Israel’s National Security Cabinet Approves Netanyahu’s Escalation, Hiding Defeat in the Legitimacy War

TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 11 Aug 2025

Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service

Modified Responses to Questions from Brazilian Journalist Rodrigo Craveiro on 8 Aug 2025

1 – Netanyahu wants to military occupy whole Gaza and hand it over to non-PA Arab forces. What do you think about this plan?

The Netanyahu plan of taking over the entire Gaza Strip as publicly proposed in various venues recently seems temporarily scaled back to the Israeli conquest of Gaza City still under Palestinian control. It is coupled with a favorable outlook on Israel’s part, contested by the religious Cabinet extremists Ben Gvir and Smotrich intention to turn over post-genocide governance of Gaza to Arab governments hostile to Hamas uncertain is uncertain in general and as to the form it might take politically if it does happen, and for how long it would last. Israeli reports suggest that even the Palestinian Authority, despite its collaborationist and anti-Hamas credentials, would be unacceptable to Israel when it comes to post-genocide Gaza governance. Zionist tactics have over the years been content to proceed by stages or phases if the political atmosphere within Israel or externally is resistant to an immediate realization of maximalist ambitions.

Preliminary reports analyzing even this limited yet further escalation of Israel’s military operations in Gaza suggest opposition opposition from the country’s military leadership and differently from cabinet ministers Ben Gvir and Smotrich, representing the religious ultra-right, who demand nothing less than the takeover of the entire Gaza Strip. And beyond this, the substantial ethnic cleansing of surviving Palestinians together with assertions of Israel sovereignty and renewal of settlements. Netanyahu and the religious part of his coalition government believe, somewhat plausibly, that without such totalism Hamas will not be defeated and survive to fight another day. Somewhat differently, the military opposition fears that it will cost the lives of the remaining alive Israeli hostages still and pose serious risks for IDF forces assigned such a mission. Overall, 25% of Gaza has managed to elude Israeli control so far despite multiple evacuation orders imposed over its 22+ months of genocidal assault that included the devastation of Gaza urban spaces.

2- Is the Israel idea to dismantle Gaza Strip and transfer power to Arabs. What do you think about such a plan?

I hope it never happens as it would make Arab governments that have so far watched this genocide unfold without any meaningful opposition even more complicit in perpetrating the underlying crime of genocide. These government would become participants in shaping a punitive outcome on Gazans, and of course Hamas, in the face of genocide. The Israeli view as articulated frequently by Netanyahu and other leading Cabinet members is to regard Hamas as an inherently terrorist entity despite its indisputable political victory in 2006 internationally monitored elections that it was persuaded to enter due to encouragement from the US Government. True, Hamas was not expected to win a democratic election. It was this unwelcome outcome that evidently scuttled the US plan to normalize relations with Hamas. Instead with pressure from Israel,  Hamas was kept on the terrorist list, rendering meaningless its willingness to abandon armed struggle in its struggle for Palestinian rights, once again being relegated to an illegitimate status as a political entity. Israel sealed this style of response by facilitating a coup attempt by Fatah forces aligned with the Palestine Authority that failed leading Israel to impose a harsh punitive blockade that damaged the Gaza economy, reinforced by massive military incursions every few years, and resulting in a repressive regime that was damaging to the mental health and physical security of the entire Palestinian population prior to October 7, and contextualizes the Gaza attack on southern Israel as more of ‘a slave revolt’ or ‘prison riot’ than, as globally portrayed, as a terrorist assault on Israeli civilian society, although it was that as well with atrocities included. However, categorized this single incident should not be the justification for depriving the people of Gaza of a future in accord with the norms of international humanitarian law.

To reward Israel after its perpetration of genocide, and punish Hamas and the Palestinian people after their ordeal of acute massive victimization is to compound the already grave injustice, an Orwellian reversal of how legal responsibility for the post-October 7 developments should be properly evaluated. It is also a final sign that neither international law nor elemental notions of criminal accountability apply to Israel, as shielded by Western countries and the UN paralyzed by design and unscrupulous geopolitics.

Given these conditions only activism among the peoples of the world can bring a semblance of justice to the situation in Gaza. Under somewhat analogous yet less severe circumstances, justice eventually prevailed in racist South Africa thanks to the mobilization of civil society forces in the course of the anti-apartheid campaign. This rising populist tide with respect to Israel and the US has resulting in mainstream moves to name Israel’s sustained violence against civilian targets and dehumanizing political language as ‘genocide’ after a long period of evading the spectacle of daily atrocities committed by Israel in Gaza. Among other hopeful, although somewhat ambiguous developments, is the belated recognition of Palestinian statehood, over vigorous Israeli and US objections, by France, the UK, and Canada. Even more significant, is the German imposition of an arms embargo against Israel. Relations with the Trump presidency seem to be fraying, for the moment, because of Israel’s stubborn refusal to allow food, water, and medicines to reach starving Palestinians. Even more significant, is the German imposition of an arms embargo against Israel, although the language used by Chancellor Friedrich Merz well illustrates the distortions of language that accompany these long overdue measures to restrain Israel that Merz announced on August 8: “Israel has the right to defend itself against the terror of Hamas,” Merz said in a statement. “The release of the hostages and determined negotiations on a ceasefire are our top priority. The disarmament of Hamas is essential. Hamas must not play a role in the future of Gaza.”

Relations with the Trump presidency somewhat surprisingly seem to be finally fraying, but likely only for the moment. The announced cause of this mini-break seems to be Israel’s stubborn refusal to allow food, water, and medicines to reach starving Palestinians rather than the controversy inside and outside of Israel to extend military operation to the yet unoccupied parts of Gaza City.

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Prof. Richard Falk is a member of the TRANSCEND Network, Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University, Chair of Global Law, Faculty of Law, at Queen Mary University London, Research Associate the Orfalea Center of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Fellow of the Tellus Institute. He directed the project on Global Climate Change, Human Security, and Democracy at UCSB and formerly served as director the North American group in the World Order Models Project. Between 2008 and 2014, Falk served as UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Occupied Palestine. His book, (Re)Imagining Humane Global Governance (2014), proposes a value-oriented assessment of world order and future trends. His most recent books are Power Shift (2016); Revisiting the Vietnam War (2017); On Nuclear Weapons: Denuclearization, Demilitarization and Disarmament (2019); and On Public Imagination: A Political & Ethical Imperative, ed. with Victor Faessel & Michael Curtin (2019). He is the author or coauthor of other books, including Religion and Humane Global Governance (2001), Explorations at the Edge of Time (1993), Revolutionaries and Functionaries (1988), The Promise of World Order (1988), Indefensible Weapons (with Robert Jay Lifton, 1983), A Study of Future Worlds (1975), and This Endangered Planet (1972). His memoir, Public Intellectual: The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim was published in March 2021 and received an award from Global Policy Institute at Loyala Marymount University as ‘the best book of 2021.’ He has been nominated frequently for the Nobel Peace Prize since 2009.

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