Underneath the Rhetoric: Israel’s Hatred of Palestinians

Official public statements by a government’s officials obviously trade on rhetoric—manipulation by wording being a part of statecraft—but when the rhetoric is so self-serving and divorced from facts on the ground (i.e., empirically), wording can be indicative of the underlying mentality, which is real. I submit that the statements of Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu and Israeli foreign-ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein in May, 2025 amid the Israeli military offensive in Gaza reveal the surprising extent that hatred can warp human perception and cognition without the warping itself being grasped by the very people in its grip.

Facing pressure from the E.U. and, to a lesser extent, the U.S. in May, 2025, the Israeli government made a decision that the media described as lifting of the two-month-old Israeli ban on humanitarian food and medicine entering Gaza as over a million residents there were facing starvation and a lack of medical care. The so-called lifting of the blockade in actuality consisted in allowing in less than ten trucks on the first day, and between twenty and forty on the second day, with none being able to distribute through distribution centers. As a result, the food—a mere trifle spread over 1.2 million souls—did not reach any hungry mouths. Incredibly, Netanyahu admitted publicly that he was intent to allow in just enough food and medicine that would relieve the Israeli government of the pressure from its allies. Whereas during the ceasefire earlier in 2025 when Israel was allowing 600 trucks into Gaza per day, the “lifting” of the blockade would only permit a maximum of 100 trucks. In essence, the crime against humanity of exterminating a people was ongoing, given how far short 100 trucks’ worth of food (and the trucks also contained boxes of medicine and medical supplies) is in being able to feed 1.2 million people. Meanwhile, the Israeli military was upping its bombing in Gaza, with 100 residents killed on one day and 48 on the next day after the “lifting” of the blockade. In effect, the Israeli government’s cabinet was increasing the demand for medical supplies and medicine while intentionally minimizing the number of humanitarian trucks that could enter Gaza and making it very difficult for the trucks that did get in to unload at distribution centers such that the food and medicine could reach the actual residents of Gaza. Netanyahu’s stated goal of riding Gaza of Palestinians continued unfettered.

It is in that context that the E.U. took the decision to review the “wide-ranging trade and cooperation pact” with Israel “over its intensified offensive in Gaza.”[1] The E.U.’s foreign minister, Kaja Kallas, stated on May 20, 2025 that the E.U. “would examine if Israel has violated its human rights obligations under Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which defines the trading and diplomatic relations” bilaterally.[2] That the Israeli military had already killed over 50,000 residents of Gaza over more than a year begs the question of what took the E.U. so long even just to review the agreement. The constitutional, or basic law, provision for unanimity on foreign policy in the European Council and the Council of the E.U. and that the E.U. state of Hungary had been serially exploiting its veto-power on the federal level is the obvious explanation.

Less well-known, however, is the sheer gradualism in the machinery of any government, federal or unitary, in reacting beyond words in ways that a strong enough to make a real difference “on the ground.” Aggressor regimes around the world benefit from the refusal of legislatures to off-set the inherent gradualism of government by enacting a fast-track option. Both in reacting quicker to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s bombing of Gaza, the E.U. could arguably have made a difference, whereas entrenchment is much more difficult to counter after a year.

Ongoing entrenchment has the benefit to the aggressor of being able to set the contours of debate concerning the militarization of an occupation or an outright invasion and extermination of a people. For example, in responding to the E.U.’s decision just to review the agreement, Marmorstein of the Israeli government wrote on social media that the “war was forced upon Israel by Hamas, and Hamas is the one responsible for its continuation. Ignoring these realities and criticising Israel only hardens Hamas position and encourages Hamas to stick to its guns.”[3] There a number of problems with this reply.

Firstly, whether or not Israel rejects the decision of the E.U. to review the trade and diplomatic agreement, the decision is solely for the E.U. concerning its own review, so this is not something for the counterparty to accept or reject. Secondly, not even Hamas—not to mention the 1.2 million residents of Gaza—forced Israel to kill over 50,000 and decimate entire neighborhoods. Nor did any counterparty force Israel to block humanitarian aid from entering Gaza as people on a mass scale were starving. Behind the rhetoric is a warping of social reality in being incorrect in terms of being forced to make decisions, as if at gunpoint. Thirdly, the extremely disproportionate number of guns and bombs that Israel had over Gaza undercuts the claim that Hamas was “sticking to its guns,” and that this forced Israel to disproportionately bomb and kill in Gaza, especially during its offensive in May, 2025. Fourthly, the claim that Israel was militarily on the defensive is so contrary to the facts that, beyond the rhetorical use of the claim, it points to a rather severe cognitive and perceptual warping. I submit that hatred is the underlying culprit behind the cognitive and perceptional displacement.

Shortly after Hamas’s unjustified attack and kidnapping on October 7, 2023, the president of Israel said publicly that every resident of Gaza was culpable. Such over-reach of accusation, even considering that Hamas had democratic legitimacy in Gaza, bespeaks hatred, and is consistent with the UN’s finding of reason to believe that Israel was guilty of the crime of trying to exterminate a people, which is easier to prove than genocide. Furthermore, Netanyahu’s admission that he would allow only a minimum of humanitarian food-aid into Gaza in May, 2025 and only to satisfy the U.S. and E.U. points to an underlying hatred like smoke suggests the presence of fire. 

Also indicative of hatred in the Israeli government, Yair Golan, a former deputy chief of staff of the Israeli army, said at the time that the Israeli government was “rejecting” the E.U.’s decision to review the trade and diplomatic agreement: “A sane country does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a pastime, and does not engage in mass population displacement.”[4] This revealing glimpse both of the intent of Israel’s cabinet and what atrocities had been going on in Gaza strongly implies that hatred was a, or even the motivator, for what else other than sadistic pleasure could explain killing babies as a pastime. Furthermore, the statement belies the claim that Israel was being forced by its adversary to hit, and hit hard in Gaza. The refusal to take responsibility for one’s own decisions and even blame a counterparty as if it had made the decisions or forced them is suggestive of a sordid character and even delusion. It is probably that Israeli government’s officials have continued to be so angry and demeaning of a people deemed in effect (and ironically!) as sub-human that the policy of extermination has continued unabated even by the so-called lifting of the blockade of humanitarian aid that might keep the population from continuing to shrink as intended and desired by the Israeli officials. 

It is no wonder that the ICC has issued arrests warrants; it is more astonishing that the world has allowed the Israeli officials to continue to commit war crimes and a crime against humanity with only slight pressure to let some humanitarian aid into Gaza. While certainly not as culpable, the E.U.’s delay in even reviewing its agreement with Israel is astonishing. Is there a threshold of atrocity beyond which a coalition of countries would take immediate action against an aggressor-state? Given the impunity of not only Israel, but also Russia in Ukraine, it seems unlikely that there is such trigger even when a squalid, hateful, and over-reactive aggressor-character is on the loose as if it were in Hobbes' state of nature. 

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1. Euronews, “Israel ‘Completely Rejects’ EU Decision to Review Trade and Cooperation Deal,” Euronews.com, May 21, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Astha Rajvanshi, “Ex-Israeli General Hits Out at Government for ‘Killing Babies as a Pastime’ in Gaza,” Nbcnews.com, May 20, 2025.

Beyond Description, Atrocious, Inhumane: The New Normal?

“The situation for Palestinians in Gaza is beyond description, beyond atrocious and beyond inhumane.”[1] So wrote Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, on May 17, 2025. He could have been looking at films taken when the Nazi concentration camps were liberated in 1945 at the end of World War II. It was a shock to the world back then. The scale of the inhumane atrocity of over a million people living in rubble and starving by design in the next century raises the question of whether extreme inhumanity toward a group in searing hatred was becoming normalized, and thus tolerated by the world absent even a coalition of the willing to step in and counter what even democracy could inflict.

At the very least, the impunity enabled by Israel’s major ally pointed to a fatal flaw in the post-World-War II world order, including the United Nations. Ironically, the collapse of the Soviet Union made the world vulnerable, given the bias in there being one less superpower. “A policy of siege and starvation makes a mockery of international law,” the head of the UN wrote.[2] He added that annexation and settlements in the Palestinian territories are illegal, and “nothing justifies the collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” or, I might add, of any people.[3] Yet even such strong phraseology is but dry parchment while Israel killed over 100 residents of Gaza on next day—bombing a hospital no less in an attack called Operation Gideon’s Chariot.

To be sure, the Israeli government announced it would “allow a ‘basic amount of food’ to enter Gaza ‘to ensure a famine crisis does not develop’ after blockading the territory for 10 weeks.”[4] Lest humanity be presumed to be the motive, Israel’s IDF made the recommendation “out of the operational need to enable the expansion of the intense fighting” as Israel’s army expanded its presence in Gaza.[5] A similar logic may have been behind Eichmann’s frustration that there simply were not enough ovens so the number of people gassed daily had to be reduced. In both cases, group-identification led to viewing some humans as not human.

It is as if the world and especially the Israelis learned nothing from the disclosure of Hitler’s brutality, for by the 2020s, group-identification itself had still not come to be viewed as dangerous, especially when the obsession becomes reductionistic, and large-scale, planned-out atrocities in Gaza and Ukraine were allowed to go on. Eerily, were the Russian government successful in riding Ukraine of Ukrainians and the Israeli government successful in exterminating the Palestinians in Gaza, would the rest of the world blink? More likely, the tyranny of the status quo would turn a blind eye and go on as if nothing atrocious had happened.

I think it very likely that not even Guterres’s strong words would be enough to translate any political will into action to forestall the victimizers even by the UN. The lesson is perhaps that having strong allies can indeed enable a government to enact Nazi-level atrocities with impunity while the rest of the world looks on as if collectively helpless. What was shocking in 1945 may be viewed going forward as a precedent rather than a “never again,” line in the sand. Remembering past systematic atrocities by governments, whether of Hitler or Stalin, that were oriented to punishing or even eliminating a people out of hatred doesn’t help if such large-scale inhumanity is actually (i.e., de facto) to become precedent. In the midst of destructive, large-scale technology and the banality of efficient state organizing, the world could do worse than come up with a new world order in which having a powerful ally does not give victimizing governments a de facto veto over countervailing efforts to protect peoples from being exterminated out of sheer hatred.

John Locke knew that one rationale for government is that victims make lousy judges of their respective aggressors. That governments might view themselves as victims and leash out hyperactive vengeance may not have occurred to Locke, or even to Kant, who stated that a world federation would only possibly but not probably ensure world peace. It seems that political development beyond the nation-state needs to catch up to the modern reach and intensity of government being used as a tool of hatred. Even in 2025, Putin’s hatred of Ukrainians and Netanyahu’s hatred of Palestinians were of such intensity that both men should have been rendered unfit for office by international if not by domestic means.

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1. Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, LinkedIn.com, May 17, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Wyre Davies and Rushdi Abualouf, “Israel Says It Will Allow Basic Amount of Food into Gaza, Ending 10-week blockade,” BBC.com, May 18, 2025.
5. Ibid.

Nationalism at Eurovision: A Lack of Vision

The inherent retentiveness of conservatism benefits a society because it need not “reinvent the wheel” in “starting from scratch,” as resort can be made to customs that have been efficacious. Unfortunately, conservatism can easily be in denial as to the need for adaptation to changes whether in geopolitical institutions or in culture. The advent of the European Union as a federal system of dual-sovereignty has been easy fodder for conservatism’s proclivity of denial with regard to very new things. Eurovision, too, was an invention beyond even the European Union, and thus also of the post-World-War-II history of integration meant in part as a check on the full-blown nationalism that had twice decimated Europe in the twentieth century. So it is problematic that the EBU, the organization behind the Eurovision Song Contest, has made so many category mistakes involving Europe in favor of nationalism.

The epitome of EBU’s bias and inconsistencies is the decision taken first to ban altogether and then relegate the E.U.’s flag while giving the state flags pride of place on stage, as if Eurovision were a political rather than an entertainment event. It was as if the EBU and the Swiss government were conveniently oblivious to the notion and instantiation of an empire-scale federal system of states. The notion that a person could be a citizen both of a union and one’s own state, and thus be under two flags at once, had been invented by political compromise in 1787. So, it was odd that in 2025, the performers who were E.U. citizens were to be denied the opportunity to show the E.U. flag, whereas bringing along the state flags was permissible.  It was, in effect, to say, you can vote for your representative in the European Parliament, but you cannot hold or wear the E.U. flag under which that parliament is instantiated as a legislative body. This inconsistency is at the very least consistent with the anti-federalist, Euroskeptic political ideology, and thus partisan in nature. Even worse, the decision fuels the sort of nationalism out of which two World Wars had destroyed Europe in the last century.

Even though Switzerland is not an E.U. state, the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation announced in May of 2025 that performers would not be allowed to bring the E.U. flag on the main stage, the turquoise carpet, and even in the green room. In obfuscating the E.U. flag with those of “personal, cultural or regional identity,”[1] the Swiss government was making a category mistake, for to liken the E.U. flag with a gay-rights flag, for example, is to ignore the major difference between a cultural movement and a union that has executive, legislative, and judicial branches at the federal level. Neither was the E.U. “a network,” as David Cameron infamously said of the E.U. when Britain was a state thereof. In fact, Britain seceded in large part in rejection of the fact that governmental sovereignty had already been split between the state and federal levels. 

Lest Euroskeptics raise alarm bells, a federal union can exist in theory and practice without the federal level being recognized as a state internationally, for governmental institutions can indeed exist without constituting a state in the sense of having exclusive competency in foreign affairs. That governmental sovereignty can be divided does not necessarily mean that foreign policy and defense are completely federalized (i.e., E.U. exclusive competencies, or enumerated powers). Yet in terms of government, laws can be passed at both the state and federal level with binding legal force, hence the sovereignty enjoyed at the federal union level by executive, legislative, and judicial branches is distinct from the sovereignty retained by the states.

Therefore, that the “same rule applies to the Rainbow flag” as the E.U. flag “and the Palestinian flag” points to a logical inconsistency founded on a category mistake, but actually founded on a political ideology that is against the European Union.[2] Regarding the Palestinian flag, that Eurovision considered Israel to be European also represents a logical problem, for Israel is a sovereign state occupying Palestine in the Middle East, which is distinct from Europe geographically and culturally.

Furthermore, in refusing to exclude Israel from the competition, Eurovision was in denial, in effect, regarding the fact that the Israeli government had been blocking food and medicine from Gaza for more than a month as the 1.2 million captives in Gaza starved, as if each one had been culpable on October 7, 2023. In fact, on the day after the announcement on the E.U. flag being relegated to the background at Eurovision, essentially putting the state flags in front as if the states were still completely sovereign, Israel’s prime minister announced to the world that “full force” would be mustered against the inhabitants of Gaza.[3]

Also on the day after the Swiss announcement, lest the world of entertainment be assumed to be completely passive in the midst of the exterminating atrocity in Gaza, a “group of more than 350 international actors, directors and producers . . . signed a letter published on the first day of the Cannes Film Festival condemning the killing of Fatma Hassouna, the 25-year-old Palestinian photojournalist and protagonist of the documentary Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk. Hassouna was killed along with 10 relatives in an Israeli air strike on her family home in northern Gaza {in April, 2025}, the day after the documentary was announced as part of the ACID Cannes selection.”[4] The letter pointed to the “shame” in the film industry’s “passivity.”[5] Passivity, as well as shame, can also applied to the EBU of the Eurosong Contest because it ignored a letter yet again in 2025 “calling for Israel to be banned from Eurovision” so the EBU would not be “normalizing and whitewashing” Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.[6] That the EBU had banned Russia even though at least part of Russia is in Europe sheds light on the rule by double-standards at Eurovision.

In such a condition, perhaps no flags at all should have been allowed in the vicinity of the song contest. Why open the door to explicit politics anyway, given that EBU’s handling of the political domain was itself so controversial, and, I contend, impaired even just from the standpoint of logic and consistency? I submit that the ideology of nationalism, which had given the world two major wars in the twentieth century and was allowing Israel to so abuse its national sovereignty, had become too engrained in the song contest. If the history of European integration after World War II, which includes Euroatom and the European Coal and Steel Cooperative, can be interpreted as a series of efforts to check nationalism, then the E.U. flag should be highlighted rather than relegated to the periphery if political flags are to be allowed at an entertainment venue at all, which itself is problematic and seems to incur a category mistake. Should Eurovision be assigned as a political or an entertainment event?  Passivity on even this basic question can be regarded as blameworthy.  

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “Eurovision Will Allow European Flag for Fans in the Audience but Not for Artists on Stage,” Euronews.com, May 13, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Gavin Blackburn, “Israeli Military to Continue Gaza Operation ‘With Full Force’ in Next Days, Netanyahu Says,” Euronews.com, May 14, 2025.
4. David Mouriquand, “More than 350 Stars Condemn Gaza ‘Genocide’ in Open Letter in Time for Cannes Opening,” Euronews.com, May 14, 2025.
5. Ibid.
6. David Mouriquand, “Eurovision’s Israel Contestant Yuval Raphael’s ‘Expecting’ Booing During This Year’s Competition,” Eurovision.com, May 13, 2025.

From Ground Zero: Stories from Gaza

The uniqueness of the film, From Ground Zero: Stories from Gaza (2024), goes well beyond it being a documentary that includes an animated short made by children and a puppet show. Footage of a Palestinian being pulled from the rubble twice—one with the head of his dead friend very close to him and the other with his account that he could see body parts of his parents near him—is nothing short of chilling. Perhaps less so, yet equally stunning, are the close-ups of the legs and arms of children on which their respective parents had written the names so the bodies could be identified after a bombing. That the kids had dreams in which they erased the black ink from their skin because they refused to fathom the eventuality of having to be identified is chilling in a way that goes beyond that which film can show visually. Moving pictures can indeed go beyond the visual in what film is capable of representing and communicating to an audience. The same can be said regarding the potential of film to bring issues not only in ethics, but also in political theory and theology to a mass audience.

The full essay is at "From Ground Zero."

On the Case Against Israel: The ICC and ICJ as Seeds

At first glance, the impotence of the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice once an order has been willfully ignored by a government may seem overwhelming. The continued atrocities in Gaza and Ukraine even amid court challenges fueled the argument that might makes right. Even so, the willful sense of impunity of the perpetrators and their enablers in other governments may trigger enough of a public adverse reaction that the courts and international law itself eventually come out stronger.

In 2024, the jurisprudence on genocide was still new and has few cases. In its case against Israel, South Africa urged the International Court of Justice to order provisional measures that Israel would be obliged to take because an imminent risk of irreparable harm that is genocidal in nature exists in Gaza. Allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza is one such measure. With famine already in Gaza, South Africa asked the ICJ to direct Israel to do more in cooperation with the United Nations. Expanding the number of crossings for UN aid to enter the territory, and making that aid available at various points throughout Gaza are two examples of how Israel could cooperate with the UN, of which Israel is a member. The court issued such concrete orders as these two, even as the court had to consider the risk that Israel would violate the court’s provisional orders. In fact, in January, 2024, the court ruled that given the future risk of genocide, additional provisional measures were justified. This means that the court had found enough evidence of a risk of genocide—not that the court found evidence that genocide was taking place. This is a key distinction.

Moreover, the court had to ask itself whether the group being harmed—residents of Gaza—are a protected group?  The court found that the Palestinians constitute a national group. The court also had to assess whether there was destructive intent, meaning that Israel’s actions in Gaza were geared to eliminating the group rather than just killing individuals in the territory. South Africa charged Israel with four out of five types of acts that are genocidal in nature. By mid-April, 2025, Israel had been blocking aid trucks from entering Gaza for over 6 weeks. Crucially, the underlying action was being deployed against the group as a whole, as distinct from killing individuals by gun or bomb. Displacement, starvation, and destruction of medical facilities are the other types of acts that South Africa cited as being indicative of the Israeli government having a genocidal intent.

Even though Israel has ignored the court’s provisional measures, and in fact has gone in the opposite direction, such as by blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, that Israel has engaged with the court by sending a high-level legal team to argue before the court is a good argument for Israel being obligated to comply with the provisional measures. Why would the Israeli government engage at all with the court if doing so would make it more difficult to sneak out of any obligations? Israeli officials continued to believe that it is too hard for genocide to be proved in a court of law for the charge to gain traction at the court.

The arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for Israel’s sitting prime minister, Ben Netanyahu, and a former Israeli defense minister is not for having committed genocidal acts because proving genocidal intent is more difficult than is pursuing charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes. Proof of cause of death is required in the crime against humanity of extermination, and the prosecutor was looking only at starvation, so the arrest warrant is not for that crime. Of course, crimes against humanity and war crimes are not exhausted by extermination, and are serious nonetheless.

It is significant, therefore, that in April, 2025, Viktor Orban, the prime minister of the E.U. state of Hungary, ignored its treaty obligation to the ICC and even E.U. law as per the Rome Statute by refusing to arrest Netanyahu when he was visiting the state. The court dismissed Hungary’s excuse that the state’s legislature had not yet enacted a state law that would enforce the treaty obligation. Simply put, a treaty has the force of law, so domestic legislation is not needed for a government to act as obligated in line with the language of a treaty. As for the Rome Statute, it has the status of federal law because the E.U. itself has been delegated enumerated powers, or competencies, that the state governments are legally required to observe. Furthermore, that Hungary was planning to leave the jurisdiction of the international court does not mean that the treaty obligations could legitimately be ignored prior to pulling out of the court’s jurisdiction.

I contend that both Israel’s willful violations of the international court’s rulings and Hungary’s refusal to recognize the arrest warrant by hosting Netanyahu risked undercutting the legitimacy of international law and courts such as the ICJ and ICC because the disrespect could become an international norm.

There is not yet an international, multilateral treaty on crimes against humanity; there is a treaty against genocide. That the latter is being applied to powerful states may result in less progress in negotiating a treaty on crimes against humanity. On the other hand, South Africa taking Israel to court based on international law has strengthened such law; even the court’s provisional measures have made a dent in the public consciousness around the world. Even in just telling victims that their rights are being violated is significant. It may be that governments will recognize an obligation to thwart genocide in progress around the world.

Moreover, in addition to how easy it has been for governments, including Hungary, Russia and Israel, to ignore the orders of international courts, that Orban has repeatedly violated E.U. laws and various states, including Germany, have serially violated the state-budget deficit limits of the Growth and Stability Pact undermines federalism as a viable system of basic law. Even the checks and balances at a federal level, as in a judiciary being able to curb excesses by an executive branch, were under threat in the U.S. when a federal judge found sufficient evidence that the Trump Administration was guilty of criminal contempt by ignoring certain court orders. The inability of courts to enforce their respective rulings is a vulnerability that was being exploited by governments at various levels of jurisprudence and governance. The danger of such intentional breaches becoming a norm was nothing short of the rule of law itself becoming too easily expendable.

To be sure, there were signs of seeds sprouting that could someday result in national laws requiring governments to take action against a power-aggrandizing government reaching the level of extermination and genocide. The ICJ was hearing South Africa’s case, especially after South Africa had been guilty of refusing to enforce an ICC arrest warrant in Africa, and Nicaragua had brought Germany to the ICJ on the charge of supplying weapons to a genocidal government in Israel. Although the case law was still limited, public interest in the rulings of the ICC and ICJ was growing globally in the early 2020s. It could be that the governmental attacks on the international courts by refusing to respect their orders were the last gasps of opposition before a global step forward in holding otherwise absolutist-sovereignty in check. Just as climate change had entered public discourse around the world, the obligation of governments around the world to stop one government from exterminating a people could represent a progressive step in our species’ political development.  

Tariffs as a Negotiating Tactic: Undercut by Wall Street Expediency

With all the economic and political turmoil from the anticipated American tariffs, it may be tempting, especially for financially-oriented CEOs and billionaires looking at quarterly reports, to call the whole thing off even though doing so would deflate the American attempt to renegotiate trade bilaterally with other countries. The concerns of the wealthy, whether corporations or individuals, have their place, but arguably should not be allowed to "lead the proverbial dog from behind, lest the dog run in circles and get nowhere." Moreover, the notion that any goal that is difficult and takes some time to materialize can or even should be vetoed by momentary passions at the outset is problematic and short-sighted. That U.S. President Trump's announcement of bilateral tariffs quickly brought fifty countries to the negotiating table is significant as a good sign for the United States, as long as that country's powerful business plutocracy (i.e., private concentrations of wealth that seek to govern) can be kept from vetoing the emergent trade policy, which at least in part is oriented to trade negotiation and ultimately to the notion that fair trade is conducive to increased free trade. 

As of 3:10 pm (CET) on April 7, 2025, the Euro STOXX 50 was down 5.27 percent, and the STOXX 600 lost 5.15 percent of its value. “The bloodbath is in full swing, and that’s exactly what you see when you look at the European markets. There is no safe haven; equity markets have entered a complete free-fall with no clear bottom in sight,” according to Zaye Capital Markets.[1] Meanwhile, the Dow Jones opened down 3.2 percent.[2] “The sheer volatility was enough to spook CEOs on that rainy Monday in New York. The Dow “briefly erased a morning loss of 1,700 points, shot up more than 800 points, then went back to a loss of 629 points.”[3] The S&P 500 “likewise made sudden up-and-down lurching movements”.[4]

U.S. President Trump had “announced a 20% across-the-board tariff on imports from the European Union, set to take effect on 9 April,” with steel, aluminum and cars being subject to a separate 25% rate; over all, over €380 billion in E.U.-made products could be affected.[5]

In that uneasy context, I contend that two markers are worthy of attention, only one of which is arguably productive.  E.U. President von der Leyen proposed to her counterpart, U.S. President Trump, that both unions cut their respective tariffs to zero; essentially, there would be a free-trade agreement on industrial goods. Just such an overture is in line with President’s intent that other countries get rid of their unfair trading practices, which, the president believed, had aggravated the U.S. trade deficits for decades. In this regard, President von der Leyen’s proposal can be viewed as an overture, which could lead to a counter-proposal that not only tariffs, but also non-tariff barriers of the E.U. be removed (or that the E.U. compensate the U.S. for those annually).

Adam Smith’s ideal of competitive free-trade rather than mercantilism presupposes trade that is free even of non-tariff barriers so comparative advantage can be a major factor in international trade. To be sure, national-security concerns are arguably legitimate constraints on Smith’s ideal of competitive advantage. Being dependent on China for computer chips would be risky for both the E.U. and U.S. because China could hold either or both unions hostage as Taiwan is invaded by China with impunity.

So von der Leyen’s response was in “the right direction,” if free and fair trade was among Trump’s goals in unilaterally imposing tariffs—that is to say, to the extent that the announcement of tariffs was geared to triggering real negotiations.

That the billionaire hedge fund manager, Bill Ackman, a supporter of President Trump, just one day earlier, had “urged the president to pause his sweeping new tariffs, warning they could economically devastate America if implemented, as planned,” can be likened to a driver unilaterally letting some air out of his own car’s tires just before a race.[vi] Ackman may have been rich, but his intelligence was lacking in his assumption that the tariffs would be permanent even though fifty governments were already willing to negotiate on trade with the American government. Also, his understanding of negotiation could have used a spare tire.

It is one thing for a republic to be an open society, and quite another for a dog to be led by its own tail, meaning for the U.S. Government to be led by greedy and short-sighted finance managers and CEOs of even major corporations. The enlightened self-interest of whom would be focused on the wealth that could be obtained from fewer trading obstacles in other countries, for the money that an American-based (and owned) company can possibly be made on exports from the U.S. is hardly nugatory. The capture of legislative and regulatory bodies by private companies and billionaires is a danger not only to democracy itself, but also to a country’s pursuit of its long-term strategic interests globally. A dog that is led by its hungry tail doesn’t get very far, and an argument can be made that such a dog doesn’t deserve to get very far, for weakness within a polity is hardly laudatory. Put another way, that elected offices in a republic have terms of years rather than, say, just a few months, is an important impediment to short-term passions in society seeking to get their way in policy. Sometimes long-term goals require momentary sacrifice even if the measures are erroneously assumed to be permanent rather than negotiating tactics.

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1. Angela Barnes, “European Markets Dive as Global Tariff Fears Shake Investor Confidence,” Euronews.com, April 7, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. The Associated Press, “Stocks Are Making Wild Swings as Markets Assess the Damage from Trump’s Trade War,” Apnews.com, April 7, 2025.
4. Ibid.
5. Jorge Liboreiro, “Von der Leyen Offers Trump ‘Zero-For-Zero’ Tariffs Deal on All Industrial Goods,” Euronews.com, April 7, 2025.
6. Lee Moran, “Billionaire Trump Backer Warns America of ‘Self-Induced Economic Nuclear Winter.” The Huffington Post, April 7, 2025.

Malcolm X on Gaza

Malcolm X (né Malcolm Little) visited the West Bank and Gaza during his lifetime, including many refugee camps, a hospital, and a mosque. He had talked on Palestine, and his trip “deeply transformed him.” He wrote a critique of Zionism shortly before he was killed. Black Nationalists in the U.S., including De Bois, had viewed the Jewish fight for self-determination and nationhood as a struggle like that of Black Americans in the United States. Malcolm, however, advocated for the Palestinians because of how the Jewish nation had materialized at the expense of Palestinians, as many had been thrown out of their houses with little or no notice when the state of Israel was founded. Former victims had become victimizers, and the UN had failed to oversee the transition, which could easily have been anticipated to be rough. As tempting as it is to discuss the atrocities being committed in Gaza in 2024-2025, the thread running throughout Malcolm’s political philosophy is also worthy of attention. I submit that the sheer extent of intentional civilian casualties and injuries both in Ukraine and Gaza render Malcolm’s political philosophy anything but radical in retrospect.

Malcolm’s political ideology had a lot to do with Black Nationalism. This resonated for him with the plight of the Palestinians in the occupied territory. He did not rule out armed struggle on either front. He “embedded” the Palestinian cause into Black identity; in fact, Black-Palestinian solidarity was a movement. Also, anti-Zionism was set as part of the anti-colonialism movement, which involved post-colonial states in Africa. African states and Arab states in the Middle East did not reconcile. Malcolm wrote against Israel’s efforts to drive a wedge between the Middle East and Africa. For example, decades after Malcolm’s life, in the 21^st century, Israel supported South Sudan to destabilize Sudan.

In short, Malcolm expanded his thinking and perspective to include internationalism in a way that dovetails with his positions (changed due to his trip to Mecca[1]) on civil rights in the United States. It was not lost on him that a formerly-oppressed group in Europe became a colonizing, racially-discriminatory state within its own borders, and that that state was even interfering with post-colonial states in Africa so they would not form a coalition with the Arab states in the Middle East. 

Ironically, the thread running through Malcolm’s domestic and internationalist political philosophy can be encapsulated by a saying that U.S. Senator Alan Simpson, ironically a Republican, often stated on the Senate chamber: “I’m for the little guy.” In the midst of the blatant, naked state aggression going on with impunity in the international arena especially in 2024 and 2025, the world needs fewer enablers of aggressors and more voices standing up for the little guys. This would hardly be as radical as Malcolm’s political philosophy has been characterized. Calls for the global community to resist Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Netanyahu’s crime against humanity of extermination by armed struggle could hardly be considered as radical, given the extent and depth of the intentional atrocities against civilians occurring with profane, damning impunity.

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1. It would be interesting to compare that transformation with the one while Malcolm was in Mecca. Interestingly, the “Mecca transformation” was hardly mentioned at a conference on Malcolm X at Yale in 2025. Nevertheless, I have included material from the conference’s session on “Malcolm and Gaza” in this piece.

Exploiting the E.U.’s Vulnerability to Enable an Atrocity Abroad

On April 3, 2025, Viktor Orban, prime minister of the E.U. state of Hungary, ignored not only the arrest warrant on Ben Netanyahu, the sitting prime minister of Israel, but also the E.U. law in the Rome Statute that requires the E.U. states to act on such warrants issued by the ICC (the International Criminal Court) by arresting people wanted by the Court. The provision in the Rome Statute of the E.U. requires all state governments to arrest people who are wanted by the ICC.  Orban doubtless knew that he could exploit union’s vulnerability with impunity because, like the U.S. in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the E.U. relied so much on the state governments to abide by and implement federal law and regulations. By ignoring the Rome Statute, he put the E.U. itself at risk.

The full essay is at "Exploiting the E.U.'s Vulnerability."

On the E.U.'s Initiative for Ukraine

In March, 2025 after the U.S. had direct talks with Russia on ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the E.U. stepped up its game in helping Ukraine militarily. This was also in the context of a trade war between the E.U. and U.S., which did not make transatlantic relations any better. The E.U.’s increasing emphasis on military aid to Ukraine and the related publicity inadvertently showcased how federalism could be applied to defense and foreign policy differently that it has in the U.S., wherein the member states are excluded, since the Articles of Confederation, when the member states were sovereign within the U.S. confederation. Although both manifestations of early-modern federalism have their respective benefits and risks, I contend that the E.U.’s application of federalism to the two governmental domains of power is more in the spirit of (dual-sovereignty) federalism, even though serious vulnerabilities can be identified.

The full essay is at "The E.U. and U.S. on Defense and Foreign Policy."

The UN: Israel Guilty of Reproductive Genocide

On March 13, 2025, the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory released a report based on evidence of incessant incidents and Israeli strategic bombings to the UN Human Rights Council. “Israel has increasingly employed sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinians as part of a broader effort to undermine their right to self-determination,” Chris Sidoti of the Commission stated.[1] This statement is oriented to particular incidents, albeit recurrent; the report goes on to charge the Israeli government with genocidal methods targeting the ability of the Palestinian population to sexually reproduce itself. Ironically, such methods may bring to mind the methods used in Nazi Germany, including those used by Josef Mengele, the “Angel of Death,” to wantonly kill and strategically sterilize undesirables. It need not be a truism, however, that the descendants of victims become victimizers, though I suspect that studies on intergenerational psychology attest to the phenomenon. Also ironically, culpability with an intergenerational cause is also a theme in the Hebrew Bible. Thirdly, it is ironic too that Yahweh may have the last word on the Israeli transgressions, as this too is a recurrent theme in the Hebrew Bible’s faith-rendering of the history of Israel. It would be odd indeed were Yahweh behind a sort of rendering of justice against the Nazis by having Israel inflict severe pain on Palestinians in the occupied territories. Put another way, that justice did not catch up to every Nazi aggressor does not mean that excessive, and thus unjust, harming of innocents can complete the cycle of justice. In fact, both the literal “overkill” by Israel and Russia’s war crimes in invading Ukraine—both with impunity—raise the question of whether omnipotent Yahweh gives a damn, or even whether it is actually sheer fiction.

In the Commission’s report released to the UN on June 14, 2024, whose coverage includes the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 and does not excuse Hamas for its atrocities against Israelis. Even so, the Israeli government ignored the Commission’s requests for information even on those crimes. That the UN had created the state of Israel must also be considered in assessing the refusal. The report also states that the attack by Hamas “and the subsequent Israeli military operation in Gaza must be seen in context. Those events were preceded by decades of violence, unlawful occupation and the denial by Israel of the right of Palestinians to self-determination”.[2] The “unlawful occupation” is especially relevant, as it attests that the political and military “playing field” was hardly level. The Israeli government had taken advantage of this macro advantage for decades, and the Commission’s report on the genocidal sexual and reproductive crimes against humanity following October 7, 2023 should be put in this context. In other words, those crimes were not part of an even “tit-for-tat” between two equal adversaries. Moreover, 45,000 to 55,000 killed or starved for 1250 Israelis killed on October 7, 2023 is so extremely one-sided that the slant in the underlying geo-political and military paradigm can be reckoned as being culpable, as well as the party enforcing it.

Therefore, it is vital to go beyond particular instances of the crimes. Even as the March, 2025 report includes incidents, the macro-level of genocidal sexual tactics is not ignored. Of the former, “two days of public hearings held in Geneva . . . featuring victims and witnesses of sexual and reproductive violence and medical personnel who assisted them, as well as civil society representatives, academics, lawyers and medical experts” went into the report.[3] The report asserts that “forced public stripping and nudity, sexual harassment including threats of rape, as well as sexual assault” were “standard operating procedure” of the Israeli Security Forces in Gaza.[4] Furthermore, the report maintained that “forms of sexual and gender-based violence, including rape and violence to the genitals, were committed either under explicit orders or with implicit encouragement by Israel’s top civilian and military leadership.”[5] From a human standpoint, it is only natural that the anger of Gaza residents towards Israelis and Israel going forward must be such that any proximity, such as is an aspect of military occupation, is itself problematic and essentially infeasible. That such anger can be expected to be intergenerational also rendered continued occupation unfeasible. This is not to say that the residents of Gaza should be moved; a coalition of the willing globally could step in to see that no Israeli enters the territory, which, fortunately, shares a border with Egypt.

The report on the sexual and reproductive tactics also covers crimes against the Palestinian people in Gaza, and this also renders continued occupation untenable. Specifically, the Commission reported “that Israeli forces had systematically destroyed sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities across Gaza, including Gaza’s largest fertility clinic, Al Basma centre, in December 2023.”[6] Additionally, it was no accident, according to the report, that “(t)ank shelling destroyed about 4,000 embryos at the clinic that reportedly assisted 2,000-3,000 patients a month.”[7] According to Sidoti, “certainly, their commanders knew and the commanders would have known that there were tanks operating within that vicinity and firing on buildings and fired on a healthcare facility that was clearly marked.”[8] To be sure, it is possible that the Israeli government had intel that Hamas was using the clinic as a shield. Even if this were so, the report includes other instances of tactics of reducing the number of Palestinians in Gaza, such as direct attacks on maternity wards, “combined with the use of starvation as a method of war,” that have negatively “impacted all aspects of reproduction.”[9] Imagine the reaction were such a design and intent applied by an occupying power on Israel; it would not take long at all for the Israeli government to charge such an occupier with committing Nazi atrocities on the Jews. The asymmetry itself points back to the tilted playing field.

From its collection of evidence, the Commission could detect a systemic pattern. The report “finds that the destruction amounts ‘to two categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention, including deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians and imposing measures intended to prevent births.”[10] The very notion of collective justice (and injustice) is based on the fallacy that there are no innocents in a population. Immediately after the Hamas attack, the president of Israel commited this fallacy and connected it with his stated determination that every resident in Gaza should suffer as a result of the Hamas attack. The reaction of governments around the world was to step back and let this fallacious reasoning be implemented on the ground in Gaza by embittered Israeli leaders and soldiers. It is as in Hobbes’ Leviathan in that a sovereign power can do whatever it wants. Yet even in Hobbes’ political theory, even though a country’s sovereign power has the last word in interpreting scripture, everyone is subject to God’s judgment.

The doctrine in Jonathan Edwards’ sermon, “Sinners in Zion,” is that the “time will come when fearfulness will surprise the sinners in Zion, because they will know that they are going to be cast into a devouring fire, which they must suffer forever ad ever, and which none can endure.” Edwards’ most famous (or infamous) sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” is based on Deut. 32:35: “Their foot shall slide in due time.” This can be said of the Israelis who are culpable in ordering or committing genocidal acts well in excess of reciprocal harm in an eye for an eye. The Palestinians are largely if not all Muslims, so it cannot be believed that Yahweh would be in favor of the killing, starvation (e.g., blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza in 2025), deprivation of utilities (e.g., cutting off electricity), and reproductive abuse. It is not as though the deity were saying to Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu, Go and rid the Land of Israel of those people who worship other gods, as is the biblical story of Yahweh directing the Hebrews to circle Jericho seven times and kill even the women and children who worship Baal because they do not worship Yahweh. Rather, it seems that Yahweh would eventually punish Israel (i.e., collective divine justice) for having violated the Commandment against killing, especially if the magnitude is well beyond tit-for-tat.

For a God-fearing Israeli, and the rest of us, Yahweh once again punishing Israel for its transgressions is not something that any person can or should take on as if delegated by that deity to enforce divine justice. Indeed, such a horrendous assumption renders theocracies dangerous. We are all, human, all too human, and thus we don’t have the omniscience to be God’s enforcers. This is not to say that governments cannot or should not act to enforce international law, especially given the impotence of the United Nations, but absent this, there is faith that Yahweh will have the last word in holding Israel accountable here rather than only in the hereafter. Instead of willful arrogance, humility, self-restraint, and contrition are the appropriate attitudes of people of faith who have so violated divine (and international) law. It can even be said that serving rather than attacking one’s enemies unlocks the door to the kingdom of God, but even this is subject to willful intransigence out of jealousy and spite.

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1. “Rights Probe Alleges Sexual Violence Against Palestinians by Israeli Forces Used as ‘Method of War,” UN News, United Nations, March 13, 2025.
2. “Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including
East Jerusalem, and Israel,” Annual Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Reports of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Secretary-General, The United Nations. June 14, 2024.
3. Rights Probe Alleges Sexual Violence Against Palestinians by Israeli Forces Used as ‘Method of War,” UN News, United Nations, March 13, 2025.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.

The E.U.: A Step Toward a World Federation?

Does the European Union represent a novel paradigm and thus a step in political development? Whether this is so or not, can the E.U. be thought of as a step on the way towards a world federation? In a talk at Harvard in 2025, Anthony Pagden, a professor at UCLA, addressed these questions when the E.U. was just a few years over thirty—comparable to the U.S. in 1820. The question was not whether the E.U. too would lean towards political consolidation around a federal head, but whether the world was making its way institutionally toward the creation by compact of a world federation, which in turn could presumably stave off war. In 2025, the need for global accountability on willful, militarily-aggressive national governments was on at least some minds. The implication is that the global order based on national sovereignty was insufficient, especially given the advanced destructiveness of military weapons.

According to Pagden, the nation-state concept is at its core an ethnic concept that was extended in the 19^th century to include states that had territory extended beyond that of a particular ethnic group.  Although nation-states had existed, the concept came into its own in the 1800s, so the modern notion of the nation-state is ahistoric, and thus perfectly capable of being superseded should political development occur. The related notion of sovereignty only became salient in the 16^th century (e.g., Jean Bodin) and this continued in the next century in Hobbes’ Leviathan.  Hobbes’ assumption was not that governmental sovereignty could not be split like an atom, but that it should not be divided lest civil war break out. Europe was no stranger to war in the 1600s, given the Thirty Years War, which was based on religious differences bearing on political power.

Of course, the atom of sovereignty was split in the U.S. Convention in the following century, with the checks-and-balances in federalism being relied upon to keep the inherently unstable division stable. Although Pagden didn’t mention this point, he did say that relations between nation-states had historically tended to be through empires but more recently (in centuries) has been through federations. In the process, the very notion of sovereignty has been undergoing a gradual transformation. Whereas Russia’s President Putin once claimed that either a country is sovereign or it’s a colony, Pagden claimed that at least as of 2025, sovereignty had reached international organizations. Together with nation-states, the notion of multilevel sovereignty had come into its own. From this notion, Pagden claimed, a world federation would someday be likely. He cited Durkheim’s prediction that at some point humanity would form a global “social order” may be correct, but Kant’s claim that peace would only be possible but not probable under a world federation also deserves attention. Even if the world’s shift from empires to federal governments and international confederations (which actually extend back to antiquity--Sparta and Athens having headed military confederations) makes a world federation more likely, the question of whether having one would stave off war warrants reflection too. I think the key would be whether such a federation has enforcement power, for the U.N. has arguably sidelined itself because it lacks the authority and power to enforce its own resolutions and the veto mechanism on the Security Council is a contributing factor that relegated the U.N. to the sidelines as Russia invaded Ukraine and Israel ravaged Gaza—both cases evincing an utter lack of accountability from beyond the sovereignty of the nation-state.

Pagden stressed that even though historically, empires have shaped the geography of the modern world, federations will likely make an indelible imprint on the world in the future. “Empires and federations have much in common,” he said. Both are legal societies. But with respect to confederal international organizations, including the United Nations, “international law is controversial.” I would add that the lack of enforcement power renders such law de facto impotent in its own right, although such law can be used by nation-states in the exercise of their sovereignty on the world stage.

Even though empires and federations have elements in common—indeed, originally federations were exclusively international--empires are created by conquest, whereas federations begin by consent. In European history, countries that had sovereign states in Medieval times became political sub-units of federal nation-states in the early-modern period. Pagden characterized Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium as “centralized federalism.” U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin once told me that Congress delegating functions to the state governments is “decentralized federalism.” Relatedly, Pagden said that the notion of subsidiarity comes from Roman law; only legislation that affects all of the political sub-units should be at the empire level. In his Political Digest (1603), Althusius relates this point to his claim that only the members at a level in a federal system are to be represented at the next-highest level: individuals belong only to the first-level. That Germany and Belgium are themselves states in the E.U. federal system resembles the structure of Althusian federalism, which is based on the Holy Roman Empire. By implication, geographically diverse U.S. states, such as California and New York, could federate and still remain as states in the U.S., just as Belgium and Germany in the European Union. Once you get the levels right, comparative federalism gets very interesting (and contentious, for most people compare apples with oranges—a state in one Union with another Union).

The ECJ says that the EU treaties evince a constitutional order, so common law from the ECJ is indeed law. Pagden disagreed with the European Court of Justice on this point, whereas I agree with the court. Even so, he said, “The E.U. is a federation even if not in name.” The contradiction is only apparent. The E.U., according to Pagden, is an exception—thus instantiating a new paradigm and thus a step in political development. He could have cited the Athenian League and Sparta’s confederation as evincing the close association that federalism has had with distinctly international rather than national political entities. The British Commonwealth too is international, but it being voluntary differentiates it from federalism, which has tended to be treaty-based.

I contend that to classify the E.U. as an international organization is incorrect. Unlike NATA, the UN, ASEAN, and the AU, the E.U. has a federal government of three branches: the European Court of Justice, a legislature (the Council of the E.U., the European Council, and the European Parliament, which represents E.U. citizens rather than states), and an executive branch (the European Commission). Like the U.S. the E.U. has federal institutions based on national (e.g., the ECJ, the Parliament and the Commission) and international (e.g., the European Council and the Council of the E.U.) principles. The U.S. House is based on national principles whereas the U.S. Senate is based on international principles—the same ones that the UN is based on). Both empire-scale federations, the E.U. and U.S., fall under the rubric of federalism wherein governmental sovereignty is “dual,” or split, whereas the UN and NATO are not, for full sovereignty is retained by the countries. Applicable to the E.U. as well as the U.S., John Stuart Mill claimed not only that federations are not stable over time, but also that a federation can become a nation-state. Indeed, the E.U. and U.S. effectively split the very notion of nation-state between two governmental systems over the same territory.

The basic paradigmatic likeness of the E.U. and U.S. flies in the face of Pagden’s argument that the E.U. evinces something politically sui generis; this point in turn he uses to claim that the new type of federalism is more useful than the American type as a basis for a world federation constructed by regional federations. I submit that the E.U. and U.S. are empire-scale federal systems and thus can be characterized as regional with respect to the global level. The E.U. doesn’t need to be unique for the construction of a world federation by consent to be achieved; the U.S. and E.U. both evince the useful step in that both federations fall under “modern federalism,” which Ken Wheare distinguishes from confederalism because only in the former type is governmental (not popular!) sovereignty split, whether by treaty, basic law, or constitution. Furthermore, that the interstate heterogeneity in both the E.U. and U.S. is a leap from intrastate diversity whether in terms of political ideology or culture qualifies both unions as being a useful step potentially if a world federation is someday to be constructed. The diversity within the E.U. is much greater than is the diversity within Germany, for example. The same applies to France. Hence federalism, in being able to accommodate differences, is more useful at the level of the E.U. (and the U.S.).

Pagden rightly points to Europe’s shared political and legal culture from Roman law, and all of the delegates at the U.S. convention were of European extraction at some point. A world federation would be another leap in terms of inter-state diversity because no such common cultural basis would apply. The distinction between British common law and the French code pales in comparison between ancient Roman and Chinese law. Also, the absolutist interpretation of sovereignty by the governments of Russia and China is a world away from the notion of dual sovereignty that characterizes “modern federalism” as evinced in the E.U. and the U.S, both of whose federal institutions are based on national and international principles depending on the institution. This hybrid is precisely what a world federation might need, and yet the notion of applying federalism to making a nation-state and yet one whose members are semi-sovereign (with residual sovereignty!) was even by 2025 foreign to a Hobbesian notion of sovereignty as unitary and absolute.

Therefore, I do not think that a new paradigm or type of federalism will be necessary for a world federation to be constructed. In fact, the hybrid that is at the federal level in the cases of the U.S. and E.U. can be useful, and even perhaps necessary, for such a federation not to succumb to impotence on enforcement. Yet I suspect this would be the sticking point for countries like Russia and China. Simply put, the absolutist view of national sovereignty must give way to make way for Wheare’s notion of dual-sovereignty in federalism for national governments, whether federated or not, to consent to a global federation. Staving off war is arguably worth scrapping the absolutist view, but try convincing Presidents Xi or Putin of this; after all, a very intelligent man, Immanuel Kant, thought that world peace would only be possible—not probable.

On the Impact of Personalities on Diplomacy: The Case of Trump and Zelensky

One of the many advantages that democracy has over autocracy (i.e., dictatorship) is that the dispersion of political power among elected representatives and even between branches of government (i.e., checks and balances) reduces the impact that one personality can have on diplomacy. Even in a republic in which power is concentrated in a president or prime minister, one personality can matter. Given the foibles of human psychology, the risks associated with a volatile personality “at the top” in a nuclear age are significant. Kant’s advocacy of a world federation includes a caveat that world peace would only be possible rather than probable. Given the probability of anger and associated cognitive lapses in even an elected president or prime minister, a world order premised on absolute national sovereignty is itself risky; hence the value of a semi-sovereign world federation with enforcement authority. The impromptu press conference between U.S. President Trump and Ukraine’s President Zelensky on February 28, 2025 demonstrates the risks in countries being in a Hobbesian state of nature (i.e., not checked by any authority above them).

In the Oval Office at the White House, “a remarkable scene was unfolding. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance had begun berating their guest, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a hitherto unseen public implosion of a key global relationship.”[1] The implosion was between two people—the two presidents—rather than of the alliance itself, but the former was indeed capable of impacting the latter. Put another way, two people, rather than two countries, were arguing. “The state is moi” is not a relation of identity in a republic. That it was a host who was shouting and berating a guest went largely unnoticed in the press, in part because the host was on the offensive in pivoting from an (orchestrated?) question from a journalist; his question contained the insult that Zelensky’s wearing of his military uniform in the sacred Oval Office was disrespectful even though Elon Musk had worn t-shirts there even that month. Unlike Musk, Zelensky was at war—one caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Showing visual comradery with generals and troops by wearing a uniform is laudatory rather than indicative of an intent to disrespect other presidents. Ironically, Trump had installed flags of all of the U.S. military branches in the Oval Office.

In short, the Ukrainian president may have unwittingly walked into a pre-arranged “turkey shoot.” That Trump had his counterpart thrown out of the White House—the invitation to lunch notwithstanding—evinces not only anger, but sheer rudeness in place of hospitality. That such human foibles could upend a deal between two countries even though one stood to gain access to rare earth-minerals with commercial applications and the other country was in dire need of a third-party to broker an end to the devastating war. The political philosophy of international business, wherein commercial interests reduce the likelihood of war, was implicitly reputed as Trump shouted accusations at his guest.

What enraged Trump was Zelensky’s claim that if the U.S. (and the E.U.) don’t stand up to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia would not stop with that country. As in the case of World War II, an ocean could not keep the U.S. out of war as Hitler was invading countries. That Zelensky had a valid point was utterly missed by the angered American president. Adding insult to injury, Trump refused to let his guest speak, and Vice President Vance accused Zelensky of being ungrateful, even though the president had thanked America for its military aid on several occasions.[2] Any implicit disrespect in Zelensky’s military garb in the Oval Office was more than made up for by the dignity of that president in constraining himself from insulting Trump and Vance. In contrast, it was Vance’s rudeness and Trump’s verbal hostility toward a guest that were below the dignity of the American presidency and the sacred room.

Zelensky’s point that American could eventually be drawn into another European war is valid—this point should be made perfectly clear. It was not Zelensky who was risking another world war; rather, it was Trump’s lack of emotional self-control that made such an event more likely, for Trump’s rash cancelation of the agreement for U.S. military and diplomatic help in exchange for access to rare earth-minerals in Ukraine made it more likely that Russia would absorb the Ukraine militarily and perhaps then go into the Baltic states and perhaps even Poland. It was Hitler’s invasion of Poland that brought Britain into war with Germany, and that in turn involved the U.S. militarily in its lend-lease agreement with Britain. Trump did not grasp this point that Zelensky was making, and this cognitive lapse in turn triggered Trump’s temper. This is precisely why a world-order founded on absolute national sovereignty is dangerous.

As titillating as a brawl is to watch, I contend that a wise electorate looks beyond such flash-points to keep one eye on fundamental implications. The structure and foundation of the world order was vulnerable to rash personality conflicts between presidents of sovereign countries even in the context of war, especially since post-World War II institutions such as the UN were waning given their lack of enforcement authority. Fortunately, the world was shifting off of the bi-polar hegemony of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War, and it was not lost on the E.U.’s foreign minister, Kaja Kallas, who wrote on the day of the brawl, “Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge.”[3] She even reminded the world that Russia, not Ukraine, was the aggressor, as Trump implicitly contracted this point in accusing Zelensky of risking World War III by not being grateful. A world order in which the U.S. is the world’s “police department” was, fortunately, becoming antiquated, for, given President Trump’s lack of emotional self-control, such a unipolar structure with the U.S. at the hub was indeed dangerous, given the impact that personalities can have on diplomacy.

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1. Kevin Liptak and Jeff Zeleny,”Inside the 139 Minutes that Upended the US-Ukraine Alliance,” CNN.com, March 1, 2025, italics added.
2. Daniel Dale, “Fact Check: 33 Times Zelensky Thanked Americans and US Leaders,” CNN.com, February 28, 2025.
3. Malek Fouda, “European Leaders Unite Behind Ukraine Following Trump-Zelenskyy Confrontation,” Euronews, February 28, 2025.

A European Army: A More Perfect Union

At the Munich Security Conference in February, 2025, Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy bluntly asserted, “I really believe that the time has come that the armed forces of Europe must be created.”[1] He could have said in 2023 after Russia’s President Putin had sent tanks and bombs into Ukraine; instead, the inauguration of President Trump in the U.S. that was the trigger. “Let’s be honest,” Zelenskyy continued, “now we can’t rule out that America might say ‘no’ to Europe on issues that might threaten it.”[2] At the time, Trump was planning to meet with Putin to end the war without Britain and a number of E.U. states at the table. After all, they had failed to push Putin off Crimea in 2014, and even in 2025, they were not on the same page on how to defend Ukraine militarily. Amid the political fracturing in Europe, Ukraine’s president was urging that the E.U. itself have an army, rather than merely the 60,000 troops for which the union was dependent on the states. Even on being able to borrow on its own authority, the E.U. was hamstrung by the state governments that were more interested in retaining power than in benefitting from collective action. It is difficult to analyze Zelenskyy’s plea without including the anti-federalist, Euroskeptic ideology that was still eclipsing the E.U. from realizing a more perfect union.

At the security conference, Zelenskyy put is finger on the problem: “Europe has everything it takes. Europe just needs to come together and start acting in a way that no one can say ‘no’ to Europe, boss it around, or treat it like a pushover.”[3] With foreign policy splintered—still residing primary at the state level—the E.U. could only stand by while Trump and Putin easily excluded Europe from at least the initial talks to end the war. Instead of throwing darts at the two easy external targets, Europeans could alternatively look inward in order to get the root of the problem as to why Europe was not as powerful as the size of its population would warrant. Europe just needs to come together. Even what seems like Europe coming together may really just be a perpetuation of the splintering, or fracturing, motivated by a states’ rights ideology that has compromised the E.U. since its beginning in the early 1990s.

Rather than meeting in the European Council to respond to Trump’s upcoming talks with Putin, the E.U. state of France invited ten “European leaders” to Paris “to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and strengthen their common position amid the accelerated peace process being promoted by [Trump].”[4] With Britain included, the meeting could not even be considered to be of the E.U.; in fact, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the E.U.’s Commission, and Antonio Costa, the president of the European Council were to be merely on hand, rather than chairing the meeting. Even if the two were in charge of the meeting, the inclusion of Britain would at the very least be awkward.

In short, the parts of the federal system were in charge, while the representatives of the whole were being treated as mere appurtenances. This structure itself belies collective action whose benefits could rival those of the U.S. Rather than defer to von der Leyen and Costa, the governor of the E.U. state of France presumed that his state should take the lead in uniting Europe militarily even beyond the European Union. Concerning any resolved future military action to help Ukraine against Russia, not even von der Leyen could be relied on to reconcile any disagreements on implementation that include Britain, and as merely one of the parts, France’s Macron was in no position to weld authority over the other parts and Britain beyond chairing the meeting.  

It is no wonder that Trump and Putin decided to exclude Europe. In fact, had the two men wanted to sideline the usual fractured suspects in Europe, von der Leyen and Costa could have been invited instead of the governors of the E.U. states. In such a scenario, it would really be indicative of a problem if the governors of some of the E.U. states would meet on their own anyway—even though two of the E.U. presidents would have seats at the talks. This sordid, self-aggrandizing mentality has benefitted from the political agitation of Euroskeptics (i.e., states’ rights in American parlance), but the problem is that of state officials—and their respective governments—too desirous of holding onto power rather than agreeing to delegate some of it to the federal level—by which I mean along with qualified majority voting there rather than unanimity wherein the states can retain their power at the expense of collective action, and the benefits thereof.

Zelenskyy was on target: a European—meaning the E.U.—army was needed, and not just because of Trump or Putin. A federal system in which state officials relegate federal officials—presidents no less—not only puts the interests of (some of) the parts before that of the whole, but also imperils the federal system itself from being able to sustain itself as a going concern. For Europeans, its well past time to look within rather than focus on Trump in utter disgust.

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1. Joshua Posaner, “Zelenskyy: ‘The Time Has Come’ for a European Army,” Politico, February 15, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Jorge Liboreiro, “Macron Hosts European Leaders in Paris as Trump Pushes for Peace Talks on Ukraine,” Euronews.com, February 17, 2025.