“Justice and power.”

The defining conflict of our time.

Casualties of impunity. Gaza, September 2025. (screenshot, Al Jazeera.)

5 OCTOBER—Those were an eventful few days as the General Assembly convened at the United Nations Secretariat in New York a couple of weeks ago. France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, and Andorra formally recognized the state of Palestine on the first day of the General Debate, 23 September. Britain, Canada, Australia, and Portugal had done so two days earlier. With Spain, New Zealand, Finland, Ireland, Norway, and other nations also recognizing, virtually the whole of the Western bloc except the United States now accepts Palestine as a sovereign state.

The imperium fades further into its corner. Always good.

And eventful days have followed all the new endorsements of the sovereignty of the Palestinian people. President Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, presented a grandly titled Gaza Peace Plan at the White House last Monday. After several days of suspense and speculation, Hamas responded to this document on last Friday. This was not the wholesale acceptance of the 20–point plan Trump seemed to think it was (or wish it was): No, this was skilled statecraft on Hamas’s part—“a responsible position in dealing with the plan proposed by U.S. President Donald Trump,” as the Hamas statement describes itself. “Responsible,” as I read the text, means responsible to the long-suffering Palestinians in Gaza and responsible to the principles of the Palestinian cause.

What do we have here? How shall we understand these apparently disparate events? In my view, we witness a running confrontation between power and justice. This seems to me the defining struggle of our time, and it sharpens as we speak.

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You hear a lot of different things about those recognitions at the U.N. in support of a Palestinian state. “What a mockery,” Ali Abunimah, the principled director of The Electronic Intifada, wrote on “X” as heads of state stood at the podium and made these announcements. “Now they just need an actual state.” The Nation called the West’s declarations of support for an independent Palestine “a despicable sham.”

OK, there is a case here. These countries, one and all, call for a two-state solution, and a deader letter I cannot think of. Britain and France pile so many conditions atop their declarations—political candidates in the not-yet-realized Palestine will be vetted, Hamas (never mind its popularity) will be barred from any role in government, textbooks will be censored, etc.—that you have to wonder what they mean by “sovereignty” and “self-determination.” Britain and France continue to arm Israel as it terrorizes the people we know as Palestinians.

But those many blurting these out-of-hand dismissals have it wrong, in my view. I am not in the habit of approving of anything Keir Starmer or Emmanuel Macron does, but in this case the British prime minister and the French president, odious “centrists” that they are, deserve what we used to call—alas, for the days when there was a serious left—critical support. The West ex-the United States has finally joined the global majority: Four-fifths of the U.N.’s 193 members now support a Palestinian nation.

No, I am with what many West Bank Palestinians have said since the General Debate convened. A woman named Raya, as quoted in the above-linked document: “Recognition is considered a good and unexpected step, but it will have no real value unless it is followed by serious and practical measures.…” From Alia: “It’s not about if they recognize us or not. It’s about if there is even something left to recognize.” And from Samia: “Recognition of Palestinian statehood is great but will be futile if the genocide on Gaza and occupation do not come to an end.”

See what I mean by critical support?

Flawed as all the statements of recognition are, they seem to have uncorked the bottle wherein the justice genie reposed. This is not to be missed. The walkout when Bibi Netanyahu spoke was even more fun to watch than last year’s. So was the straight-no-chaser language with which heads of state denounced the Israelis’ genocidal barbarities. Gustavo Petro, the Colombian president, described Zionist Israelis as Nazis and called for the U.N. to organize an international force to break the Israeli blockade and stop the savagery.

Petro is right: The Israeli–American peace plan notwithstanding, it is ultimately going to take armed intervention to stop the Zionists’ terror spree. A head of state has finally put this thought on the table.

While the General Assembly proceeded with its business, the Spanish and Italians dispatched naval vessels to sail with the aid flotilla of 50–odd ships then making its way to the waters off Gaza. The Israelis intercepted these vessels late last week—illegally, in international waters — and many among their crews are now held in Israelis jails as “terrorists.” But a new flotilla of 11 vessels instantly set sail across the Mediterranean. Also last week, Pedro Sánchez, the Spanish premier, announced that U.S. ships and planes transporting arms and matériel to Israel will be barred from transiting through Spanish ports and air bases. These moves cannot be seen as unrelated to developments on the diplomatic side.

You didn’t have to be at the U.N. last month (and I wasn’t) to understand the gravity of these events—to feel the explosive energy in the air inside and outside the Secretariat. You could see it in the real-time videos posted on social media. The world, the non–West naturally in the lead, was at last declaring, “Basta!” Taking the occasion to its essence, this was a full-frontal confrontation with power in the cause of global justice. One dramatic scene stays with me even now: When Gustavo Petro resumed his seat after speaking, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was videoed standing above him and holding his head in a fraternal embrace.

“This historic moment,” the Brazilian president exclaimed when it was his turn at the podium. So it was.

And then what?

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Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly had a difficult time settling on a flight plan when he flew from Tel Aviv to New York, given he is wanted under international law for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. Norway, Belgium, Spain, Canada, Ireland, and the Netherlands are among the nations that indicated they would honor the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant were he to enter their territory. How was it he was allowed into the Secretariat at all, it was logical to wonder.

We can surmise that part of the Israeli prime minister’s purpose in attending this year’s General Assembly—where he called those who walked out when he spoke “an anti–Semitic mob” — was openly to flout international law and, per usual, everything the U.N. stands for. The subtext from the moment Bibi arrived in Manhattan was clear: There is no question of the global majority bringing the Israeli terror machine to justice, he wanted to demonstrate, and power, not law, will remain what makes the world go around.

And this is how I read Netanyahu’s summit with President Trump on Monday—their fourth since Trump reassumed office in January. The 20–point plan they released has all kinds of things going on in it, but, taking a step back, it is fairly understood as a reply to the global majority’s just-stated desire for a humane and moral order. Read for its larger meaning, this is a declaration that we—we, all of us—live in a lawless world now and that legitimacy, international institutions, and (certainly not) common notions of justice count for nothing. Force alone counts in the world Trump and Bibi propose to stand astride like the co-emperors who ruled the ancient world after Constantine established an eastern capital in 330 A.D.

The text of this document can be read here, courtesy of the BBC. In broad outline — and a broad outline is all there is to it at this point—it calls for an immediate ceasefire, after which—within 72 hours—Hamas is to release all remaining captives still alive and the bodies of the dead. In exchange, Israel will release 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences and 1,700 Palestinians taken prisoner since the events of 7 October 2023. Then Hamas is to disarm, and the Israelis are to begin a phased withdrawal of their troops, but these will continue to occupy “for the foreseeable future” an expanding buffer inside the Gaza Strip’s eastern border.

Then come the longer-term provisions. “Gaza will be a deradicalized terror-free zone” in which Hamas will have no presence or role. “Gaza will be redeveloped for the benefit of the people of Gaza.” And then the question of government and administration:

Gaza will be governed under the temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee… made up of qualified Palestinians and international experts, with oversight and supervision by a new international transitional body headed and chaired by Donald J. Trump, with other members and heads of State to be announced, including former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

You just know Trump’s name is written into this document, and at his insistence, in the cause of his vulgar pursuit of the Nobel Peace Prize he will never get. But never mind this. The Gaza Peace Plan released last Monday reads as if Netanyahu dictated it, and I will offer odds he more or less did. This thing is written loosely such that it gives Bibi all the room he needs to betray it now that he endorses it. This would, of course, be in keeping with every other agreement with Hamas and/or the United States that Netanyahu has accepted to date.

Hamas, as widely reported, did not formally receive the peace plan until after it was made public and, of course, had no voice in its composition. This was intended as a take-it-or-leave-it offer such that, as Bibi and Trump made clear as they stood at opposing podiums Monday afternoon, Hamas’s leaders may as well have guns pointed to their temples.

Bibi:

If Hamas rejects your plan, Mr. President, or if they supposedly accepted and then basically do everything to counter it, then Israel will finish the job by itself.

Trump, following this remark:

Israel would have my full backing to finish the job of destroying the threat of Hamas.

And for good measure, Trump again last Friday on Truth Social, his digital bullhorn, warned Hamas that it had until Sunday to accept the plan:

If this LAST CHANCE agreement is not reached, all HELL, like no one has ever seen before, will break out against Hamas.

Tell me, is this statecraft, or is this power using the threat of genocide as blackmail? Corollary question: Is the overarching proposal here that a regime guilty of the most savage acts of barbarity at least since the Reich shall now proceed on with impunity—no responsibility for its crimes, no answerability to the institutions of global justice?

As to the question of statehood, Hamas’s longstanding demand and the vital preoccupation of the 100–plus nations attending the General Assembly just days earlier, there is no provision at all in this plan unless we count this (and I cannot):

While Gaza re-development advances and when the PA [the Palestinian Authority] reform program is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognize as the aspiration of the Palestinian people.

It is simply unbelievable to me that these two grotesquely irresponsible people would expect anyone to take this kind of language at all seriously. Try to count the escape hatches in this provision, which is No. 19 of the 20 comprising the plan. I identify at least three, maybe four.

The Times of Israel published the full text of the Hamas statement Saturday morning. It is here and is to be read very carefully. It was written after “extensive consultations with Palestinian forces and factions as well as discussions with brotherly mediators and friends,” which appears to indicate the group deliberated with the Qataris and other Arab states as it drafted its response. This is a minutely considered document.

Three of the statement’s features suggest the sophisticated thinking that went into it. One, Hamas acts here “out of concern to stop the agression and the genocide being inflicted on our steadfast people…” Two, it takes care to affirm “the efforts of U.S. President Donald Trump” as it advances its position. Three, Hamas forthrightly “announces its approval to release all prisoners of the occupation—both living and the bodies of the deceased—according to the exchange formula included in President Trump’s proposal.” This latter means Israel will be required to release the stated number of prisoners serving life sentences in its jails and 1,700 other Palestinians detained since the events of 7 October 2023.

As to the rest, these are among the Hamas statement’s key stipulations:

The movement also reiterates its approval to hand over the administration of the Gaza Strip to a Palestinian body composed of independents (technocrats), based on Palestinian national consensus and supported by Arab and Islamic backing.

And:

As for the other issues included in President Trump’s proposal that relate to the future of the Gaza Strip and the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, these are subject to a comprehensive national position and must be based on relevant international laws and resolutions. These matters shall be discussed within a unified Palestinian national framework, in which Hamas will participate and contribute with full responsibility.

Let us net out the gist of this document.

To begin with, the Gaza Strip’s exhausted population, now suffering a redoubled Israeli siege, appears to have forced Hamas to reshape its position accordingly. By way of statecraft, Hamas now seems to recognize, along with everyone else who has dealt with Donald Trump, that he is an emotionally underdeveloped narcissist and it is best to treat him as such. These are two good judgments.

Agreeing to release the remaining Israeli hostages is an especially interesting move. If the Israelis hold to the agreement—a considerable “if” at this point—this will free a modest number of Palestinians in Israeli prisons (modest in relation to the total population of Palestinians suffering in the Zionists’ grotesque gulag). Beyond this, there are what look to me like two astute calculations.

One and very simply, there is no more negotiating leverage to be gained from the hostages Hamas still holds and, so, no further point keeping them. Two and more important, once the hostages are released, the Zionists can no longer cite them, or the supposed evils of Hamas, to justify its massacre of the Palestinians of Gaza. Israel will have no more cover for any bombs that fall or tanks that roll after the hostages are sent home: From then on out the genocidal intent will be fully exposed.

There was talk as the world awaited the response of Hamas’s leaders to the Netanyahu–Trump plan that to accept it would be effectively to accept their own extinction. There is no such capitulation in this statement. Read again the above-quoted passages: Hamas has agreed to hand over power to a new administration, but this is to be formed according to the democratically determined preferences of Palestinians, and Hamas will be part of this “unified Palestinian national framework.” This is once again astute, in my read. It is a calling of bluff. If this plan envisions “a pathway to Palestinian self-determination,” Hamas is effectively saying, let the path begin here and now. Otherwise, what do the Israelis and Americans mean?

I cannot honestly read this moment with any certainty. Last Thursday, bang in the middle of these proceedings, Israel Katz, the Zionist state’s defense minister and another of the fanatics in the Netanyahu government, announced that if the half-million residents remaining in Gaza City do not evacuate they will be considered terrorists; the implications of this status will be evident. What is our question: Will the Netanyahu regime hold to the “peace plan,” or how long will it take for Bibi to abrogate it? In the day since Hamas announced its openness to negotiation based on the plan, let me remind you, Israel has not stopped the bombing.

Another question arises: How did Netanyahu get the racist freaks populating his government to agree even to the flimsily written plan Bibi and Trump made public with tinny fanfare last Monday? The extremists who control Netanyahu’s cabinet want the Gaza Strip ethnic-cleansed, and for them a Palestinian state is out of the question on any terms. The best answer I have seen belongs to John Whitbeck, the international attorney with long experience in negotiations between Israel and Palestinians. “Presumably,” he wrote last Monday in his privately distributed blog, “Netanyahu has, while still hoping that Hamas will reject this ultimatum, managed to convince these ministers of the sincerity of his insincerity in this instance.”

In precisely this connection, there is a long tradition among Asian despots of writing laws and official documents in language general and vague enough to allow rulers maximum license by way of interpretation and enforcement. Prerogative is the highest value, prerogative as power: This goes back to the old Confucian emperors. And this is how the Gaza Peace Plan is intended to work. There is effectively no before-and-after in this document: It gives Netanyahu as much dispensation to act as he pleases after the plan goes into effect—if it does—as he has now.

There is absolutely zero interest in the wishes of Palestinians in this plan. No mention at all of the West Bank or the escalating cruelties of diabolic settlers as they steal ever more Palestinian land. And not to be missed, indifference to what the majority of humanity just made clear at the General Assembly.

This is power announcing its utter contempt for anything other than raw force—forms of force that see no need any longer to disguise themselves.

There is no discounting the significance of events last week at the U.N. and outside its gates. The world has broken its silence. At the highest levels of government in the non–Western majority, it is learning—I can no longer bear this co-opted phrase, but here goes—to speak truth to power. Power and justice are, so to say, now on the record as in open conflict. This is not nothing. There is more to come. I have no trouble anticipating which will finally, however far in the future, win out over the other.

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Courtesy of ScheerPost.

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