is sufficient for such a breach even while a boat is still in international waters, just north of another country rather than off Israel’s coast.[4] As against the international illegality of surrounding a boat in international waters, harassing its passengers, spraying them with a white irritant, and forcing them to leave the boat and be taken to Israel (as they were not yet even in Israeli waters), motive of intent to eventually violate Israel’s blockade by approaching Gaza from the sea means that Israel did not actually violate international law. Treating motive as an unauthorized attempt to breach Israel’s blockade of Gaza even outside Israel’s waters is a misuse of the military doctrine of preemption, which in turn can be traced back to the U.S. invasion of Iraq two decades earlier.

Accusing the kidnapped of illegally entering Israel adds insult to injury. Furthermore, such a cognitive warping as, “I forced you here and you came here illegally” implies that the Israeli government had acted illegally, since that government’s action caused the illegal entry. In addition to twists of reason, the ministry’s statement reveals something heinous about the mental boxes of the powerful whose use is not subject to a higher authority and whose unrelenting, still unspent hatred toward another group warps perception and judgment as well as clear thinking. The resulting dissidence reflects back on extraordinary arrogance fed by over a year of de facto impunity internationally in decimating a captive population. “Drunk with power” is yet another way of characterizing the presumption of arrogance, which, sadly, is human, all too human. Yet even before the conflagration in Gaza, before the dreadful yet much more limited attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, an Israeli government presumed itself entitled to go into another sovereign country and kidnap Adolf Eichmann, so even though he, unlike the humanitarians on the boat, deserved his fate in court, the pattern of hyperextending beyond Israel’s borders to kidnap non-Israelis can be discerned, and this pattern suggests a sordid mentality of extenuated self-entitlement. Such a mentality running a sovereign government is problematic internationally, and thus this case reasonably comes under the purview of the international community.

From this case study’s glimpse of a problemed mentality of government officials in a foreign ministry, the absolutist interpretation of national sovereignty, which not only Israel, but the U.S., Russia, and China have held onto as if it were a sacred dogma, can and should be up for review. Absent any international coalition of willing countries to militarily enter Gaza to protect and feed the residents, and Israel’s ongoing naval blockade of food and medicine, which strongly suggests a motive to exterminate the population so Jewish settlements could repopulate Gaza, proposals to check national sovereignty at the global level, whether by removing vetoes from the UN Security Council, making resolutions by the General Assembly binding on countries, or establishing a rival institution capable of governance and enforcement to at least some degree should be considered. To Kant’s point that an international federation of countries would make peace merely possible but not probable can be added the crucial element of whether such a federation would have some governmental sovereignty of its own with which to act as a real check on abuses of national sovereignty by national governments.

In short, the kidnapping in international waters by a national government with impunity reveals for us a mentality that is dangerous when it can draw on national sovereignty to act out aggressively as a predator. That such a sordid mentality is able to enjoy Hobbes’ proverbial state of nature of “dog eat dog” (so life is short and brutish as there is no superordinate power) should be a sign that the post-World-War-Two world order was in dire need of serious reform or being replaced outright such that abuses of absolutist national sovereignty could be checked by limited yet effectual authority beyond the nation-state yet accountable to a super-majority, with minority rights protected by an international court whose rulings could be enforced against the resistance of guilty national governments.

The implications of the decision that was taken by the Israeli government as if its jurisdiction extended into international waters brings up more than merely that government’s legitimacy, for the world order itself could then be perceived as woefully inadequate, even broken. Constructing the UN in the wake of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan and in the midst of the nuclearized Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union did not go far enough, and thus underestimated the depravity of human nature drunk with unlimited national sovereignty.

Indeed, the motives and actions of Israeli officials against the innocent residents of Gaza at the scale of an entire people to be moved or else exterminated answers the question asked in the wake of the Second World War of whether the world would learn its lesson. Evidently, Hitler did not sufficiently jolt humanity into engaging in sufficient political development internationally, for Netanyahu’s cadre can arguably be placed in the same class as the Nazis. In a way, the impunity enjoyed by Israel and its very likely ability to continue as a nation makes this case more dangerous than that of Nazi Germany from the standpoint of human rights, for the lesson going forward could be that crimes against humanity do pay off.

Even in refusing to go back to its 1967 borders, Israel as a country had been in violation of international law for decades, again with such blatant impunity that the country’s government went on the offensive against a subjugated and captive population of Muslims. The mentality is the same as that of kidnapping foreigners in international waters only to accuse them of illegally entering the country: Ignoring the violation of international law as to borders (as well as the rulings of international courts on the occupation of Gaza) only to go on the offensive in bombing and starving entire cities in Gaza. The mentality of aggression in this case is two degrees of separation from the normalcy of recognizing and atoning for one’s own previous actions. It is astonishing that the hubris of arrogance does not trip over itself as if running on stilts while throwing rocks. Such a mentality renders the absolutist version of national sovereignty not only dangerous, but deeply flawed from the standpoint of human nature.  

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1. Jaroslav Lukiv and David Gritten, “Greta Thunberg Deported, Israel Says, after Gaza Aid Boat Intercepted,” BBC.com, June 10, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.