Israel in Lebanon: On the Hubris of Hatred

Hatred warps reasoning as well as ethical judgment along the lines of a warped time-space fabric around a large mass. In other words, the sheer gravitational pull of self-centeredness can bend both thought and judgment. As essentially egoist, this phenomenon can itself be considered to be unethical, for what are actually equivalent ethical harms are perceived as unequal at the expense of other people or peoples. Even though Israel’s military attacks in, and invasion of, Lebanon in 2026 could be said to be in violation of international law, Israel’s national security minister said on June 19^th that all of Lebanon must burn because four Israeli soldiers had just been killed in combat when their tank was hit near Kfar Tebnit. The official’s statement is significant in that it lays bare the false equivalence of the lives of four Israelis and the entire population of Lebanon. The warped judgment and related ratiocination behind such a baseless equivalence can be grasped from the standpoint of utilitarianism.

Along with saying, “all of Lebanon must burn,” Itamar Ben-Gvir added, “For every tear of an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep.”[1] That four Israeli soldiers lost their lives is thus more of a loss than the eighteen Lebanese who died in that particular military action. Moreover, wiping out Gaza, whose Palestinian population stood at more than 1.5 million, is “ethically” justified by Hamas’ attack in which 1,200 Israelis had been killed and a few hundred taken hostage by a subjugated political group. More than Ben-Gvir “taunting detained activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla” whom Israel had kidnapped in international waters, his claims regarding the worth of human lives depending on group-identification are astonishing in their directness in showing the distorting impact of his ideology (and related group-identification as an Israeli) on his judgment on what is ethical and unethical.[2]

The claim that the death of one Israeli justifies the death of a thousand Lebanese runs directly counter to Jeremy Bentham’s ethical theory of utilitarianism, wherein the greatest good to the greatest number is the ethical rubric. If anything, saving the lives of a thousand Lebanese would justify killing four Israelis. That the latter were part of an illegal military invasion renders this verdict all the more justified and legitimate ethically, for violating international law is itself unethical and the government of Lebanon had not invaded Israel.

Such a warped, unethical perspective as a senior government official in Israel voiced can itself be taken as support for the argument that either the UN should be given its own military force (not subject to any vetoes in the Security Council), or a new, semi-sovereign international federation should be created with enough military power to counter unethical actions stemming from ethically-warped mentalities at the national level. Even with such a reform, Kant’s claim that a world federation would make peace possible rather than probable can be read both as a bit of realism as to the reform and an indictment on just how sordid even high government officials can be in their reasoning and ethical judgment. Indeed, Ben-Gvir’s statements fly in the face of Kant’s ethical imperative formulated as the Kingdom of Ends, wherein rational beings should be treated not just as means (e.g. to Israel’s interests), but also as ends in themselves. Moreover, because human beings are rational beings, the life of a person of one nationality is not worth more than the life of a person of another, even conflicting, nationality. This imperative is like a straight stick against which the warping of Ben-Gvir’s mind can be perceived and measured. Given the severity of the warping, a world order with enough teeth, or enforcement power, to restrain national governments was both needed and justified by 2026.

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1. Nathan Rennolds, “’All of Lebanon Must Burn,’ Israeli Minister Says after IDF Reports Four Soldiers Killed,” Euronews, 19 June, 2026.

2. Ibid.

On Russia Erasing Ukrainian Children

Human rights are typically thought of as applying to individuals, even to groups, but do national-ethnic human rights exist? Do nations having a distinct ethnic culture have the right to their respective citizenries from being indoctrinated by other governments set on erasing even traces of the culture from the minds of citizens?  If so, then by 2026, Ukraine had a legitimate claim against Russia for having violated the rights of the Ukrainian state as protector of the Ukrainian ethnicity in the populous. In particular, as part of its multi-year invasion of Ukraine, the Russian government violated the human rights of Ukraine itself and Ukrainian children not only by kidnapping the kids to Russia, but also in indoctrinating them with the intent of ridding them of their distinctly Ukrainian cultural identity.

On May 11, 2026, the “European Union imposed sanctions on 16 Russian officials accused of helping Moscow in the abduction of tens of thousands of children from Ukraine.”[1] Ukraine’s government had verified the number at 20,500, Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab estimated the number at 35,000, and Russia suggested that the number could be as high as 700,000.[2] Could it be that Moscow was bragging? That would reflect not well at all on the very notion of human rights internationally, as distinct from guidelines that governments need not be ashamed of violating.

Regardless of the number, the abduction and indoctrination of children is arguably among the worst of war crimes. “Of all the horrors inflicted by Russia’s war, the deportation and forced transfer of Ukrainian children is one of the worst crimes,” the E.U.’s foreign minister Kaja Kallas said at the time.[3] Russia’s actions include “indoctrination and militarized education, as well as their unlawful adoption and removal to Russia and within temporarily occupied territories.”[4] A statement by the European Council—rid of the recently defeated pro-Russia Viktor Orbán of Hungary—includes: “These actions constitute grave breaches of international law and a violation of the fundamental rights of the child and aim to erase Ukrainian identity and undermine the preservation of its future generations.”[5] Such preservation over generations arguably involves the interest of the Ukrainian state because the duration exceeds that of the children themselves. In other words, something more than the rights of the abducted and indoctrinated was being violated in the clash between the Russian and Ukrainian governments.

Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said, “This is a deliberate Russian policy aimed at destroying Ukrainian identity. Children are forced to forget who they are, where they come from, and even their language.”[6] Besides the horrific psychological, existential impact on the children in being effectively erased and reprogrammed as Russians, which makes being forced to live with foster parents in a strange land seem ordinary by comparison, the Russian intent is to use the children as part of a larger goal: that of erasing the Ukrainian ethnicity from the face of the Earth. This too reflects back on a legitimate right of the Ukrainian state to preserve that ethnicity. No national legislature would vote to voluntary extinguish its national culture unless forced to do so by another country’s government. In fact, the right is so fundamental that it rarely needs to be made transparent. This is why it may seem strange to refer to a human right of a nation.

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1. Sasha Vakulina, “EU Sanctions Russian Individuals Over Forced Deportation of Ukrainian Children,” Euronews.com, 11 May, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.

Vendetta Violence: Israeli Settlers Sanctioned by the E.U.

What a difference even just a month can make. On 11 May, 2026, the E.U. enacted sanctions against “Israeli settlers over their violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, a move enabled by backing from Hungary’s incoming government.”[1] A month earlier, Viktor Orbán was the sitting prime minister of the E.U. state of Hungary. As a supporter of U.S. President Trump, who in turn supported Israel even in its decimation of Gaza razing entire cities into leveled ground for real estate “properties,” Orbán would have wielded Hungary’s veto in the European Council.

Kaja Kallas, the E.U.’s foreign minister, marveled at the time, “We move from political deadlock that was there for a long time. Violence and extremism carry consequences.”[2] The long time is likely a reference to Orbán’s 16 years in power in the E.U. state of Hungary, and her point overall is that with that governor out of the European Council, the E.U. can inflict consequences on foreign actors who engage in violence under the aegis of some extremist ideology. In the case of the Israeli settlers, the ideology is Zionism, which in coming from a religious text has overreached into the political domain, even circumventing international law.

That the violence occurred in the occupied West Bank renders Israel itself especially culpable, for under international law, “all settlements are considered illegal, with the International Court of Justice describing the State of Israel’s ‘continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory’ as ‘unlawful.’”[3] Both the unprovoked violence of the settlers and the Israeli government’s attempted holocaustic genocide of the population of Gaza are on top of the fact that Israel has no justified basis internationally to even be in Gaza and the West Bank. In other words, Israel is two degrees of separation from being a lawful state in terms of international law. That the Netanyahu government was able to ignore that law so easily suggests that there is no such thing as international law—that only guidelines were by then operating in the collapsed post-World War II global order. In a Hobbesian state of nature, no law exists because no international or global government exists. No world federation certainly, which Kant admitted in Perpetual Peace would only make world peace possible but not probable.

The recurrent violence and theft was being committed even in broad daylight by Israeli settlers against defenseless Palestinians—even walking into their houses and nonchalantly taking appliances and furniture!—because impunity must surely have been assured by means of the tacit approval of a government that, after all, had been determined by the UN to have committed a genocide in Gaza. The violations of human rights occurred on both the societal and interpersonal level. A counter-move international could therefore be expected beyond the E.U. sanctioning individual settlers and related organizations.

Given the harm that was being unleashed directly or indirectly by the Israeli government, Kallas’ claim that violence and extremism abroad would trigger negative consequences by the E.U. rings hollow because those consequences are so inadequate to meet the magnitude and depth of the suffering, both interpersonally and at the societal level (i.e., an entire people). So even though a month made a difference in the European Council, the global “community” was still holding back from enforcing international law. With no other enforcement mechanism, can such law even be called law?

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1. Maia de la Baume, “E.U. Approves Sanctions on Israeli Settlers after Hungarian Backing,” Euronews.com, 11 May, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

Security Council Vetoes Styme the UN: Oil in the Strait of Hormuz

The United Nations was intended to obviate war, and failing in that mission, at least to safeguard economic trade especially if doing so staves off anticipated belligerent action by countries seeking to restore compromised trade. In 2026, when Iran’s stoppage of the one-fifth of the world’s oil that would otherwise go through the Strait of Hormuz triggered a military threat by the U.S., Russia and China vetoes a resolution in the Security Council aimed at reopening the strait and thereby obviating an escalation in the military fighting between the U.S. and Iran. Because not even a lopsided vote in favor—11 in favor, two against, and two abstentions—could activate the U.N. in its principle role of peremptorily obviating war by protecting trade, we can conclude that the organization had indeed effectively collapsed and could not be reformed from within, given that five members of the Security Council retained veto power. Meanwhile, military aggressors in the world were able to fill in the power-void left by the collapsing post-World War II world order to render might-makes-right the status quo in the twenty-first century.

At the time, an E.U. media outlet opined that it was doubtful that even if the resolution had been adopted, it “would have impacted the war” because the wording had been “significantly weakened in a bid to get Russia and China to abstain rather than veto it.”[1] In other words, the existence of the veto power in the Security Council was responsible for the impotence of the UN in protected trade and reducing pressures for war. Just that “Iran’s chokehold during the war . . . sent energy prices soaring around the world” should have been enough of a justification for UN protective action in the strait, but not even that rationale was enough for the UN to be able to use its own forces to protect oil tankers through the strait.[2]

Because higher oil prices were in Russia’s economic and thus military interests as that country continued its four-year invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s use of its veto exploited a conflict of interest, and yet the UN had no means of blocking such a use of a veto-power even though Russia’s invasion violated the UN’s charter, which bars offensive military action being inflicted by one country on another country. In other words, the UN could not even stand up to a blatant conflict of interest whose exploitation enabled further violations of the UN’s own charter.

With Israel continuing its holocaustic genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza, the U.S. having invaded Venezuela to capture its president, and Russia still invading Ukraine, the interest of the global family of nations in establishing an international governmental organization without vetoes and with its own enforcement power was so clear that the lack of any such formative action can itself be reckoned as signaling a problem. In other words, knowing that the post-1945 global order was collapsing while military aggressors were getting away with establishing might-makes-right as the new global default, governments nonetheless failed to actively create a new order institutionally so that could be the new default. That the very concept of international law was rapidly being treated as mere guideline rather than law demonstrates just how serious the UN’s de facto collapse was, and yet not even an informal coalition of governments seriously proposed an international institution—whether an organization or government—to pick up the slack and counter Putin, Netanyahu, and Trump. My point is that the inaction of the bystander governments is itself a choice, which could have been different, especially given the proliferation of war crimes and crimes against humanity being incurred at the time. The political inertia internationally favored malicious national leaders and the false belief that the UN was still operational as per its mission.  

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1. Gavin Blackburn, “Russia and China Veto UN Resolution Aimed at Reopening Hormuz Strait as US Deadline for Deal Looms,” Euronews.com, 7 April, 2026.
2. Ibid.

Vanquishing the Principle of Unanimity in E.U. Foreign Policy: On the Impact of Oil

There nothing like a sudden dramatic spike in the price of oil in Europe from a war in Iran to prompt E.U. leaders to make speeches as if hell is freezing over and drastic action is urgently needed in terms of federal rather than piecemeal-state foreign policy. Behind President Von der Leyen’s call for the E.U. to do more in foreign policy was her point that the union could no longer afford the principle of unanimity in the European Council in foreign policy. The Iran War had raised the price not only of oil, but also of the unanimity requirement in the Council not only in foreign policy, but also defense. With 27 states at the time and an increasingly belligerent international context, including military aggression against Ukraine, Gaza, and Iran, the E.U. could not rely on a world order regulated by international law. The spike in gas prices, even more than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, brought this point close to home.

As the U.S. began its military attacks in Iran, “European benchmark gas prices jumped 80% in two days while brent crude edged closer to 84 dollars a barrel.”[1] When oil prices surpassed €87 ($100) per barrel roughly a week into the war, Viktor Orbán of the E.U. state of Hungary “called on the European Union to suspend sanctions on Russian energy imports.”[2] Never mind that Russia’s 4 year-old unimpeded invasion of Ukraine was a threat on the E.U.’s eastern border; restoring cheaper gas prices was more important, at least to Hungary. The E.U.’s geopolitical interests do not reduce to a state’s economic interests, however, and so President Von der Leyen spoke on the need for a more active E.U. foreign policy.

It was not the first time that the president had warned that the traditional world order was “rapidly crumbling under mounting violations of international law.”[3] In her speech, she said, “Europe can no longer be a custodian for the old-world order, for a world that has gone and will not return.”[4] There had been too many cases of breaches of international law with impunity as the UN and the International Criminal Court stood by utterly impotent. E.U.’s foreign minister, Kaja Kallas “pointed the finger at Russia’s decision to launch the full-scale invasion of Ukraine . . . as the cataclysm that precipitated the ‘erosion of international law’ . . . and enabled the return of what she described as ‘coercive power politics.”[5] In her speech, Kallas said, “That (invasion) did not go unnoticed. Instead, it sent a signal around the world that there is no more accountability for one’s actions: the rulebook has been thrown out of the window.”[6] Netanyahu’s government in Israel could unleash a holocaustic genocide in Gaza with a presumption of impunity, and Trump’s government in the U.S. could forcibly remove the president of Venezuela and kill Iran’s highest figure without fear of being held accountable by the U.N. or the International Criminal Court. Militaristic aggression was gaining a foothold in the world as international organizations stood by in utter impotence. The very notion of law at the international level could be surmised to be a misnomer.

Finally, E.U. officials were feeling a sense of urgency from war abroad because the sudden spike in oil and gas prices in Europe from Trump’s military attacks in Iran could not be ignored. Kallas stressing “that a rules-based international order is vital to avoid the inevitable anarchy” was no longer enough.[7] “Von der Leyen added another key priority on which the EU should focus to reinforce its geopolitical clout: its internal decision-making rules.”[8] Problematically, the E.U.’s foreign policy was bound by the principle of unanimity in the European Council and the Council of the E.U. such that “the 27 member states must agree on a common line of action before moving forward.”[9] So it only took the E.U. state of Hungary to veto the $91 billion loan for Ukraine, and the E.U. was stymied in coming up with a foreign policy on Trump’s military attacks against Iran because of differences between the states. Alternatively, going by qualified-majority voting would have enabled a consensus (i.e., short of unanimous consent) that could have become the E.U.’s foreign policy, which would have been much stronger in the world than were the various positions of the 27 state governments.

The relationship is clear between calls for a rules-based international order “with teeth” and a stronger decision-making rule in the European Council in foreign policy (and defense): a more active E.U. in foreign policy (and defense) was necessary due to the increased militaristic aggression abroad because the latter could have a very significant detrimental economic affect in Europe. Political pressure was thus building for the E.U.’s 27 state governments to finally relinquish their veto-power in foreign policy (and defense). Power is not relinquished easily, so not even higher oil and gas prices could be enough pressure for the states to agree to apply qualified-majority voting to foreign policy (and defense).

The mechanism called “enhanced cooperation,” which I contend elsewhere is a misnomer for what is really increased federal authority for at least nine states but not all of them, could be a means to bring qualified majority voting to the E.U.’s foreign policy that would cover only those states that have agreed to relinquish their veto power in that domain. I suspect that eventually, all of the E.U. states would be included, so “enhanced cooperation” can be understood as a temporary device that gets around the conflict of interest facing the state governments in their decisions on whether to allow the E.U. to become more active in foreign policy (and defense) than the principle of unanimity would permit.

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1. Eleonora Vasques, “Middle East War Shows ‘Europe Must Reinforce Its Autonomy’, EIB Chief Tells Euronews,” Euronews.com,  4 March 2026.
2. Sandor Zsiros, “Hungary Demands EU Lift Sanctions on Russian Energy as Prices Spike amid Iran War,” Euronews.com, 9 March 2026.
3. Jorge Liboreiro, “Von der Leyen and Kallas Call on Europe to Adapt to Chaotic, Coercive World Order,” Euronews.com, 9 March 2026.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

A Hobbesian World of Might-Makes-Right

In his famous text, Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes describes the state of nature as one of might, or raw force, being the decider of what is rightly and determinatively so. If one person physically harms another person such that the latter’s food may be taken by the former, then that food belongs to the victor even without any overarching normative, or moral, constraint that says that the food still belongs to the vanquished. If Trump's statement that Putin has "won" some regions of Ukraine by military means is correct, then those occupied lands will have been decided by might as if that constitutes right. That Israel has physically decimated Gaza's cities and placed its indigenous residents in concentration camps without enough food or access to medical care with impunity means that the plight of the Palestianians has been decided by might, not right. 

In short, possession is really 99 percent of ownership. Might makes right. Stephen Miller, Trump's deputy chief-of-staff, described this world "order" in responding to questions on whether the U.S. planned to invade Greenland. "Nobody's going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland. . . . We live in a world, in the real world, . . . that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time."[1] In this system, the International Criminal Court, or ICC, simply does not exist or is a target. Evolution has not changed human nature from the hunter-gatherer “stage.” To be sure, not all of humanity is on board with this sort of global order, even if guns have a way of pushing down or even silencing the more progressive elements of the species. The Trump administration’s attacks on the ICC represent a case in point.

The absolutist interpretation of national sovereignty feeds into the functioning of a might-makes-right world. “Global standards for how civilians must be treated and how to wage war are often, in the eyes of the Trump administration, a hindrance and a violation of national sovereignty.”[2] The implication is that unimpeded national sovereignty not only comes without danger, but is also the best system for international relations and thus the prosperity and happiness of the species. Rather than merely criticizing Trump’s “unprecedented campaign against a core institution of international law, the International Criminal Court,” the assumptions underlying a global system of unfettered national sovereignty merit critique, given the unnecessarily unheeded power-aggrandizing actions of Stalin and Hitler in the twentieth century. The military exploits of the Empire of Japan can be added to the list as well. In the next century, the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the mass-killing and starvation of Gaza’s indigenous residents by Israeli Zionists demonstrate the fallacy of a stable world to be brought about by unrestrained national sovereignty, given the underlying human nature that manifests too easily as the instinct of power-aggrandizement. In short, the Israeli genocide in Gaza demonstrates that the Nazi holocaust was not a “one off” deviation from human nature, but rather is closer to mainstream human nature than was realized during the last half of the twentieth century. Indeed, the genocide in Gaza may be reckoned by history as yet another holocaust writ large.

Nevertheless, and as evidence that might-makes-right can continue even amid such atrocities in progress, the Trump administration “used America’s disproportionate global financial power and threats of further repercussions to hinder the [ICC’s] work and create a chilling effect—even as Palestinians [continued] to face U.S.-backed Israeli policies that ICC judges said could constitute grave crimes, and that could undermine Trump’s own stated vision of peace for Gaza.”[3] Rather than focus on the role of private investor-capital in planned development projects being planned for Gaza absent its indigenous population, I want to highlight the disproportionateness of a might-makes-right superpower as itself being a problem unless might-make-right is deemed salvific for humanity. For the ICC, the raw power in the disproportionate military and financial power of the Trump administration over other countries presented “an existential paradox: The ICC’s pursuit of accountability over Gaza is both the reason it has a target on its back, and proof that it [i.e., the ICC] is necessary.”[4] But to be necessary and largely impotent against the power of the disproportionate enabler of Israel (and perhaps even Russia) is to be in the worst of two worlds, as it were.

Put another way, the very existence of a partisan “world police force” presents the ICC with its greatest threat as well as its highest raison d’etre. With such a police force operating on the basis of might-makes-right internationally, that same rationale can be seized upon by other partisans internationally to engage in power-aggrandizement activities of their own, even against the global police-force itself. Such a system is inherently self-contradictory, in other words, and thus weak as a system in which the world order can be in order rather than chaos and upheaval. That the dogma of absolutist national sovereignty sanctions and protects parchment-constraints at the national level (and below) saves such a system from being chaotic from top to bottom, but as Trump’s second presidency demonstrated, a might-make-right foreign-oriented attitude can easily be translated into efforts to walk through constraints at the national level, such as legislatures and courts. 

Arresting and deporting a person deemed to be an illegal immigrant before one has the chance to challenge the actions judicially enjoys the default of a fait accompli. Quelle domage. The Trump administration could simply inform a judge that the suspect is no longer under U.S. jurisdiction so there is nothing that can be done. Such a tactic is well-known to the might-makes-right mentality.  This point should not be taken to excuse or accept illegal immigration as if it were not a crime and one worthy of punishment and expulsion by the rule and thus due process of law. 

Might-makes-right hates to be subject to, or constrained by the rule of law as the mentality sees itself as the law. It is easy for this mentality oriented to foreign affairs to be turned inward while using absolutist national sovereignty as a shield both domestically and internationally. Trump, "himself convicted of felonies, has promoted impunity for various violations of domestic and international law; in addition to opposing the ICC warrant for Netanyahu, Trump is supporting the Israeli leader's bid for a pardon over his corruption charges from Israeli prosecutors."[5]

I contend that such a world of both domestic and international impunity from the constraint of an externally imposed law represents a step backward for the species. Given the foregone benefits that political development could otherwise deliver, the phenomenon worthy to be examined goes beyond the legitimacy and functioning of the ICC and the American foreign policy on Israel and even Russia. The post-World War II international efforts to subject might-makes-right to constraints internationally were being cast off and even attacked a few decades into the next century with the implication being that nothing but might-makes-right might be left standing.

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1. Chris Cameron, "Miller Says Imperialism Is Justified in Greenland," The New York Times, January 7, 2026.
2. Akbar S. Ahmed, “Trump’s Pressure Campaign on the ICC Is Falling Apart,” The Huffington Post, December 3, 2025.
3.. Ibid., italics added.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid., italics added.

Guidelines Puffed Up as Law: Should under the Subterfuge of Must

During the coronavirus pandemic (2020-2022), Arizona’s Ducey administration allowed bus and light-rail employees to go maskless even though they were in close contact with the public. Bus drivers were even getting sick. The “rationale” of the Phoenix transit authority was that the federal regulation is “just a mandate.” Because the word mandate means “an authoritative command,” the rationale that being a mandate renders a law or government regulation as optional can only be spurious at best; this is a case of arrogant ignorance that can’t possibly be wrong about itself in the member-state that ranked 49^th out of 50 on public education. As an authoritative command, a law, even as implemented in regulations, has what Kant called necessity in that law itself cannot be bent; it stands firm in itself as law. In contrast, a guideline connotes flexibility rather than necessity. It follows that enforcement must pertain to laws (including regulations) but not to guidelines. I contend that what are commonly referred to as international laws are actually international guidelines. Such “laws” lack viable enforcement mechanisms and thus are actually guidelines for governments engaged in international relations.

Calls that governments need to respect international law even though no enforcement mechanism exists are actually expressions of a moral desire that such “laws” should be respected in the international arena. That what is actually a should is typically expressed in terms of must by government officials around the world only adds to the mistaken belief that a viable world order exists and thus that aggressors such as Russia’s Putin, Israel’s Netanyahu, and America’s Trump—all of whom have wantonly disregarded international law—pose no threat. A law without a credible means of enforcement—and not just by volunteer “enforcers”—is not a law; as in Hobbes’ state of nature, such a “law” can be said to have the force of an ideological moral desire against opponents.

In the wake of the U.S. military’s capture of Venezuela’s sitting President Maduro, E.U. foreign minister Kallas issued a statement, which reads in part: “The E.U. recalls, that under all circumstances, the principles of international law and the UN Charter must be upheld.”[1] The word must implies at the very least that penalties apply if the must is dismissed by a state that violates the law or Charter. As had been clear for decades, even countries in the UN could easily ignore the Charter with impunity within the UN, and the veto-powers in the Security Council need only veto a proposal to see to it that it cannot be violated because it has not passed. So, what Kallas really meant is that governments around the world should uphold the principles of international law and the UN Charter. Notice that she used the word principles, which do not constitute law, so she contradicts herself in applying the word must. For someone to say, you must follow that principle, is not the same as saying, you must follow the law. Only the latter connotes or implies that violations will be punished—not even that there might be penalties. Those exist even if law enforcement does not catch a particular culprit.

Kallas’s statement can be critiqued on moral grounds, which is certainly ironic because her foreign-policy stance is laudable; I submit that militaristic heads of government should be restrained internationally, lest the world falls back into the dark ages. In using the word must, the E.U.’s foreign minister was doing exactly what Nietzsche calls attention to in his critique of modern morality, in which “Thou shalt not” is used as a club of sorts to beguile the self-confident strong into unilaterally not acting on their strength. Were he alive, Nietzsche would probably council the sitting U.S. president not to feel shamed or guilty from Kallas’s infliction of must, which can only mean should in referring to international law and anything to do with the United Nations given the utter lack of enforcement. Without that, the world is left with international guidelines rather than laws, and the UN is left standing on the sideline utterly impotent from the self-inflicted initial wounds of the veto-mechanism in the Security Council and the lack of any UN armed forces or police adequately empowered as force to enforce UN resolutions. The same goes for the International Criminal Court, the ICC, whose arrest warrants for Russia’s Putin and Israel’s Netanyahu were being either ignored around the world or even actively fought against (by the Trump administration). An arrest warrant that depends on voluntary enforcement by third parties (i.e., governments around the world) is not a warrant in any sense of that word. Again, a misleading use of words.

A problem with using words that are bear on a global order misleadingly is that the appearance of there actually being an order internationally, as distinct from “might makes right” as the de facto default, is illusionary. In actuality, when Putin invaded Ukraine, Netanyahu inflicted an inhumane holocaustic genocide on the people of Gaza, and Trump captured the sitting president Venezuela, the status of international law was epitomized by the word should rather than must. The moral desire for international constraints on raw militaristic aggression is of course laudable, but that desire itself does not constitute recognition of there being international law. To portray the former as the latter is dishonest. 

It is also counter-productive from the standpoint of what would be needed for the family of nations, or more practically a coalition of “the willing” among the political unions and sovereign states of the world, to design, approve, and activate institutions, including possibility a global federation along the times described by Kant, that are capable of instituting and enforcing law internationally. Officials of such institutions as have enough governmental sovereignty to enforce international law even with boots on the ground if necessary could indeed say must without merely expressing a moral desire. Out of such self-confident strength at the global level, albeit with institutional checks on tyranny at that level from a qualified majority of countries, which would all be semi-sovereign, the precedents being incurred in favor of “might makes right” by Putin, Netanyahu, and Trump could potentially be reversed and once again set as outliers internationally. Such rogue nations could be relegated and effectively expelled from the family of nations both economically and politically. 

That a holocaustic—yes, holocaustic—severity of suffering was unleashed by a genocidal government in the Middle East for years in the so-called modern era (after the Enlightenment!) is itself testimony enough that the post-World War II global order’s international organizations, including the International Criminal Court and the UN, including its top court, was by 2023 utterly impotent. Out of this power vacuum, militaristic aggressors on the world stage could easily sense that low-hanging fruit could be easily plucked with utter impunity. It is precisely at such a point that the ground is fertile for a new world order to be promulgated and enacted so as to constrain angry men who are bathed in power. Human nature itself is the root cause behind the cycle of world orders through history punctuated by intervals of unimpeded military aggression, such as by the three blind men, driving drunk with power, in the mid-2020s.

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1. Maria Tadeo, “EU Calls for Respect of International Law as Trump Remains Vague on Venezuelan Transition Plan,” Euronews.com, 4 January 2026.

Oh, Siagon

War can leave families in a dysfunctional condition. In the case of the Vietnam War, the broadcast video of the last helicopter taking off from the roof of the American embassy in Siagon in 1974 carries with it the veneer of fleeing Vietnamese on their way to a life of freedom in the United States. Not evident from the video is the impact on a Vietnamese family that is documented in the film, Oh, Siagon (2007).

The full essay is at "Oh, Siagon."

President Nicolás Maduro: Captured by the U.S.

In the early hours of January 3, 2026, the sitting president of Venezuela was captured by the U.S. military and sent to New York, where he would face a federal indictment involving the trafficking of narcotics to the United States. President Trump’s decision to go forward with the military plan no doubt had to do with the South American state’s tremendous oil reserves, just as President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq surely had something to do with that Middle Eastern state’s oil fields. Elected representatives at the federal level of the U.S. have known since 1974 that skyrocketing gas prices could easily result in voter-resentment. Whether the capture of Maduro was motivated by his drug activity reaching the U.S. or Venezuela’s oil, the invasion and capture by U.S. forces is in line with the Hobbesian notion that might makes right, and even that 90% of ownership of property lies in possession. Lest it be thought that President Trump broke with precedent internationally in capturing the sitting president of another country, his strategy can be understood as being along the trend that had been gaining traction because the post-World War II international order had become hamstrung in the impotence of international bodies including the International Criminal Court and the United Nations.

The various reactions of the leaders of other South American sovereign states provide a sense of the confusion regarding the “new way” that was taking hold internationally amid the power vacuum. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s reaction, for example, treated the U.S. military strike as crossing “an unacceptable line,” and thus as establishing a precedent wherein one country can legitimately invade another.[1] “Attacking countries, in flagrant violation of international law, is the first step toward a world of violence, chaos and instability, where the law of the strongest prevails over multilateralism,” Lulu wrote.[2] Apparently he was unaware of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s genocide in Gaza—both of these cases being flagrant examples of raw military aggression in violation of international law. So, President Trump’s military action can hardly be described as a “first step toward world of violence, chaos and instability.” Furthermore, Lulu’s appeal to multilateralism flies in the face of the paralysis in the UN Security Council due to the five permanent veto-powers—at least one of which had been protecting Russia and another backing up Israel even in committing a holocaust against a people that at least some high officials in the Israeli government viewed as subhuman (i.e., dogs). It was not the first time in modern history that a people has been viewed as subhuman, and thus as deserving, like rats, of extermination. Unlike that case, no coalitions of the willing were willing to take on Russia and Israel in 2023 and even in at least the two subsequent years, which has allowed the naked aggression to take hold and actually become a precedent before the U.S. military captured Maduro.  

Also, apparently oblivious to the intractability of the post-WWII world order, Colombian President Gustavo Petro called for an emergency meeting of the Organization of American States and the United Nations. Because the General Assembly is militarily impotent and the U.S. has veto-power in the Security Council, and the Organization of American States has no actual power, Petro’s plan demonstrates the utter lack of redress against the “new way” of might makes right then gaining even more traction. Perhaps at least China could then stage a military strike in Israel to capture Netanyahu and his henchmen and deliver them to the International Criminal Court. At least then the Hobbesian state of nature would paradoxically be aiding in the enforcement of international law against genocides and holocausts. Waking up to such news on January 3, 2026 would indeed have been quite a Christmas present, albeit delivered late.

Also oblivious to the military aggression of Russia and Israel, Chilean President Gabriel Boric stated, “Chile reaffirms its commitment to basic principles of international Law, such as the prohibition of the use of force, non-intervention, the peaceful settlement of international disputes, and the territorial integrity of States.”[3] Chile’s commitment means absolutely nothing, as that South American state had done nothing to organize an international coalition to push Russian troops out of Ukraine and Israeli troops, who were gangraping young Palestinian boys, out of Gaza (and the West Bank). A precedent for such a coalition can be found in U.S. President George H.W. Bush removing Iraqi forces from Kuwait in the early 1990s, without invading Iraq because the coalition did not support that. Unfortunately, the international community of nations did not act on that basis against Russia and Israel. Hence Boric’s demand that the “Venezuelan crisis must be resolved through dialogue and the support of multilateralism, and not through violence or foreign interference” can be likened to one hand clapping alone in a forest.[4] That such a demand is even made as the post-WWII world order laid wayward largely defunct as regards military invasions and even a genocide begs the question of why no governments were working constructively toward international institutions that could enforce international law against aggressive national leaders.

To acknowledge that the ICC and the UN had become utterly impotent and yet to do nothing to give rise to a new world order, especially as military invasions and even a holocaustic genocide were being allowed to run their respective courses unincumbered, was where the world was as 2026 began. In 2025, a former undersecretary of the UN admitted to me at Harvard that the UN could not be adequately reformed because the veto-powers in the Security Council would never divest themselves of that power. A new institution would be necessary for international law to mean anything more than a guideline for governments to voluntarily follow when doing so suits them. In the meantime, the U.S. and Israel could circumvent the International Criminal Court with impunity, and the E.U., mired in anti-federalist ideology, could not step up to push Russian troops out of Ukraine. President Trump had plenty of precedents for his military strike in Venezuela even though capturing a sitting president was admittedly novel. It is precisely through such incrementalism that a series of precedents becomes ensconced as a new status quo in international relations.

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1. Aleksandar Brezar, “Trump Hails ‘Brilliant Operation’ in Venezuela that Led to Maduro’s Capture,” Euronews.com, 3 January, 2026.

2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

Russia Damages E.U. Diplomatic Offices: Implications for International Law

Even though the Vienna Convention of 1961 includes protections for diplomatic and consular properties in active war-zones, Russia’s attack of 629 missiles and drones on Kiev, Ukraine, came within 50 meters of the E.U.’s diplomatic offices there late on August 27, 2025, severely damaging them but killing nobody in the E.U.’s delegation. The two bombs that hit nearby were enough to give the Europeans the impression that President Putin of Russia did not consider himself bound by international law in war. To the extent that fighting between two sovereign countries, Russia and Ukraine, fits Hobbes’ infamous state of nature, international law is really not law at all, for jurisprudence, including mutually acknowledged rights, requires an overarching polity to enact and enforce laws. So the E.U. could not enjoy a right to be sparred death and destruction at its diplomatic offices in Kiev during the war there, but the Union could claim another right at Russia’s expense within the E.U.’s territory.

After the bombing, the E.U.’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, said of it, “It shows that the Kremlin will stop at nothing to terrorize Ukraine, blindly killing civilians—men, women and children and even targeting the European Union.”[1] Even though it was not clear that two bombs going off in the vicinity necessarily means that Putin was targeting the E.U., António Costa, chairman of the European Council, which represents the state governments, stated, “The EU will not be intimidated. Russia’s aggression only strengthens our resolve to stand with Ukraine and its people.”[2] In return for the E.U. having just come in close contact with brazen Russian military might, E.U. President Von der Leyen “promised to tighten the screws on the Russian war machine with a 19^th package of EU sanctions.”[3] That so many so-called packages had already not worked gives little credibility to what a 19^th might do in terms of making a difference to Russia’s war calculus.

Fortunately, Von der Leyen said that the E.U. would work at the federal level “on new ways to further mobilize Russia’s frozen assets, worth about €210 billion, that are “on EU soil, to finance Ukraine’s defence capabilities and reconstruction.”[4] Even though international law put constraints on confiscation of the funds, and an E.U. spokesperson said the efforts would continue to pertain to “the windfall profits, rather than the money itself,” I contend that if it can be proved that Russia had violated international laws militarily in Ukraine, the E.U. should be released of any legal and moral obligation not to confiscate the frozen Russian assets.[5] It would be unfair to Ukraine, as well as the E.U., were international law to be applied to only one side while the other ignores the very existence of law internationally in line with how Hobbes describes the state of nature prior to any social contract.

It was obvious at the time that Ukraine could use any additional military support that could come from the E.U. confiscating the frozen Russian assets in the E.U., but perhaps even more significant would be the decision that could be taken on whether international law itself pertains to the war. In deciding that no law applies to both sides because of a lack of de jure and de facto recognition by both sides and enforcement, the question of even whether there is such a thing as international law—whether jurisprudence applies in a domain in which enforcement mechanisms are lacking, whether institutionally, as by a militarized international federation or a coalition of the willing.

The lack of any enforcement can be distinguished from a weakness in enforcement or even an abject failure of an extant enforcement effort. That no enforcement mechanism existed at least as of 2025 on international law arguably renders such “law” as merely wishes by some people or organizations. If Russia’s Putin and Israel’s Netanyahu were able to treat international law as such, this is all that would be required to render international law as something less than law itself. For other people to continue to refer to international law would be an error predicated on a mere wish rather than being a statement of fact. A dictum could be presented to the world wherein international agreements cannot, or at least should not, be labeled as law unless credible enforcement mechanisms exist; by credible, I mean likely to be efficacious in constraining culprit governments. In short, federal officials of the E.U. should not feel constrained by international law on confiscating the frozen assets, just as Russia’s President Putin had been ignoring international “law” in having invaded a sovereign country. With so many obvious attacks on civilians and kidnapping of Ukrainian children, taking them inside Russia far from Ukraine, the very concept of international law goes out the window.

Applied to Russia and Israel in 2025, the invasions would have had to be stopped with the invaders pushed back for there to be such a thing as an international law against invasion (or targeting civilians). To claim that there is such a thing as international law while a genocide or even holocaust is underway unimpeded involves cognitive dissidence, if not an abject refusal to think at all. In Cameron’s film, Titanic, an employee of the ship tells third-class passengers that they cannot go through a passageway only to be knocked into the rising water by Dawson. Without enforcement, the employee can only be regarded as strongly expressing a desire. Similarly, a food-aide or medical-aide worker in Gaza could shout again and again at Israeli tanks, you can’t come into Gaza City, but if those tanks keep rolling in, it is not as though the worker would be supposing that a law is being broken, for there is no viable enforcement to force the Israelis out of Gaza; not even a coalition of the willing had emerged to do so in more than a year. Netanyahu could easily dismiss such shouting as pleas rather than even a demand, much less a law. Anyone watching the tanks continue onward would regard any onlooker making a demand as crazy. I submit that it is just as crazy to refer to international law in the context of the Russian and Israeli invasions in the mid-2020's.

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “EU Delegation in Kyiv Severely Damaged by Shock Wave of Russian Strike,” Euronews.com, August 28, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Jorge Liboreiro, “EU Summons Russian Envoy after Strike Damaged the Bloc’s Delegation in Kyiv,” Euronews.com, August 28, 2025.

The E.U. on Ukraine: On the Human, All Too Human

On August 17, 2025, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with Ursula von der Leyen, president of the E.U., as a precursor to both of them meeting with Don Trump, president of the U.S. on ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. President Von der Leyen had decided to accompany Zelensky to Washington in part to potentially play interference should the U.S. president again publicly berate Zelensky to his face and in part to protect Zelensky should Trump’s position/pressure be too pro-Russia (i.e., pro-Putin). To virtually all Europeans and to many Americans, Trump’s verbal outburst at Zelensky in the Oval Office had been shocking, especially as it seemed to be pre-meditated and orchestrated. Taking emotional advantage of the head of a state being invaded by the empire-scale Russia can assuredly be reckoned as being a bad host, and even low class for the president of the empire-scale United States. International relations do indeed contain a very human element, and in fact leaving it out of an analysis of an international situation is nothing short of negligent.

Our political entities are, after all, artifacts made by us and thus can at best restrain our most base instincts. Even as such, as Hobbes points out in Leviathan, living under a sovereign is much preferable to being in the brutish state of nature. It is important to remember in assessing international relations that Hobbes’ state of nature is not completely extinguished or blocked by the establishment and maintaining of government. As for Hobbes’ social contract, I would be surprised if there even was a group of humans living in proximity without some hierarchy of power, and thus de facto government, in which case the scenario of a number of free individuals social-contracting from nothing, ex nihilo, to form a government is, as Aristotle wrote of Plato’s theory of the Forms, “beautiful but false.” By the way, Plato eventually rejected his own theory wherein forms, or pure ideas, are metaphysically real.

Lest I be presumed to have digressed, my point with all of the historical philosophy was not to put you to sleep; rather, I contend that Von der Leyen’s presence with Zelensky in Washington is not only to be analyzed in terms of Europe’s geo-political interests in countering any plans that Russia’s president might develop to invade any of the E.U.’s eastern states, but also of the human, all too human—to borrow a phrase from Nietzsche—element. The latter is also highly relevant to the E.U. president’s trouble with the governor of the E.U. state of France, whose efforts to upstage the federal president as the figurehead of the E.U., including in speaking for the E.U. rather than just for his own state, have not gone unnoticed in Europe. By the way, the U.S. avoids such a pitfall by making foreign policy an exclusive competency, or enumerated power, of the U.S., such even the governor of California or Texas cannot publicly state a foreign policy for the United States.

In stating after his meeting with Von der Leyen that Europe “needs to stand united in any further negotiations to stop Moscow’s all-out war in Ukraine, Zelensky was essentially saying that the governors of even large E.U. states should get behind the president and foreign minister of the E.U. rather than go it alone in foreign policy with respect to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Moreover, because Russia is on the scale of an empire whereas E.U. states are “kingdom”-level, the E.U. is needed to face off against President Putin of Russia, especially of the president of the empire-scale U.S. leaned in Putin’s favor to end the invasion even if that means rewarding an invasion with additional territory. On this point, Von der Leyen stated, “Our position is clear: international borders cannot be changed by force; these are decisions to be made by Ukraine . . . and not without Ukraine at the table.”[1] To be sure, this statement can be viewed as naïve, for it omits any mention of the E.U.’s role in safeguarding Zelensky from being faced with intense political pressure from Trump and military threats from Putin to “help” Zelensky make the “right” decision. Considerable military and political pressure from two empire-scale polities can be brought to bear on a single kingdom-level polity. Hence, Zelensky also said after his meeting with Von der Leyen, “It’s crucial that Europe is as united now as it was at the very beginning, as it was in 2022 when the full-scale war began.”[2] Ukraine desperately needed the support of at least one empire-scale polity, especially if the American and Russian empires were actually on the same side. 

American support for Putin would mean that America was at the time in favor of two invaders: Russia and Israel. There was a time when the U.S. stood for freedom-fighters rather than bullies. Whether a person or the head of a militarized polity, a bully is a bully. That is to say, the human, all too human element should not be left out of the equation. 

I submit that militaries around the world, whether voluntarily or through a semi-sovereign world federalism, as discussed by Kant in Perpetual Peace and has seemed definitively necessary after Russia’s unimpeded invasion and Israel’s genocide and holocaust in Gaza, should try to counter rather than enable or ignore the worst of human nature. We cannot assume that Hobbes’ infamous state of nature has been, or even would be, replaced by the institution of government, especially in international relations, but our species could do much better, and it is not at all utopian to say so.

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1. Malek Fouda, Sacha Vakulina, and Aleksandar Brezar, “Zelenskyy Urges Europe to Remain United Against Russia’s ‘Anti-European’ War in Ukraine,” Euronews.com, August 17, 2025.
2. Ibid.

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.

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.